Author Topic: Blue Origin - New Shepard third flight and landing (Reuse)  (Read 71505 times)

Offline DatUser14

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Re: Blue Origin - New Shepard third flight and landing (Reuse)
« Reply #40 on: 01/23/2016 12:30 pm »
I'm suspect. Who knows what major parts they could have replaced in two months. Is this truly a reused vehicle or the same airframe with new everything, making it a reused vehicle in name only.
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Online jabe

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Re: Blue Origin - New Shepard third flight and landing (Reuse)
« Reply #41 on: 01/23/2016 12:36 pm »
I wonder what Elon Musk will tweet when he (hopefully) congratulates BO?
jb

Offline Kryten

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Re: Blue Origin - New Shepard third flight and landing (Reuse)
« Reply #42 on: 01/23/2016 12:38 pm »
I'm suspect. Who knows what major parts they could have replaced in two months. Is this truly a reused vehicle or the same airframe with new everything, making it a reused vehicle in name only.
There's no reason to believe any kind of system replacement would be in any way necessary. It was a flawless first flight in a relatively gentle regime-much easier to handle them something like the falcon booster trajectory, as people like yourself keep reminding us.

Offline TrevorMonty

I'm suspect. Who knows what major parts they could have replaced in two months. Is this truly a reused vehicle or the same airframe with new everything, making it a reused vehicle in name only.
Masten Xombie flies regularly with only a refuel between flights. There is no reason to believe New Shepard is any different.

Offline Stellvia

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Re: Blue Origin - New Shepard third flight and landing (Reuse)
« Reply #44 on: 01/23/2016 01:00 pm »
I'm suspect. Who knows what major parts they could have replaced in two months. Is this truly a reused vehicle or the same airframe with new everything, making it a reused vehicle in name only.

Bezos already answered that.

Quote
Data from the November mission matched our preflight predictions closely, which made preparations for today’s re-flight relatively straightforward. The team replaced the crew capsule parachutes, replaced the pyro igniters, conducted functional and avionics checkouts, and made several software improvements[...]

Looks like they also retouched the paintwork, as there was some minor scorching evident on the aft of the vehicle after the first landing ;-)

With that level of refurbishment required, a cadence of a flight a day certainly seems plausible.
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Offline AncientU

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Re: Blue Origin - New Shepard third flight and landing (Reuse)
« Reply #45 on: 01/23/2016 01:00 pm »
Notice jeff said "Though it will be the small vehicle in our orbital family.."  I guess there will be siblings/other vehicles???

He said it in his article.



Quote
to achieve our vision of millions of people living and working in space — we will need to build very large rocket boosters. And the vertical landing architecture scales extraordinarily well.
......................

We’re already more than three years into development of our first orbital vehicle. Though it will be the small vehicle in our orbital family, it’s still many times larger than New Shepard. I hope to share details about this first orbital vehicle this year.

So a sensible approach, building a small orbital test vehicle, then the big one. Will it match BFR or be somewhere intermediate, Falcon Heavy range? Exciting times and congratulations to Blue.

Congratulations Blue!

Exciting that there are now two distinct paths to reusability -- adds quite a bit of robustness to the concept.
I suspect that every rocket maker interested in being in the game in 5-10 years is at their desk envisioning another path to full stage reusability (or fitting themselves into one of the existing ones).
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Offline AncientU

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Re: Blue Origin - New Shepard third flight and landing (Reuse)
« Reply #46 on: 01/23/2016 01:33 pm »
An extremely important milestone for economic re-usability passed. I'm really excited for what the future holds, Blue Origin and SpaceX are revolutionizing the industry before our eyes.
Now, do it again, and again!

<snip>

Some interesting information here. It seems like Tory Brunos' information about an orbital rocket based on a single BE-4 first stage is on the money (as expected).

I'm wondering how easy it will be to scale the New Shepard concept to an orbital rocket. The BE-4 should be designed for impressive gimbaling and deep throttling to be able to propulsively land the first stage of an orbital rocket on a single engine. If Blue can do it, they will have advanced the state of the art considerably.

Exciting times ahead!

Very deep throttling... this might be the single biggest challenge of their orbital rocket.  But if BE-4 can do it, then maybe Vulcan can, too.
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Offline kevinof

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Re: Blue Origin - New Shepard third flight and landing (Reuse)
« Reply #47 on: 01/23/2016 02:53 pm »
Agreed. This will be one of their biggest challenges.  A single engine that can throttle that deeply and yet have enough grunt  to lift an orbital payload. As impressive as what BO have done, I don't think we should underestimate the challenge of scaling up - the masses, speed, heating, control, fuel and other issues are orders of magnitude bigger than anything they have encountered with New Shepard.

