Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 100 posts

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#41

Post by ygra »

cptskippy wrote: post #37
SteveGregory wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, this was the first time that the fairings were recovered and are expected to be reused for a future launch: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1069679948103847939 The fairings currently cost a total of $6MM for each launch, or at least 10% of the physical rocket cost, so this could lead to significant savings for future launches.

> The fairings currently cost a total of $6MM for each launch WHAAAAA?! What are they made of? I thought the fairings were just the covers for the payload. What makes them so expensive?

They have to survive the launch through the thicker part of the atmosphere, yet still be light enough to not eat into the payload much.

Made from aluminium honeycomb and carbon fiber mostly, if I remember correctly. But those things are quite large as well.

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#42

Post by azernik »

benj111 wrote: post #9

So the 'steamroller' is now up to speed. Does anyone have any ideas if Spacex will actually grow the launch market, rather than just dominate. What new things become possible with lower cost access to space. Spacex are developing communications satellites for internet, what else? Edit: Thanks for all the replies so far, I was thinking more down to earth (di dum ch) things rather than theoretically possible. Eg I know…

The big growth market right now is earth observation - companies like Planet Labs that rely on low launch prices to make their "cheap" camerasats worthwhile to launch. We'll see what markets come up next.

In the short term, though, SpaceX has actually shrunk the market - there's a slowdown in the historically-dominant geostationary launch market, since there's a lead time of a few years on those big expensive satellites and all the manufacturers put plans on hold a couple of years back while they were waiting to see what would happen in the launch market. Hence it taking until December this year for SpaceX to reach its previous-year launch number - 10%-ish growth is actually very slow by SpaceX standards.

(This is also a motivation for SpaceX to play with things like running its own comsat constellation - they'll have extra capacity for the next year or two while the GEO market restabilizes.)

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#43

Post by asaddhamani »

cptskippy wrote: post #37
SteveGregory wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, this was the first time that the fairings were recovered and are expected to be reused for a future launch: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1069679948103847939 The fairings currently cost a total of $6MM for each launch, or at least 10% of the physical rocket cost, so this could lead to significant savings for future launches.

> The fairings currently cost a total of $6MM for each launch WHAAAAA?! What are they made of? I thought the fairings were just the covers for the payload. What makes them so expensive?

I think they play a pretty important role in protecting the payload from atmospheric drag among other things, and it needs to be pretty strong / reliable. That must add to the cost. Don't know what materials are used so can't say about material costs.

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#44

Post by kirrent »

cptskippy wrote: post #37
SteveGregory wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, this was the first time that the fairings were recovered and are expected to be reused for a future launch: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1069679948103847939 The fairings currently cost a total of $6MM for each launch, or at least 10% of the physical rocket cost, so this could lead to significant savings for future launches.

> The fairings currently cost a total of $6MM for each launch WHAAAAA?! What are they made of? I thought the fairings were just the covers for the payload. What makes them so expensive?

They're large or larger than a double decker bus. They're released well after first stage separation so they need to be as light as possible. Stupidly light. Despite being very large and very light, they need to be very resistant to vibration through hypersonic speeds and go through a huge range of temperatures. They need to separate reliably and equalize pressure during ascent. They look like a mere shell, but they're actually advanced composite structures with a fair amount of tech involved.

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#45

Post by walrus01 »

For IoT simplex data and things that need functionality similar to Iridium SBD, but at much lower cost and are not time sensitive, I am very optimistic about the Hiber satellite network:

https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/hiber-1.htm

https://hiber.global/

They're claiming "a few dollars per month" for low usage volumes, per terminal.

Also, Gunter's space page is a great general reference for a lot of new small-sat/micro-sat/cubesat programs.

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#46

Post by JamesCoyne »

SteveGregory wrote: post #26
cheeko1234 wrote: post #17

They broke four records today: 1. First company booster to fly three times 2. First to launch from all SpaceX pads 3. Now most number of SpaceX launches in a year. 4. Highest number of spacecraft flown on a US rocket 64th Falcon 9 mission. 70th including Falcon 1 and Heavy.

Additionally, this was the first time that the fairings were recovered and are expected to be reused for a future launch: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1069679948103847939 The fairings currently cost a total of $6MM for each launch, or at least 10% of the physical rocket cost, so this could lead to significant savings for future launches.

The recovery ship(FSV Mr. Steven) has a twitter account (unofficial) https://twitter.com/FairingCatcher

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#47

Post by jlawson »

hackernudes wrote: post #24

Here is a link to the launch video (cued at T-15s): https://youtu.be/Wq8kS6UoOrQ?t=1179

I love how the lower part of the rocket is battered and burned by repeated re-entry. It's starting to look like something from a gritty sci-fi movie.

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#48

Post by rb808 »

gardaani wrote: post #30

This is the second rocket launch today! The earlier one was Soyuz Launch to ISS: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18587943 I didn't know that there are so many rocket launches going on all the time. Here's a list of them: https://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/ There a launch almost every second day. The most interesting ones are Dec 7 Chinese launch to the far side of the moon and Jan 30 launch of India's mo…

Wow, its starting to look like an arrivals/departures board at the airport.

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#49

Post by smuser »

benj111 wrote: post #34
andrewtbham wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

real time google earth

Not sure if you're being serious. On first thought I thought you were joking, but then real time traffic, Forest fire/ eruption/ tsunami alerts. Massive amounts of data to process, but could be useful.

This is essentially what Spire is doing. Their weather processing facility is here in Boulder.

https://spire.com/

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#50

Post by robin_reala »

kirrent wrote: post #44
cptskippy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fairings currently cost a total of $6MM for each launch WHAAAAA?! What are they made of? I thought the fairings were just the covers for the payload. What makes them so expensive?

They're large or larger than a double decker bus. They're released well after first stage separation so they need to be as light as possible. Stupidly light. Despite being very large and very light, they need to be very resistant to vibration through hypersonic speeds and go through a huge range of temperatures. They need to separate reliably and equalize pressure during ascent. They look like a mere shell, but they'…

They also have a built in parachute deployment mechanism which can safely get them down to sea level.
Post reply on HN