SpaceX nails triple booster landing after satellite delivery

Post by baq » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:14 PM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #38

This really looks good for launch costs long-term. The Heavy costs $90 million per reusable launch with a 64,000 kg payload, or $1400 per kilogram.[1] Current versions of the Falcon 9 and Heavy can fly ten times with virtually no refurbishment between flights.[2] The only part they throw away is the $7.5 million upper stage.[3] Their expendable cost is $150M and they haven't really started reusing yet, so if they act…

Post by hcrisp » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:15 PM UTC

martythemaniak wrote: post #21

There's a great media thread on reddit where people post their own photos and videos: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/bbhz9a/rspacex_arab... Here's a great video of the entire flight and landing of the side boosters in one shot, made with custom tracking software: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEZZkEXAD6Q

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:17 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #41

DennisP wrote: post #38

This really looks good for launch costs long-term. The Heavy costs $90 million per reusable launch with a 64,000 kg payload, or $1400 per kilogram.[1] Current versions of the Falcon 9 and Heavy can fly ten times with virtually no refurbishment between flights.[2] The only part they throw away is the $7.5 million upper stage.[3] Their expendable cost is $150M and they haven't really started reusing yet, so if they act…

the fully reusable falcon heavy can IIRC only lift about 8000kg to LEO. expendable is volume-limited but if you want to lift a concrete block, you can :)

Post by gnode » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:19 PM UTC

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #18

Here's the video cued up to the booster landings: https://youtu.be/TXMGu2d8c8g?t=1643 with the main core landing a few minutes later. If it's not obvious, the main core landing was much harder this time around, because of how fast it was going due to the two boosters imparting a lot of extra speed on it before they separated. If you think about it, it'll have somewhere between 1x and 3x the velocity of a normal Falco…

Post by Ajedi32 » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 1:23 PM UTC

pedrocr wrote: post #31

qmarchi wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting issue with the fairings, and I'm interested to see what (or if) they're going to solve the issue with the saltwater contaminated fairings. Being a SpaceX launcher, as the article indicates, means they can accept higher risks, but in turn has a greater financial risk to the company. It's times like this where I'm glad SpaceX is a private company.

According to a reddit thread they've saltwater hardened the fairings and now they can reuse them: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/bc8105/arabsat6a_el... The first reuse mission seems to be an internal one though.