Great and fun times for us space buffs.

Offline Coastal Ron

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Re: Blue Origin - New Shepard third flight and landing (Reuse)
« Reply #48 on: 01/23/2016 03:24 pm »
I suspect that every rocket maker interested in being in the game in 5-10 years is at their desk envisioning another path to full stage reusability (or fitting themselves into one of the existing ones).

And we are at an interesting inflection point where two major launch providers (ULA and ESA) are on the cusp of finalizing new designs, so maybe what Blue Origin and The Other Guys have done will show that reusability should not be assumed to be impossible.  Essentially, if those contemplating change build their next launcher with the wrong future technology, they could severely affect their future.

Exciting times.
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

Offline Jcc

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Re: Blue Origin - New Shepard third flight and landing (Reuse)
« Reply #49 on: 01/23/2016 07:12 pm »
I suspect that every rocket maker interested in being in the game in 5-10 years is at their desk envisioning another path to full stage reusability (or fitting themselves into one of the existing ones).

And we are at an interesting inflection point where two major launch providers (ULA and ESA) are on the cusp of finalizing new designs, so maybe what Blue Origin and The Other Guys have done will show that reusability should not be assumed to be impossible.  Essentially, if those contemplating change build their next launcher with the wrong future technology, they could severely affect their future.

Exciting times.

Reuse is clearly not impossible technically. ULA and ArianeSpace say it may not be possible economically. They may eventually find themselves in a situation where space launch without reuse is economically impossible.

Offline AncientU

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Re: Blue Origin - New Shepard third flight and landing (Reuse)
« Reply #50 on: 01/23/2016 07:29 pm »
I suspect that every rocket maker interested in being in the game in 5-10 years is at their desk envisioning another path to full stage reusability (or fitting themselves into one of the existing ones).

And we are at an interesting inflection point where two major launch providers (ULA and ESA) are on the cusp of finalizing new designs, so maybe what Blue Origin and The Other Guys have done will show that reusability should not be assumed to be impossible.  Essentially, if those contemplating change build their next launcher with the wrong future technology, they could severely affect their future.

Exciting times.

Reuse is clearly not impossible technically. ULA and ArianeSpace say it may not be possible economically. They may eventually find themselves in a situation where space launch without reuse is economically impossible.

Orbital ATK is also at that point.  The Next Generation Launch Vehicle, as one of the bigs termed it, will not be expendible if Blue and SpaceX succeed.  Waiting until the 2020s, or until economic feasibility is proven, is the same as opting out of the launch business.
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Offline TrevorMonty

Is it possible for the New Shepard to go well past 100km mark ( 125 or 150km).?

Would this extra height would give extra zeroG time.?.

100km mark is just an arbitrary number not a physical ceiling for suborbital flight.

Offline kch

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Re: Blue Origin - New Shepard third flight and landing (Reuse)
« Reply #52 on: 01/23/2016 08:49 pm »

100km mark is just an arbitrary number not a physical ceiling for suborbital flight.

It's not a ceiling at all.  It's being used as a floor.

Offline douglas100

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Re: Blue Origin - New Shepard third flight and landing (Reuse)
« Reply #53 on: 01/23/2016 09:03 pm »
Is it possible for the New Shepard to go well past 100km mark ( 125 or 150km).?

Would this extra height would give extra zeroG time.?.

100km mark is just an arbitrary number not a physical ceiling for suborbital flight.

It depends on what kind of margin New Shephard has, but extra height would certainly give more zero G time. But if they keep the trajectory vertical, entry G's will peak higher. At some point it would be intolerable for the passengers. One way to get more zero G time would be to execute a parabolic arc downrange (like the Original Shephard did!) which would give a more gentle entry. Both booster and capsule would have to be retrieved, of course.

EDIT: fixed spelling.
« Last Edit: 01/23/2016 09:20 pm by douglas100 »
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Blue Origin - New Shepard third flight and landing (Reuse)
« Reply #54 on: 01/23/2016 09:29 pm »
Just for people who don't want to click through to a fluffy news article saying 99% what you already know just to find that 1% that's new, the geekwire article quotes Branson saying:

"Our spaceship comes back and lands on wheels. Theirs don’t."

Personally, who cares? Helicopters sometimes don't have wheels, either. Still works great for flying vertically.

