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If you are referring to the reddish glow on the right fin at T+7:00 i was initially thinking that this was just the angle of the sun that gives that color, but interesting to now learn that it is on fire !!.
Anyone care to speculate how they will attempt recovery of 2nd stage? Vertical landing or via parachutes? Given that it is at orbital speeds during payload release , do they have to let it go around and then do a de-orbit burn?
Here is a much better version of the post launch press conference with much better sound quality.
Skotty
2014 S P85 | 2023 F-150L
I like this exchange near the end (paraphrased just slightly):
SpaceX/Musk: ...for the Falcon architecture, over time, probably 3/4 of our missions or more are with the reflown booster.
SES: As an operator, I can add to that. My belief is, within 24 months, SpaceX will offer a service to orbit, and it will be irrelevant. It will be irrelevant if it's new or it's preflown. It will be irrelevant within 24 months. That's what this means today.
SpaceX/Musk: The goal is to make this normal. It's just normal. Like, what are you talking about? Of course it comes back and lands. Why wouldn't it?
SpaceX/Musk: ...for the Falcon architecture, over time, probably 3/4 of our missions or more are with the reflown booster.
SES: As an operator, I can add to that. My belief is, within 24 months, SpaceX will offer a service to orbit, and it will be irrelevant. It will be irrelevant if it's new or it's preflown. It will be irrelevant within 24 months. That's what this means today.
SpaceX/Musk: The goal is to make this normal. It's just normal. Like, what are you talking about? Of course it comes back and lands. Why wouldn't it?
At least one half of the fairing was recoverable. During the post-flight press conference a guy walked up to Elon and showed him a picture of it floating intact in the ocean. Not sure if the other half survived.
The fairings and pieces of fairings have already arrived in port. Someone got a picture of them with a tarp over them. An inside source, and I think Elon has confirmed, that only one of the fairing actually had the equipment for thrusters and parachute. That fairing made it down intact. Though it may have broken in the ocean. That's why they need some sort of landing zone with a cushion on it. The one without all the equipment was recovered and is in pieces. This is me speculating, but maybe the second fairing had different equipment for a different type of recovery which was not as successful. So just like the early days of booster landings in the ocean, SpaceX has learned a lot and will now make adjustments and improvements until it works.
This fairing recovery was more of a pathfinder. They are unlikely to be reflown. This demonstrated they can guide the fairing to a precise spot. SpaceX will build a fairing recovery boat with a huge inflatable cushion that will allow the big somewhat fragile fairing (after it separated anyway) to land intact.
Also the fairing splashed down on the sea. Don't know if the sea water on the fairing alone makes the fairing good to be reused even if its otherwise intact.
Using parachutes/parafoils limits how softly the fairing can land on a hard surface.
There's some word that one half of the fairing is in one piece and the other didn't faired so well.
Also the fairing splashed down on the sea. Don't know if the sea water on the fairing alone makes the fairing good to be reused even if its otherwise intact.
Using parachutes/parafoils limits how softly the fairing can land on a hard surface.
There's some word that one half of the fairing is in one piece and the other didn't faired so well.
There some information about this on nasaspaceflight.com. Imagine an inflatable castle bouncer. Something like that.
As a skydiver, this makes a lot of sense intuitively.
Skydivers (I'm one) use their legs as the final strut to land softly. In some landings everything goes perfectly and you don't have any shock to absorb, but any gust/turbulence/last second wind change makes for a more bumpy landing. And on the seas there are the waves rocking the boat.
There's a document about this on NSF L2 (paid, cannot leak whats there to the public). Anyhow I'm not using that information.
Thanks for the breakdown Grendal. Since Elon mentioned $6M for the fairing, it looks like 2nd stage is nearly the same.
Since fairing recovery has just been proved to be quite doable, your profit calc looks even better with only 2nd stage not
reused. I posted a simple stage 2 recovery analysis a few days back. It mostly convinced me that while propulsive landing of 2nd stage looks improbable due to fuel requirements, recovering 2nd stage by other means should be possible given SpaceX ability to come up with solutions. If that happens then profit potential per flight goes even higher.
It's clear that SpaceX will dole out varying percentages of the reduced costs over the next few years, to both strengthen their launch cost advantage over all competitors and build up their cash reserves. I believe Elon set up the expectation that savings to customers would be good but not radically good by saying SpaceX needs to recoup the billion invested in reusability. As a private company Musk has full control over, there is nobody he needs to show that the dollars invested to date will be recouped. That was money spent to realize the company's overarching mission. Keeping the savings to launch customers to 20% or so and pocketing the rest will fuel his war chest for developing the BFR and exploratory flights to Mars.
Agree completely. There is no need for SpaceX to offer greater discounts on future Falcon launches even if they can increase the overall reusability of the rocket because they already offer significantly lower launch costs than anyone else. Keep the extra profit and pour it into ITS development!
The source is Elon himself. He said SpaceX would have the fairing land on a "bouncy castle," which is a large inflatable cushioning device. I speculated that, since the next launch is an RTLS, that SpaceX go buy ten thousand inflatable rafts and attach them to the top of the ASDS.
Long term they will probably have something similar to this. Either on top of a ship with a flat surface or something that is towed behind a tug. I will expect to see a towed cushion since that will likely cost a lot less and allows the water to act as a cushion as well.I also agree. SpaceX is assuming they will need to pay for all of the ITS development and that is the right attitude and position to take. I expect the government will want to join in at some point but SpaceX and Elon can certainly not count on that. No one else is going to come along for quite a while with a reusable rocket so prices for competitors will remain high for years to come. So SpaceX can rake in large profits with reusability by simply being the lowest cost launch provider. Interesting enough but this strategy will allow competitors the time to develop their own reusable systems since they will not be completely driven out of business.
Sadly, this will still allow for a boondoggle like STS to continue to hang around and absorb our tax dollars. Hopefully at some time the government wakes up and changes their mind about STS. Personally I can see the government focus on building projects in space that SpaceX can ferry there. Then the two are working in conjunction and not working on the same goal of getting to Mars.
And lastly, the booster arrived in port this morning.
The SpaceX Flickr account has some amazing pictures.
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hockeythug
Active Member
dhanson865
Well-Known Member
If you are talking about the fly swatter style fins those are made of aluminum on the older rockets and catch fire they get so hot. They are replacing them with Titanium parts on the newer rockets. See the press conference video from after this last launch if you want to hear Elon say that.
It's hard to say. The landing is only 90 seconds after hitting the atmosphere and the grid fin flame retardant coating getting burnt away. So it is very possible that the heat is retained for that amount of time. It is also possible that the burning and heat caused a discoloration that looks red hot. Good question. Sorry I don't have a definitive answer.
Electricfan
Active Member
My Dad and I went to see the launch. We were at the famous Banana Creek viewing area at Kennedy. Here's a video taken with my Iphone if anyone is interested what it looked and sounded like from there. Sorry it wasn't done with better equipment, maybe next time.
