Author Topic: Fairing reuse  (Read 974352 times)

Offline meekGee

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1200 on: 01/15/2018 02:25 am »
Well Mr. Steven is still in LA, FWIW.
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Offline Alastor

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1201 on: 01/15/2018 08:21 am »
Well Mr. Steven is still in LA, FWIW.

How long did he take to cross last time ?
We're still a fair way left of launch date.
There's also the possibility that they already started to outfit an other ship we don't know about yet, since it seems their fleet is currently being reshufled quite a bit (although I wouldn't bet on that hypothesis. I think it's much better to do 1 ship, test, redo if necessary, and then do the other ships you need using the lessons learned from the first one).

Offline meekGee

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1202 on: 01/15/2018 08:49 am »
Well Mr. Steven is still in LA, FWIW.

How long did he take to cross last time ?
We're still a fair way left of launch date.
There's also the possibility that they already started to outfit an other ship we don't know about yet, since it seems their fleet is currently being reshufled quite a bit (although I wouldn't bet on that hypothesis. I think it's much better to do 1 ship, test, redo if necessary, and then do the other ships you need using the lessons learned from the first one).
Hence the FWIW...
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Offline vanoord

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1203 on: 01/16/2018 02:31 pm »
Does anyone know if SpaceX plans to recover the Falcon Heavy fairing ?


There should be plenty of space inside that fairing to put additional recovery hardware - and there's certainly spare weight capacity...

Offline Lar

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1204 on: 01/16/2018 03:23 pm »
Well Mr. Steven is still in LA, FWIW.

How long did he take to cross last time ? 

She. Ships are feminine. Even if given a masculine name. :)

I agree with the idea that only one set of recovery hardware will be built until much closer to the final configuration (there have been mods since the second ASDS was built/rebuilt but they have not been that extensive)
« Last Edit: 01/16/2018 03:26 pm by Lar »
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Offline meekGee

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1205 on: 01/16/2018 03:44 pm »
Well Mr. Steven is still in LA, FWIW.

How long did he take to cross last time ? 

She. Ships are feminine. Even if given a masculine name. :)

I agree with the idea that only one set of recovery hardware will be built until much closer to the final configuration (there have been mods since the second ASDS was built/rebuilt but they have not been that extensive)
My apologies to the lady.  The beard threw me off.
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Online Hobbes-22

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1206 on: 01/16/2018 04:40 pm »

She. Ships are feminine. Even if given a masculine name. :)


True for English, not so much in other languages.

Offline Lar

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1207 on: 01/16/2018 04:51 pm »

She. Ships are feminine. Even if given a masculine name. :)


True for English, not so much in other languages.

This is a forum that is almost exclusively conducted in English. Hence my nitpick. 'nuff said.
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Offline darkenfast

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1208 on: 01/18/2018 04:04 am »
Unfortunately, calling a ship a "she" in our Politically Correct U.S. Navy has been banned for some years. 

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Offline john smith 19

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1209 on: 01/21/2018 09:20 am »
Does anyone know if SpaceX plans to recover the Falcon Heavy fairing ?


There should be plenty of space inside that fairing to put additional recovery hardware - and there's certainly spare weight capacity...
An obvious question with fairings is whether you can regard they are a "booster" (13 units of weight growth to cause 1 unit of final payload loss) or an upper stage (1 unit of stage weight growth equals 1 unit of payload lost)?

If it's "booster" then you could probably put quite a bit of stuff on it. If it's like the upper stage you are much more constrained.

Although it's part of the upper stage it's separation early(ish) in the flight suggests its booster like in its mass growth properties.
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Offline speedevil

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1210 on: 01/21/2018 09:39 am »
An obvious question with fairings is whether you can regard they are a "booster" (13 units of weight growth to cause 1 unit of final payload loss) or an upper stage (1 unit of stage weight growth equals 1 unit of payload lost)?

If it's "booster" then you could probably put quite a bit of stuff on it. If it's like the upper stage you are much more constrained.

Although it's part of the upper stage it's separation early(ish) in the flight suggests its booster like in its mass growth properties.
Fairing jettison is around a tenth of the way into the burn, of 49 tons or so, and the stage mass, neglecting fairing is perhaps 55 tons including payload.
If the fairing is 5 tons, it's ~10% of the mass at this point, for ~10% of the flight.
Naively, you can approximate this as 1% loss.
edit: math is hard.
« Last Edit: 01/21/2018 12:27 pm by speedevil »

Offline john smith 19

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1211 on: 01/21/2018 12:25 pm »
An obvious question with fairings is whether you can regard they are a "booster" (13 units of weight growth to cause 1 unit of final payload loss) or an upper stage (1 unit of stage weight growth equals 1 unit of payload lost)?

If it's "booster" then you could probably put quite a bit of stuff on it. If it's like the upper stage you are much more constrained.

