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SES-10 Launching to Orbit on SpaceX's Flight-Proven Falcon 9 Rocket

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Re: SES-10 Launching to Orbit on SpaceX's Flight-Proven Falcon 9 Rocket

#31

Post by simonh »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #6
kilroy123 wrote: post #2

I wonder if they'll really save money right away doing this. I imagine they'll spend a lot on inspections and getting things 100% right. Either way, it's an amazing achievement.

That is the essential question, of course assuming this flight goes off without a hitch they will have new data about what it took to this this booster back to flight ready status, and then they can see what they did that they could do better, what tools they should make to improve efficiency and what tweaks to the design will lower the time to cycle it through. There are interesting precedents in the tooling jigs th…

When the first booster was recovered, Elon said something along the line of that they're a bit like the dog that chases a car and now they've caught one they have to figure out what to do with it. That's what's great about Elon, he just tells it like it is. I'm sure they did have some plans for what to do, but as you say it's a whole new process they need to do a lot of work on improving.

Re: SES-10 Launching to Orbit on SpaceX's Flight-Proven Falcon 9 Rocket

#32

Post by marvin »

the_duke wrote: post #27
castratikron wrote: post #3

Just wanted to say that the phrase "flight-proven" is genius marketing.

Don't know if this comes from SpaceX or SES. But Musk is definitely good at coming up with 'interesting' new terms. See RUD - Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (aka Crash).

RUD has been a rocket engineering term for decades, same as e.g. lithobraking (slowing your spacecraft down by smashing it into the ground)

Re: SES-10 Launching to Orbit on SpaceX's Flight-Proven Falcon 9 Rocket

#33

Post by tehbeard »

the_duke wrote: post #27
castratikron wrote: post #3

Just wanted to say that the phrase "flight-proven" is genius marketing.

Don't know if this comes from SpaceX or SES. But Musk is definitely good at coming up with 'interesting' new terms. See RUD - Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (aka Crash).

Pretty sure he nabbed that one from the KSP community.

Also its not so much a crash as the rocket falling apart.

Re: SES-10 Launching to Orbit on SpaceX's Flight-Proven Falcon 9 Rocket

#34

Post by marvin »

kilroy123 wrote: post #2

I wonder if they'll really save money right away doing this. I imagine they'll spend a lot on inspections and getting things 100% right. Either way, it's an amazing achievement.

I think I've read that the cost of an empty Falcon 9 first stage is somewhere $10 million. They would have to spend a lot on inspections in order to not save a lot of money. IMHO, a lot of the skepticism I've previously read about SpaceX's reusability program is just inherited from the Space Shuttle program. I.e. ""if the US government can't do it, how can a small-ish private company do it"?

Re: SES-10 Launching to Orbit on SpaceX's Flight-Proven Falcon 9 Rocket

#35

Post by doikor »

kirrent wrote: post #23
walrus01 wrote: post #18

It is really interesting to see that this is a very 'ordinary' commercial geostationary launch customer, and not a government funded research satellite. This is oversimplified, but traditionally, rockets that are in beta test mode are tested like: 1) static pad tests/firings of engines 2) all-up launch of the full rocket, carrying a boilerplate satellite with some instrumentation, maybe some cubesats or low cost smal…

Not contradicting anything you've said seeing as the first few launches of the falcon 9 followed your rough outline, but SES was SpaceX's first GTO launch so they've clearly got an appetite for a bit of risk.

I guess its ok for SES as they say the insurance premiums didn't go up at all for using the reusable rocket. So they are just saving money with the same risk for SES in both cases.

Re: SES-10 Launching to Orbit on SpaceX's Flight-Proven Falcon 9 Rocket

#36

Post by emp_zealoth »

marvin wrote: post #34
kilroy123 wrote: post #2

I wonder if they'll really save money right away doing this. I imagine they'll spend a lot on inspections and getting things 100% right. Either way, it's an amazing achievement.

I think I've read that the cost of an empty Falcon 9 first stage is somewhere $10 million. They would have to spend a lot on inspections in order to not save a lot of money. IMHO, a lot of the skepticism I've previously read about SpaceX's reusability program is just inherited from the Space Shuttle program. I.e. ""if the US government can't do it, how can a small-ish private company do it"?

Ugh, the space shuttle was such an abomination it blows my mind it was allowed to continue siphoning resources for so long

Re: SES-10 Launching to Orbit on SpaceX's Flight-Proven Falcon 9 Rocket

#38

Post by johnm1019 »

Hopefully someone can support/refute this: my off the cuff guess why this happened is because the discount on the launch price is about equal to the cost of building the satellite. So if it works, everyone is happy. If it explodes, they can build another one and aren't out any money (but are out time), and the launch costs for the next one are covered by SpaceX or insurance - however they have it set up.

Re: SES-10 Launching to Orbit on SpaceX's Flight-Proven Falcon 9 Rocket

#39

Post by Klathmon »

kirrent wrote: post #23
walrus01 wrote: post #18

It is really interesting to see that this is a very 'ordinary' commercial geostationary launch customer, and not a government funded research satellite. This is oversimplified, but traditionally, rockets that are in beta test mode are tested like: 1) static pad tests/firings of engines 2) all-up launch of the full rocket, carrying a boilerplate satellite with some instrumentation, maybe some cubesats or low cost smal…

Not contradicting anything you've said seeing as the first few launches of the falcon 9 followed your rough outline, but SES was SpaceX's first GTO launch so they've clearly got an appetite for a bit of risk.

Also I read elsewhere that SES is in a "unique" situation here.

They are still building up their fleet of satellites, so if they lose one now it's not like it is some kind of company ending setback or will allow a competitor to launch ahead of them.

Re: SES-10 Launching to Orbit on SpaceX's Flight-Proven Falcon 9 Rocket

#40

Post by gliptic »

johnm1019 wrote: post #38

Hopefully someone can support/refute this: my off the cuff guess why this happened is because the discount on the launch price is about equal to the cost of building the satellite. So if it works, everyone is happy. If it explodes, they can build another one and aren't out any money (but are out time), and the launch costs for the next one are covered by SpaceX or insurance - however they have it set up.

Payloads are insured and the insurance cost in this case is reportedly more or less the same as on a new rocket. That makes it a no-brainer.
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