Ulmo
Active Member
Thanks.
I incorporated that and the hosted and unhosted YouTube launch videos into the WikiPedia page for SpaceX.
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Thanks.
I incorporated that and the hosted and unhosted YouTube launch videos into the WikiPedia page for SpaceX.
Ulmo
Active Member
He said "hopefully" they can do the 10 static fire tests in Florida, but if not, they have to take it to Texas for that.
Edit: Hahaha! That music video is funny! Hahaha
Ulmo
Active Member
4K video of first stage landing:
I noticed it bounced and slid, almost off the drone ship, when it landed. Hopefully they'll program more wind compensation into that, for targeting and sliding and stuff. Also, one of the legs was slower to deploy than the others.
But awesome!
I noticed it bounced and slid, almost off the drone ship, when it landed. Hopefully they'll program more wind compensation into that, for targeting and sliding and stuff. Also, one of the legs was slower to deploy than the others.
But awesome!
dhanson865
Well-Known Member
Just to be clear It's not half off the cost of a launch. The total cost of the launch is more than the cost of the first stage alone. They are just reducing the cost by half of the cost of the first stage.
So if a launch is $100M and the first stage is $60M, then a reused first stage style launch would be $70M not half of $100M.
If a launch is is $200M and the first stage is $60M, then a reused first stage style launch would be $170M not half of $200M.
They are splitting the savings with the customer, not cutting the total cost in half.
They will do a static test of the engines (i.e. firing them at full capacity while holding the rocket in place).
The additional information that can be had from actually launching it without a payload hardly justifies the cost of that.
@Ulmo, thanks for posting that video clip. I had already watched the landing at least 5 times yesterday, but your comment made me focus more closely on the legs at the moment of touchdown. Whoa! The stage does appear to literally "bounce" a bit and slide a bit right to left. It appears to me that the initial impact was closer to the center of the target than where the stage ended up sitting. So the touchdown point was more precise than I thought!
The landing legs are an impressive feat of engineering.
The landing legs are an impressive feat of engineering.
Awesome indeed.
I wonder if they thought about adding some ferromagnetic material to the landing feet and then switch on some powerful electromagnets in the landing deck just at touch down, to reduce the risk of losing the rocket right at that moment. Perhaps they could even use such a magnetic field to further control the actual touch down...
Sparky
Member
This was great. Thanks for posting.
It did seem to be landing at about the wind limit.
I never to tire of watching this.
I have some stuff going up on the F9-Heavy next year. So far it's a light payload.
Hope they attempt the triple! (after successfully getting us to orbit of course).
Sparky
Member
My impression from Musk's statements is they can re-use several times. So, to get to 50% savings you'd need to re-fly 5 times. No?
Evidently a 10x re-fly is do-able. HIs analogy has always been cost of re-fueling and re-using a 747 instead of throwing away the plane after one flight. Maybe it's more like re-fueling and re-using the wings and engines but replacing the fuselage.
Nikxice
Active Member
Not sure, but I suspect that a strong magnetic field could raise havoc with the electronics on board the rocket. They can't rule out any possible solution, that bounce across OCISLY is an obvious concern for long term reliability.
Judging from the video, at touchdown the Merlin engines seem to be producing just enough thrust to create a momentary hover. At that instant the rocket would become part of the air mass, drifting it downwind across the deck. Have no clue as to how much stress those carbon fiber legs can stand, but I wonder if SpaceX engineers will consider dropping it in from a couple of feet? I'm guessing they are currently only using a radar altimeter system to gauge the altitude above the deck. Apollo lunar modules also used a radar altimeter system, but backed it up with several 6 foot probes for precise information. At first contact the commander would manually close the throttle and drop it in. (Although on A11 Armstrong supposedly maintained some thrust until the legs touched the surface) Just a small jolt in one third G. They'll probably consider multiple ideas and it will be interesting to see how SpaceX eventually nails this issue.
dhanson865
Well-Known Member
He said the first stage can be used dozens or hundreds of times. How you count that savings has to be offset by the R&D and logistics costs of developing and implementing reusability. We don't have the inside information to make any calculation on how many flights it takes to offset those costs.
All we can say is that they are lowering the price to launch customers by so many dollars. The price of getting a satellite into space has/will drop.
Sparky
Member
Agreed. My "5x" number was based on your example of a pricing a $100M launch with $60M 1st-stage. I was just trying to show how a 5x re-use can get you to 50%. The actual savings per launch are probably unknown to even SpaceX at this point. Kind of like Musk's comment at the press conference that after getting the thing down on the drone ship, they were "like the dog who caught the bus. Now what do we do".
Great problem to have though.
Ben W
Chess Grandmaster (Supervised)
Plus, with every satellite launch you get a $7500 Federal tax credit.
Not after the first 200,000 launches.
BluestarE3
Active Member
Sparky
Member
Sure. Six satellites will carry an instrument that I'm working on as the primary payload. It's a weather instrument that uses radio navigation signals to measure additional time delay caused by the atmosphere. Those observations can be inverted to form vertical refractivity profiles distributed all over the globe. These data are assimilated every few hours into global weather models. Two more satellites will carry something else.
These are small-ish 100 kg satellites to be deployed as a constellation. A stack of cubesats will probably get added as well. This is a certification flight.
Falcon-9 Heavy (FH) can throw more than 50 tonnes into LEO and we're gonna add up to a fraction of that. At this point, I'm hopeful we'll be the third FH launched (for awhile we were first). Don't have a launch date yet. Just first qtr, 2017. I figure since we're so light and launching from the Cape, it's a perfect opportunity for a triple landing attempt. Just seeing the launch of the FH with those 27 rocket motors should be fun. I've avoided launches for a few years since I seem to be a scrub jinx. Thirteen scrubs a few years back with a Delta-2. Not that I'm superstitious....
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