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

latimes.com

31–40 of 185 posts

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

#31

> 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…

Scrap

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

#32
post #20

Has anyone seen any updates on how their fairing recovery attempt went? They had the ship done and seemingly ready back in December - https://imgur.com/gallery/MQcEE

Isn't the fairing just a simple pair of metal casings. Why bother to recover it?

[deleted]

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

#33

> 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…

> Why did SpaceX spend resources to get them to safe landing then?

collect data + parts of the booster can be reused

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

#34

> 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…

The current version of the rocket is called "block 5". Those two boosters weren't block 5 boosters. Presumably the reason to spend resources to get them to safe landing was to learn things that will be useful in future launches; for example, those two boosters had enough ignition fluid to land successfully this time, but the main first stage did not.

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

#35

> 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…

They are older versions of the boosters, the new Block 5 versions are designed to be re-used many more times.

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

#36
post #20

Has anyone seen any updates on how their fairing recovery attempt went? They had the ship done and seemingly ready back in December - https://imgur.com/gallery/MQcEE

Isn't the fairing just a simple pair of metal casings. Why bother to recover it?

Even being a seemingly simple structure it would still be expensive to build. I'm sure it also contains latching hardware, etc. used to release it. Seeing as it's mostly a static piece if they can get it down in one piece it's probably "trivial" (compared to a full core) to re use it, but it saves money (and junk in the ocean)

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

#38

> 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…

They might have plans for them, like they did with this booster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_booster_B1019

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

#40

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)."

It says right there in the article that it used up the fuel while attempting to re-lights the engines (without success).
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