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SpaceX's Falcon Heavy center booster lacked ignition fluid to re-light engines

latimes.com

21–30 of 185 posts

Re: SpaceX's Falcon Heavy center booster lacked ignition fluid to re-light engines

#21

So, I wonder why the side boosters won't be used again? Was that explained. I'm curious, but I barely have internet on this hill.

I believe the two boosters were previously flown and were of an older block/generation (block 3 and 4 if memory serves me) where they are focusing on block 5 as the final revision and all future Falcon rockets would be this same standard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Block_5

Re: SpaceX's Falcon Heavy center booster lacked ignition fluid to re-light engines

#22

So, I wonder why the side boosters won't be used again? Was that explained. I'm curious, but I barely have internet on this hill.

They are the older version, so not useful when there are a lot of block 5 versions available.

Re: SpaceX's Falcon Heavy center booster lacked ignition fluid to re-light engines

#23

I bet it didn't randomly lack fluid due to some stupid miscalculation. It's probably more like: "Due to unforeseen circumstances it needed more fluid than expected. But we adjust our numbers and next time we expect more (in the hopes that it will be enough, which it will probably be)."

Yeah. I guess in space flight you can't just double the calculated requirement. That would be expensive.

Re: SpaceX's Falcon Heavy center booster lacked ignition fluid to re-light engines

#25
> Those two boosters, which were used in previous launches of SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, will not be reused again, Musk said in a post-launch news conference last week.

Why did SpaceX spend resources to get them to safe landing then? I presume, they rather maintain their routine and maintain the success of landing the booster. It would probably be expensive to change their standard procedure.

Does any know how many times a booster can be resued? What dictates its lifetime?

Re: SpaceX's Falcon Heavy center booster lacked ignition fluid to re-light engines

#26
Obviously one of the things you don't want "too much of" is a pyrophoric fluid that you need to dump before you can let people near :-). Have they ever published their safeing procedure? I'm wondering if they recover more volattiles than the old shuttle did after it landed.

Re: SpaceX's Falcon Heavy center booster lacked ignition fluid to re-light engines

#27

So, I wonder why the side boosters won't be used again? Was that explained. I'm curious, but I barely have internet on this hill.

I believe the two boosters were previously flown and were of an older block/generation (block 3 and 4 if memory serves me) where they are focusing on block 5 as the final revision and all future Falcon rockets would be this same standard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Block_5

Whoa, so not only were the boosters landed, they were actually reused from previous launches! That's doubly awesome.

Re: SpaceX's Falcon Heavy center booster lacked ignition fluid to re-light engines

#28

I like hearing that the problem is something as (relatively) trivial to solve as this. I know carrying more fuel with the rocket isn't exactly an easy thing to do, but far easier than finding out there's something fundamentally wrong with the design. SpaceX is amazing and I'm glad they're doing the hard stuff.

Will it work, though? Is the center-core restart happening under the same conditions as the heretofore successful ones? Is it really a matter of adding more lighter fluid? (That's like The Cable Guy's BBQ advice.) How fast is the wind those rocket nozzles are pointed into?

Supersonic, for a start.

Re: SpaceX's Falcon Heavy center booster lacked ignition fluid to re-light engines

#29

> Those two boosters, which were used in previous launches of SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, will not be reused again, Musk said in a post-launch news conference last week. Why did SpaceX spend resources to get them to safe landing then? I presume, they rather maintain their routine and maintain the success of landing the booster. It would probably be expensive to change their standard procedure. Does any know h…

To analyze/test the used boosters, or to put them on display, probably

Re: SpaceX's Falcon Heavy center booster lacked ignition fluid to re-light engines

#30
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will it work, though? Is the center-core restart happening under the same conditions as the heretofore successful ones? Is it really a matter of adding more lighter fluid? (That's like The Cable Guy's BBQ advice.) How fast is the wind those rocket nozzles are pointed into?

Supersonic, for a start.

I was under the impression that the center core's re-entry was faster than the previous Falcoln 1st stages.
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