371–380 of 497 posts
Am i missing something, is the need to land vertically a requirement of a fragile fuselage? Seems wasteful to carry extra anything (in this case rocket propellant) to space, just to avoid having to re-right the rocket when you get it back on earth for a subsequent launch. Is extra fuel payload < landing gear or parachutes?
Am i missing something, is the need to land vertically a requirement of a fragile fuselage? Seems wasteful to carry extra anything (in this case rocket propellant) to space, just to avoid having to re-right the rocket when you get it back on earth for a subsequent launch. Is extra fuel payload < landing gear or parachutes?
Lack of wings. (That's obviously for the landing gear part of the question) But fragile fuselage is certainly spot on. Parachute-landings still have quite some impact velocity. Strengthening an object the size of a Falcon 9 first stage to survive that impact would require a much stronger and thus prohibitively heavy structure, even if the parachute itself was free. The nice thing about powered upright landing is that…
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Ariane 6 looks like it will be a fine rocket. Should be quite competitive if they can get it to market before, say, 2010, and if SpaceX's reusability efforts come to naught. Otherwise, I fear it'll be much too little, much t0o late.
I've got $10,000 says they do not get it to market before 2010. :) (ITYM 2020)
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I attended a conference from the head of the CNES (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, ~ French NASA) in Paris a week ago and he talked about that. Ariane 6 is going to be built with a cost effective approach and trying to focus on market needs (3D printing of parts, reusability of the first stage, etc.) At first, concerning SpaceX, his group of experts told him that the design of the rocket wasn't going to work and…
I'm kind of fascinated -- and not necessarily in a good sense -- with how unbelievably conservative the aerospace industry became right after its greatest moment of glory. That would have been Apollo in 1969. Seems like after the Moon landings everyone just said "welp, that's it, nothing else will ever be done."
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/dreamingadifferentapollo/
NASA became boring because they were ordered to become boring and were defunded.
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Only marginally - if none of their competitors can reuse a rocket then they only need to undercut the cost of a non-reusable rocket. The reward for innovation is that you get a temporary monopoly on that innovation and so can extract something very like a monopoly rent.
Its more favorable for SpaceX to lower prices as much as possible to crush incumbents (ULA). Extracting maximum profits just gives time for other competitors to catch up.
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Thank you - how does the barge communicate with the falcon? And what types of comminucations are they having. I assume the barge is stating its GPS location, but does it also communicate things like sea conditions - and its elevation (what is it called to describe the condition of the sea), as well as wind, north-south orientation, etc... I am impressed - but I want to know how this works.
Rumor is ( https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3b0stk/falcon_9_wha... ) that the barge does not communicate any information to the booster. Instead, it uses GPS and some ingenious motors to maintain position and orientation, and the Falcon booster uses a radar altimeter to judge accurate vertical distance.
Wow.
Hosted webcast: https://youtu.be/L0bMeDj76ig Landing at 38:18mins https://youtu.be/L0bMeDj76ig#t=38m18s Great info on the thrusters on the first stage at 19:37. https://youtu.be/L0bMeDj76ig#t=19m37s Edit: Thank you and sorry about the time stamp link, I posted quickly from my phone. Hopefully it works on shortlinks.
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Say what you want about SpaceX's plans for re-usability, nobody can deny they are making progress at an incredible pace. I've just checked on Wikipedia and apparently the first flight of the Falcon was in 2010. That's six years ago. Compared to that, Arianeespace's target of 2025 (in nine years!) for Adeline is almost ridiculous. Just checked: Stephane Israël just raised concerned after SpaceX's latest success: http:…
Could you copy-paste his comments? Google translate worked OK, but the site has a paywall.
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Do customers get a discount for launching on a used rocket?
The first one definitely will (unless negotiations break down and they decide to launch without a customer, but that seems unlikely). Eventually when it becomes routine maybe not.