Author Topic: SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 - CASSIOPE - September, 2013 - GENERAL DISCUSSION THREAD  (Read 507363 times)

Offline guckyfan

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As I said, there's no explicit statement that the CASSIOPE flight will be the flight they attempt an ocean landing with. I expect it will be, but I'd prefer an explicit statement if possible.
I'm pretty sure it was explicitly stated.

Any idea where?

I am pretty sure it was in the post CRS2 Teleconference even if it did not make it into the transcript. But I am not going to listen through it again. ;)


Offline dcporter

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While guckyfan is taking one for the team, I'd like to apologize on behalf of the conspiring universe to all fans of CASSIOPIA herself for making the presently most exciting SpaceX topic legitimately, albeit tangentially, related to this mission. ;D
« Last Edit: 05/04/2013 02:14 pm by dcporter »

Offline Danderman

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As I said, there's no explicit statement that the CASSIOPE flight will be the flight they attempt an ocean landing with. I expect it will be, but I'd prefer an explicit statement if possible.
I'm pretty sure it was explicitly stated.

Nope. I read the transcript.

Offline Lar

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As I said, there's no explicit statement that the CASSIOPE flight will be the flight they attempt an ocean landing with. I expect it will be, but I'd prefer an explicit statement if possible.
I'm pretty sure it was explicitly stated.

Nope. I read the transcript.
I'm in the "wasn't stated but depending on your read, more or less heavily implied" camp. And we bois have happily jumped to the most optimistic conclusion.

Likely? I'd like to think so. Certain? no.

PS dcporter "owes me a new keyboard" :)
« Last Edit: 05/04/2013 06:10 pm by Lar »
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Offline Danderman

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As I said, there's no explicit statement that the CASSIOPE flight will be the flight they attempt an ocean landing with. I expect it will be, but I'd prefer an explicit statement if possible.
I'm pretty sure it was explicitly stated.

Nope. I read the transcript.
I'm in the "wasn't stated but depending on your read, more or less heavily implied" camp. And we bois have happily jumped to the most optimistic conclusion.

Likely? I'd like to think so. Certain? no.

It would be unusual if Elon were to decide to burden the team developing the 1.1 variant with additional testing requirements for its first launch. If there were a failure during ascent, the team could never be 100% sure that the root cause were not the modifications required for landing.
« Last Edit: 05/04/2013 06:00 pm by Danderman »

Offline Lar

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Likely? I'd like to think so. Certain? no.

It would be unusual if Elon were to decide to burden the team developing the 1.1 variant with additional testing requirements for its first launch. If there were a failure during ascent, the team could never be 100% sure that the root cause were not the modifications required for landing.

Yes. BUT if we assume that F9R == F9 v1.1 then the leg related things (on ascent) are not "additional" requirements, leaving them out means testing the "wrong vehicle"

On the third hand, incremental... they can be incremented in later (at the risk of Jim pointing out that it's now a new vehicle again... :) )

Also, this:

I'm going to argue that they should put a full set of legs on 1.1 as soon as possible, certainly before they try a fake landing on water.  They will affect the terminal velocity, center of gravity, aerodynamics, moments of inertia, heating, and other effects.  This is stuff you need to know, almost to the point of a test without legs being worth little except perhaps testing re-light.

Also, remember the Mars probe that died on impact, due to an unanticipated problem with legs extending (it hit the contact switch, the craft thought it had weight on the legs, and shut off the engines a few hundred meters up).

So test as you fly, and fly as you test.  Put full scale legs on from the beginning - don't wait for GH2 results.

exactly!
« Last Edit: 05/04/2013 06:47 pm by Lar »
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Offline Garrett

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It would be unusual if Elon were to decide to burden the team developing the 1.1 variant with additional testing requirements for its first launch. If there were a failure during ascent, the team could never be 100% sure that the root cause were not the modifications required for landing.
C'mon. Of course he would. That's what makes SpaceX so different from other manufacturers and also why so many criticize (probably justifiably) how it's run. He required all previous designs to be "human rated" even though they had no need to be and he requires all current designs to be "Mars compatible" even though the current iterations will probably never go to Mars.

And engineers are good at finding root causes. Try not to insult their intelligence by suggesting that they could never differentiate the addition of the reusable landing mods from the rest of the rocket.
- "Nothing shocks me. I'm a scientist." - Indiana Jones

Offline Garrett

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As I said, there's no explicit statement that the CASSIOPE flight will be the flight they attempt an ocean landing with. I expect it will be, but I'd prefer an explicit statement if possible.
I'm pretty sure it was explicitly stated.

Nope. I read the transcript.

