SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9
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SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9
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Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9
#2As a programmer baffled by hardware, i find these performance enhancements on physical systems remarkable. Congrats to them for pushing the spaceflight envelope.
Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9
#3"What it does is it allows us to land the first stage for GTO missions on the drone ship."
Yikes! That's a pretty substantial upgrade.
Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9
#4"It's about a 30% increase in performance, maybe a little more." That's pretty amazing increase in performance for an existing platform.
Also interesting to see that the Falcon Heavy boosters are literally just Falcon 9s strapped to the sides of a larger rocket. They will be producing just two separate rockets on the factory floor. This is how SpaceX will really squeeze out manufacturing efficiencies.
Given the Falcon 9 reusability, we're going to see launch costs drop by two entire magnitudes. Instead of destroying an $60MM launch vehicle, each launch just burns $200,000 in fuel. This will open up space in ways we have never imagined.
Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9
#5"It's about a 30% increase in performance, maybe a little more." That's pretty amazing increase in performance for an existing platform. Also interesting to see that the Falcon Heavy boosters are literally just Falcon 9s strapped to the sides of a larger rocket. They will be producing just two separate rockets on the factory floor. This is how SpaceX will really squeeze out manufacturing efficiencies. Given the Falco…
That was their original plans for the shuttle. Not saying they won't be able to save money this time, but it's never that simple.
Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9
#6"It's about a 30% increase in performance, maybe a little more." That's pretty amazing increase in performance for an existing platform. Also interesting to see that the Falcon Heavy boosters are literally just Falcon 9s strapped to the sides of a larger rocket. They will be producing just two separate rockets on the factory floor. This is how SpaceX will really squeeze out manufacturing efficiencies. Given the Falco…
I agree that the changes will be revolutionary, and drastically reduce launch costs; but SpaceX is only prepared to recover the first stage in the near term, and the second stage is still quite costly. In the long term, launch costs will go down as much as you say, but SpaceX is not quite there yet.[1]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_reusable_launch_system_d...
Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9
#7"It's about a 30% increase in performance, maybe a little more." That's pretty amazing increase in performance for an existing platform. Also interesting to see that the Falcon Heavy boosters are literally just Falcon 9s strapped to the sides of a larger rocket. They will be producing just two separate rockets on the factory floor. This is how SpaceX will really squeeze out manufacturing efficiencies. Given the Falco…
That was their original plans for the shuttle. Not saying they won't be able to save money this time, but it's never that simple.
Part of the Shuttle's reusability problems stemmed from Congress (and other decision-makers) forcing NASA to use facilities in ~40-50 different states and multiple subcontractors. And, full & rapid reusability was never in the Shuttle plans. They aimed for moderate reusability and then failed spectacularly at that. SpaceX is much more centralized and much more efficient.
There are certainly comparisons to me made, and lessons to be learned, but I think that SpaceX has already met/surpassed all levels of success that NASA achieved in reusability, the only caveat being that they haven't technically done it in a production environment yet.
Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9
#8Currently they have to throw away the rockets used for GTO missions (around half of them) and can only attempt landings on LEO missions such as the ISS resupplies. Given their last few landing attempts, it's pretty likely that they'll be able to land a rocket sometime this year, which means that starting next year they might be able to reuse all of their F9 Rockets.
A lot of customers may not want to fly on a used rocket though (no one knows the risks), so SpaceX may end up with quite a large number of rockets, which they'll have to fly to establish costs/risks/etc.
It looks like at least a some part of their satellite internet plan was meant to take advantage of this large launch capacity. I'm also very curious to see what the prices for a used rocket launch are. Rockets are obviously expensive, but so are the operational costs in setting them up.
Anyway, these are probably the most exciting times in spaceflight since the 60s!
Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9
#9"It's about a 30% increase in performance, maybe a little more. What it does is it allows us to land the first stage for GTO missions on the drone ship."
I am constantly blown away by SpaceX. This is an absurd level of improvement for an already mature, commercially successful rocket.
If even 1% of the world's companies in other sectors worked this well, I can only imagine how much our quality of life would improve. Musk seems extremely adept at applying the best of software development practices to hardware design.
Some things that stand out:
-Extreme streamlining of the product range
-Complete control of the design, prototyping, testing and manufacturing cycles achieved by keeping the entire process in-house
- Optimal product iteration roadmap, which balances maximum improvement per iteration with minimum time-to-market
I think Musk should open an engineering management consulting firm, and hire a few smart people to analyze SpaceX and transfer some of its engineering management methodologies into a set of training modules. I'm usually of the opinion that good management is just common sense, but the degree to which SpaceX is outdoing its competitors suggests they've made a significant breakthrough in their engineering/management processes.
Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9
#10"What it does is it allows us to land the first stage for GTO missions on the drone ship." Yikes! That's a pretty substantial upgrade.
Yup, that line sent my eyebrows north at a rapid rate! I would never have thought that it was possible to see such rapid advancement in the field of rocketry - it'd been close to stagnant for pretty much all of my 40 years until SpaceX showed up.