Although it's part of the upper stage it's separation early(ish) in the flight suggests its booster like in its mass growth properties.
Fairing jettison is around a tenth of the way into the burn, of 49 tons or so, and the stage mass, neglecting fairing is perhaps 55 tons including payload.
If the fairing is 5 tons, it's ~20% of the mass at this point, for ~10% of the flight.
Naively, you can approximate this as 2% loss.
Thanks for those numbers. On that basis it sounds a lot more like we're in booster territory, so you've got a a fair amount of mass you could hang on the fairing before you had trouble. Obviously (as usual) you like it to be as little as possible. Getting it and keeping it in the right attitude being key.
MCT ITS BFR SS. The worlds first Methane fueled FFSC engined CFRP SS structure A380 sized aerospaceplane tail sitter capable of Earth & Mars atmospheric flight.First flight to Mars by end of 2022 TBC. T&C apply. Trust nothing. Run your own #s "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" R. Simberg."Competitve" means cheaper ¬cheap SCramjet proposed 1956. First +ve thrust 2004. US R&D spend to date > $10Bn. #deployed designs. Zero.

Offline Lar

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1212 on: 01/21/2018 01:14 pm »
I had assumed it was more of a hit than the booster but a lot less than the second stage since fairings are shed fairly early. But that it's a variable amount depending on the mission profile. (the earlier it is shed, (the more popup the trajectory), the less of a hit). That's just guesswork.
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Offline oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1213 on: 01/21/2018 04:46 pm »
I had assumed it was more of a hit than the booster but a lot less than the second stage since fairings are shed fairly early. But that it's a variable amount depending on the mission profile. (the earlier it is shed, (the more popup the trajectory), the less of a hit). That's just guesswork.
Using the rocket equations to give an estimate of about 8.5 for GTO and about 7.8 for a LEO.

Offline john smith 19

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1214 on: 01/21/2018 05:55 pm »
I had assumed it was more of a hit than the booster but a lot less than the second stage since fairings are shed fairly early. But that it's a variable amount depending on the mission profile. (the earlier it is shed, (the more popup the trajectory), the less of a hit). That's just guesswork.
Using the rocket equations to give an estimate of about 8.5 for GTO and about 7.8 for a LEO.
I presume you mean the "exchange rate" of mass on the fairing Vs loss of payload.
those numbers look backward on that basis.
MCT ITS BFR SS. The worlds first Methane fueled FFSC engined CFRP SS structure A380 sized aerospaceplane tail sitter capable of Earth & Mars atmospheric flight.First flight to Mars by end of 2022 TBC. T&C apply. Trust nothing. Run your own #s "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" R. Simberg."Competitve" means cheaper ¬cheap SCramjet proposed 1956. First +ve thrust 2004. US R&D spend to date > $10Bn. #deployed designs. Zero.

Offline speedevil

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1215 on: 01/22/2018 01:32 am »
I had assumed it was more of a hit than the booster but a lot less than the second stage since fairings are shed fairly early. But that it's a variable amount depending on the mission profile. (the earlier it is shed, (the more popup the trajectory), the less of a hit). That's just guesswork.
Using the rocket equations to give an estimate of about 8.5 for GTO and about 7.8 for a LEO.

My above estimations were of the order of magnitude correct, but I screwed up in using the total mass of the stage, and more careful calculations agree with the above.

The amount of fuel required is indeed under 1% of the whole stage mass, but of course that's the wrong figure, and the true hit per kilo of fairing is more like 120g than 10g.

Offline AncientU

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1216 on: 01/22/2018 04:08 pm »
This.

Quote
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Online kdhilliard

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1217 on: 01/22/2018 10:30 pm »
Mr. Steven is headed for the Panama Canal. While the end destination is currently Belize, that's just to refuel. The end destination is likely Port Canaveral. Good chance of a fairing recovery attempt during the GovSat launch.

Edit: I don't think it can make the 30th. I did some math. :D Either the launch date has slipped and we don't know yet, or this is for another launch.

Did Mr. Steven (or other SpaceX related ships) stop for refueling in San Pedro, Belize on past transits?  Coincidentally, the area in the Los Angeles port that SpaceX uses is in San Pedro, California.  You don't think they just messed up the AIS destination field?

Edit: Mr. Steven is now back home, berthed in the East Channel, bow-on to NRC Quest, and the infobox is no longer showing "BZ SPR", but is giving departed US LAX 2018-01-22 14:30, arrrived US LAX 2018-01-22 18:06.  Given that the hover-over pop-up said (and still says) "Destination: SAN PEDRO CALI" all along, I wonder if it was an error coding the AIS or if it was a MarineTraffic bug.
« Last Edit: 01/23/2018 02:59 am by kdhilliard »

Offline Michael Baylor

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1218 on: 01/22/2018 11:06 pm »
Yeah, it's not headed for the Panama Canal. MarineTraffic was WRONG WRONG WRONG lol. It's going to return to the Port of LA.

Online gongora

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #1219 on: 01/23/2018 12:38 am »
The time track on her way to LA from Florida:
Dec 22, 2017, 00:04 UTC LOS ANGELES, USA
Dec 03, 2017, 03:00 UTC MANZANILLO, MEXICO
Nov 28, 2017, 06:00 UTC BALBOA, PANAMA

So it takes around a month to get only to Panama.

Also on www.vesselfinder.com destination is SAN PEDRO CALI (actually it's the same destination on the marinetraffic site too if you just hover the pointer on the ship).

May be this is just a trial run?

Not really on-topic at this point, but it does not take a month for that ship to get from LA to Panama.  JRTI got towed from the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal to Long Beach in a month.  Mr. Stephen can move a lot faster.

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