From the CRS-2 Post Landing Teleconference, regarding the upcoming CRS-3 flight:
Quote
"This is also the version of Falcon 9 where we will attempt to recover the first stage..."
"Although, as I've said before, I think it's going to take us several flights before we are successful in that. I'm not sure it'll be this flight where we are successful, but that is our aspiration and that is one of the key design goals of the new version of Falcon 9"
Note that I highlighted the word "this", which was referring to CRS-3.
This would seem to imply that it'll be the CRS-3 flight where ocean landing will be first tested. Maybe the above quote is what got folks thinking it would be the next F9 launch?
Of course, Jim has said that it's certain that the CASSIOPE launch will attempt a first stage relight and that the information is public (or at least not a rumor), so maybe there is another explicit statement out there somewhere.
- "Nothing shocks me. I'm a scientist." - Indiana Jones

Offline Jcc

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F9 v1.1 is the version that will attempt recovery, Elon said he didn't know if the this flight (CRS-3) will be the one to succeed, but it will take several attempts to succeed. So, since CASSIOPE with use v1.1, they can attempt recovery, but will probably not succeed, but hopefully on a later attempt they will (ambitiously, perhaps CRS-3??). Not likely, it will take several attempts.

Of course, he is not saying one way or the other, and probably doesn't know for sure if they will attempt a water landing in July or not. But they might.

Will their Dragon recovery ship hold a first stage? It is conveniently located on the West Coast.

Offline douglas100

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...Will their Dragon recovery ship hold a first stage? It is conveniently located on the West Coast.

Compare the American Islander with the size of the Dragon in this picture.
Douglas Clark

Offline douglas100

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It would be unusual if Elon were to decide to burden the team developing the 1.1 variant with additional testing requirements for its first launch. If there were a failure during ascent, the team could never be 100% sure that the root cause were not the modifications required for landing.
C'mon. Of course he would. That's what makes SpaceX so different from other manufacturers and also why so many criticize (probably justifiably) how it's run...

We've forgotten the most important party here, the customer. Testing engine re-light after staging introduces marginal extra danger to the payload. I assume that the owners of CASSIOPE have agreed to that. Attaching legs as well, which could conceivably deploy during ascent and cause LOM is a different matter. Unless SpaceX has the agreement of the customer to fly legs which have never been tested on this first flight, then it won't happen. It makes much more sense to test the legs on GH2 before flying them on F9R.
« Last Edit: 05/04/2013 09:25 pm by douglas100 »
Douglas Clark

Offline friendly3

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I'm wondering : if they successfully make several water landing why would they need to develop Grasshopper 2? Just to test the deployment of the legs?

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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I'm wondering : if they successfully make several water landing why would they need to develop Grasshopper 2? Just to test the deployment of the legs?

They also need to test how - if at all - the legs affect the ascent, beyond the extra weight.

Offline douglas100

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Also GH2 should be able to fly more often than commercial F9's and push the envelope if needed, without endangering anyone's expensive payload. That's what it's for. Once the legs and other systems have been tested to the satisfaction of SpaceX and its customers, they can be flown on commercial F9R's.
Douglas Clark

Offline newpylong

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What makes you think they would make a public statement?



Jim, if you could get us something (other than your say so) to verify that SpaceX are going to attempt recovery of the first stage on this flight, that'd be great. So far there's no explicit public statements to that effect from SpaceX, but it's certainly the impression I got.


Offline Danderman

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What makes you think they would make a public statement?



Jim, if you could get us something (other than your say so) to verify that SpaceX are going to attempt recovery of the first stage on this flight, that'd be great. So far there's no explicit public statements to that effect from SpaceX, but it's certainly the impression I got.


No one really expects that SpaceX has made a public statement about testing recovery during the first mission of V1.1. There is a rumor, but that is about all we have.

It is entirely possible that SpaceX would attempt to, for example, relight one of the 9 first stage Merlin engines after separation of the second stage, and that would be the test, conducted after the customer is safely away. We would then hear about it after the fact.

I would love to see results from a web cam inside the first stage, to see how the stage "flies" after separation.

Are there Vandenberg downrange receiving stations that could capture signal from the first stage after separation?

« Last Edit: 05/07/2013 05:53 pm by Danderman »

Offline QuantumG

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No one really expects that SpaceX has made a public statement about testing recovery during the first mission of V1.1. There is a rumor, but that is about all we have.

That's not the case at all.. everyone who heard the press conference thought Elon made the explicit statement that a relight over the ocean will be attempted on the first launch of v1.1 (this CASSIOPE launch). After careful reading, he didn't make an explicit statement, but most of us still think they will and Jim has confirmed that he's privy to information that confirms this.

Quote
It is entirely possible that SpaceX would attempt to, for example, relight one of the 9 first stage Merlin engines after separation of the second stage, and that would be the test, conducted after the customer is safely away. We would then hear about it after the fact.

That's all we're talking about here, what do you think we're talking about?

If they get anything more than interesting data before the stage breaks apart, I think they'll be pleasantly surprised.
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline mr. mark

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Did they perform the first stage test this week as planned? It's starting to look like SpaceX will miss their July 9th target date. They seem to be falling farther behind schedule. My opinion: Too much focus on reuse and not enough focus on customers. SpaceX needs to remember who is paying their bills.
« Last Edit: 05/09/2013 03:30 pm by mr. mark »

Offline dcporter

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They seem to be falling farther behind schedule.

Nobody's ever done that before. My opinion: space is hard.

Offline ChefPat

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They seem to be falling farther behind schedule.

Nobody's ever done that before. My opinion: space is hard.
I see no evidence for a slip or an on time launch.
Playing Politics with Commercial Crew is Un-American!!!

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