Only place I'd give advantage to wings is point-to-point. And that is where Branson wants to go with this.
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Offline msat

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Re: Blue Origin - New Shepard third flight and landing (Reuse)
« Reply #55 on: 01/23/2016 09:43 pm »
Very cool! Congrats to the Blue team! 

I know the New Shepherd is only intended to launch suborbital payloads, but is it out of the realm of possibility that it could be used as a booster for a small orbital 2nd stage and payload? What about 2 or more boosters strapped together?

As for Elon Vs. Bezos, I know recently Bezos made a few cheap jabs regarding the F9 landing and the community (somewhat unfairly) jumped all over him for it, but it does kind of appear that Elon started the animosity between the two a while back, unless Jeff said something first behind the scenes. I'd prefer if they set their silly "battles" with one another aside and instead be more supportive of one another in their quest to essentially accomplishing similar end goals. After all, space is big enough for the both of them.

Offline SgtPoivre

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Re: Blue Origin - New Shepard third flight and landing (Reuse)
« Reply #56 on: 01/23/2016 10:11 pm »


Is it possible for the New Shepard to go well past 100km mark ( 125 or 150km).?

Would this extra height would give extra zeroG time.?.

100km mark is just an arbitrary number not a physical ceiling for suborbital flight.

It depends on what kind of margin New Shephard has, but extra height would certainly give more zero G time. But if they keep the trajectory vertical, entry G's will peak higher. At some point it would be intolerable for the passengers. One way to get more zero G time would be to execute a parabolic arc downrange (like the Original Shephard did!) which would give a more gentle entry. Both booster and capsule would have to be retrieved, of course.

EDIT: fixed spelling.

Well in fact adding some horizontal speed will not really help, quite the opposite in fact unless you get near orbital speed and do a shuttle like reentry. In the low horizontal speed range you are only increasing the energy to disperse at reentry when you increase horizontal speed.

It is true that the higher you get the more Gs you'll get at reentry and for standard mass to drag ratios reentry Gs become rapidly crushing if you peak above 100km. Shepard went as high as 180km but got 11G+ at reentry! You cannot do that to your regular pot-bellied 50-year old millionaire space tourist...

Not a lot of ways to avoid that. You could try to increase a lot your external surface (by finding a way to balloon your vehicle) and get extra drag in the high atmosphere. Or try to dynamically reduce your drag (for example by reducing your angle of attack) when you reach a peak G level. But this would only bring a limited G reductions and add a lot of complications.

Offline Comga

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Re: Blue Origin - New Shepard third flight and landing (Reuse)
« Reply #57 on: 01/23/2016 10:17 pm »
Just for people who don't want to click through to a fluffy news article saying 99% what you already know just to find that 1% that's new, the geekwire article quotes Branson saying:

"Our spaceship comes back and lands on wheels. Theirs don’t."

Personally, who cares? Helicopters sometimes don't have wheels, either. Still works great for flying vertically.

Only place I'd give advantage to wings is point-to-point. And that is where Branson wants to go with this.

I agree with your first point.  No one really cares about wheels.

I disagree with the second.  "Point-to-point" is gibberish.  Going up 100 km doesn't translate to going 4000 km horizontally, and the preparation for one of these rides erases any potential advantage due to speed.

To me it sounds like Branson is whistling past the graveyard." ::)
What kind of wastrels would dump a perfectly good booster in the ocean after just one use?

Offline Comga

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Re: Blue Origin - New Shepard third flight and landing (Reuse)
« Reply #58 on: 01/23/2016 10:33 pm »
Would this extra height would give extra zeroG time.?.
Is it possible for the New Shepard to go well past 100km mark ( 125 or 150km).?

Would this extra height would give extra zeroG time.?.

Let's do the math.
Let's assume the atmosphere starts to drag at a conservatively low 30 km.
From 100 km that a fall of 70 km
The 0g fall time is sqrt(70,000*2/10)=118 seconds. 
236 seconds, just less than 4 minutes, ascending and descending.
If the peak is increased to 125 km the 0g fall time is sqrt (95,000*2/10) =137 seconds
That's a 38 seconds increase.
For a peak of 105 km the 0g fall time is sqrt (95,000*2/10) =154 seconds, a net of 72 seconds. Total would be just over 5 minutes.
Will that make the ride as significantly more enjoyable and memorable as it will significantly increase the required energy?
Bezos will indicate his answer in the evolution of his suborbital flights.  If he agrees, you will see higher flights.
What kind of wastrels would dump a perfectly good booster in the ocean after just one use?

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