281–290 of 444 posts
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They're already insanely cheap compared to most competitors. This should take them to being ludicrously cheap.
Let's see who tries to imitate them and do a re-use, some real competition is what's needed next. Now for second stage re-use ;)
This is so epically awesome that I feel like we orbited a human for the first time or something. Bezos whining aside, its a huge deal to return 9 engines from a workhorse booster back to the pad to be refurbed and re-used. If the $5M each costs are correct, that is $45M in cost savings right there. But perhaps more importantly its the first "first" for SpaceX which has not been done by NASA or anyone else. Launch a p…
The whole Bezos/BlueOrigin thing is kind of sad. They are nowhere near a "club" with SpaceX. One of the huge differences (and there are many) is that Falcon 9 was doing 6,000 Km/hr (~4,000 mi/hr) when the first stage separated and turned around to come back. The path was not straight up, but rather one to launch the second stage into orbital flight (which reached 26,000 Km/hr and 600 miles of altitude). Then Falcon9'…
Not sure if the "USA" chant after the first stage landed was warranted.
It's a private company based in the USA, contributing to the advancement of USA's technology (largely, NASA). I think it was warranted.
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The whole Bezos/BlueOrigin thing is kind of sad. They are nowhere near a "club" with SpaceX. One of the huge differences (and there are many) is that Falcon 9 was doing 6,000 Km/hr (~4,000 mi/hr) when the first stage separated and turned around to come back. The path was not straight up, but rather one to launch the second stage into orbital flight (which reached 26,000 Km/hr and 600 miles of altitude). Then Falcon9'…
Not only this, but the spacex grasshopper test was the first that I saw that had the rocket do a vertical takeoff, and then land. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZDkItO-0a4
1995, DC-X, and it's pyramidal
I must have missed it, but can anyone explain why Orbcomm wants 11 satellites in the same orbit? The stage 2 engine isn't firing in between letting the satellites go.
Yes, it absolutely was firing continuously around 17,000 MPH. Doesn't take long at that speed to get some distance between sats.
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Good point. Orbcomm already paid off the booster. Now SpaceX can take it up for a joy ride for only a few hundred grand of gas and really fly the fins off it. I bet they relaunch this booster on their own dime as a demo.
I have no inside knowledge, but I'd suspect Orbcomm paid next to nothing for this launch. Between "You'll be the first launch since the last one... You know, that one with a small anomaly..." and fact that this was the first launch of a new version of the falcon 9 (with slightly different engines, cooler/more pressurized O2), I know that if I were negociating for Orbcomm, I'd ask spaceX to cross the last digit on the…
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I for one think that giving credit where credit is due is an important thing.
Getting off this rock is probably the only thing that matters. Credit is irrelevant when Earth is no longer habitable and we never left.
This is so epically awesome that I feel like we orbited a human for the first time or something. Bezos whining aside, its a huge deal to return 9 engines from a workhorse booster back to the pad to be refurbed and re-used. If the $5M each costs are correct, that is $45M in cost savings right there. But perhaps more importantly its the first "first" for SpaceX which has not been done by NASA or anyone else. Launch a p…
The whole Bezos/BlueOrigin thing is kind of sad. They are nowhere near a "club" with SpaceX. One of the huge differences (and there are many) is that Falcon 9 was doing 6,000 Km/hr (~4,000 mi/hr) when the first stage separated and turned around to come back. The path was not straight up, but rather one to launch the second stage into orbital flight (which reached 26,000 Km/hr and 600 miles of altitude). Then Falcon9'…
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This video ain't bad, but it skims over the two most important points and skips one completely: - SpaceX rocket goes really fast horizontally; it has to flip around and boost back, and then correct from horizontal to vertical orientation. - Falcon 9 is an actual space launch system; it has different (i.e. much stricter) engineering constraints than a suborbital rocket. In particular, this affects the engine design. -…
Why don't they put a smaller engine in the centre for landings?
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> show some of the other successes and failures from past missions And confuse people that happen to be tuning in at the wrong time? No thanks. This is a live stream not a news broadcast.
you can always have a big flashing banner that says "previously recorded" or "prior missions" or something like that.