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They don't have much in the way of competition to keep 'trade secrets' from
If that isn't tongue in cheek, you're insane. There's a laundry list of companies that are competition to them, including two of the largest defense contractors in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_spaceflight_co...
Technically, it exploded well before it delivered the satellite. edit to add some facts since this seems to be getting downvoted pretty quickly: Stage 1 landed and exploded at around T+10min, the satellite was deployed at T+56min. This was just two minutes after it was delivered on its final orbit. Both of those could be considered "delivered to space", neither of which happened before the failed landing.
The satellite was comfortably above the Kármán line by the time of the failed landing.
Speaks volumes for Mr. Musk's character that they're being completely open and honest about this problem. Turns the conversation from "What happened? What are they hiding?" to "Interesting Engineering problem. How can it be addressed?"
They don't have much in the way of competition to keep 'trade secrets' from
http://www.wired.com/2012/10/ff-elon-musk-qa/all/
The reason they're cavalier about landing videos is that there's not much you can really take from them that would be useful to building your own version of this system. It sounds like much of their "secret sauce" is in manufacturing techniques, materials, and internal design.
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Yeah, I don't understand why they won't keep landing them on the ground like everyone else does. It's not like there's not enough space on Earth.
> like everyone else does Nobody else does this. I have absolutely no idea what you could possibly be referring to. SpaceX lands on land preferably when it is an option. > I don't understand why they won't keep landing them on the ground ... It's not like there's not enough space on Earth As a general rule, you not understanding the reason for something does not mean there is not a good reason. For reference, see the…
Believe it or not, we've been landing spacecraft for decades. Does "space shuttle" ring a bell?
In all seriousness though, this was by and large a successful landing, not to mention that they successfully put their payload into orbit without a hitch. The number of things that have to go right to even get that rocket to touch down on the barge is mind boggling. Truly impressive, and bodes well for the future of SpaceX.
Could someone explain to me why they attempt this? Wouldn't inflating a set of floating devices when it goes down the ocean an easier way of retrieving it? Or something other than this REALLY HARD TO PULL OFF maneuver? Genuinely interested.
Rockets have always been able to land in the ocean more or less intact (i.e. without disintegrating). However, if the rocket is dipped in salt water, the restoration would be enormously expensive, so it needs to stay dry to be re-used. Of course, you could just try to land it vertically on the water on some cushion and have more cushions deploy to make it tip over horizontally and float (all the time staying above th…
No they haven't. SpaceX started doing that in 2013 before the barge landings. I don't think anyone had ever even tried to land(sea?) a liquid fuel booster before that.
You may be thinking of the STS solid boosters, but solid boosters are really a different game. They can be built sturdy enough to hit the ocean at 60mph, but they couldn't possibly be simply refueled and reflown.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> like everyone else does Nobody else does this. I have absolutely no idea what you could possibly be referring to. SpaceX lands on land preferably when it is an option. > I don't understand why they won't keep landing them on the ground ... It's not like there's not enough space on Earth As a general rule, you not understanding the reason for something does not mean there is not a good reason. For reference, see the…
>Nobody else does this. I have absolutely no idea what you could possibly be referring to. Believe it or not, we've been landing spacecraft for decades. Does "space shuttle" ring a bell?
SpaceX actually got very close to sticking this landing. Sea conditions were reasonably rough, with 3-meter waves. It's also the first time SpaceX launches in fog, IIRC. Everything about the landing except the stuck leg seemed to be perfect. So IMHO, the fact that the rocket exploded is not the most pertinent fact about this experiment. The main piece of news is that SpaceX is exceedingly likely to be able to recover…
> Everything about the landing except the stuck leg seemed to be perfect. And there's the issue: it only takes a tiny bit of imperfect to ruin a landing. I do think that SpaceX is going to get to the point where they are recovering enough of their rockets to make it pay off. But there will probably always be a significant chance that some little thing will go wrong. Don't be fooled later by "we've landed 5 in a row"…
But for the tiny bit of imperfect: the same could have been said for the space shuttle, and that had people in it. And its fragility was a fundamental to its design (it rode exposed on the fuel tank with its critically important heat-absorbing tiles). And the shuttle still had a decent success rate!
I would argue that these failures are less fundamental to the design of the rocket. And the difference is that if, in the future, you have that 1/100 failure on landing, it's only a loss from a cost perspective, not a human one.
The landing could be made safer by something like cushioned walls that deploy towards the rocket after touchdown, to avoid such explosions. Think of a giant Christmas Tree stand like this: http://www.christmastreeland.co.uk/product_images/v/428/761_... . but with cushioned hooks on the barge. You can't always hope for all 4 legs to be in perfect condition, or that there aren't high waves in the ocean. That rocket is…
Here's a side-by-side comparison of their three barge landing attempts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA7RzJckvQ4 I don't think big, over-engineered solutions really look necessary with the amount of progress they're making. Plus, there aren't any cushioned walls on Mars, which is SpaceX's eventual goal - use this sort of tech to touch down there.
