Want to bring this thread back for the new year, perhaps the year of FH.Let's say there are a handful of landed stages by the time FH is ready to fly (likely), and at least one has been reflown successfully (maybe). Do you think recovered first stages can undergo whatever modifications necessary for use as side boosters (minor, as claimed)? If so, will FH demo flight use reflown boosters for cost savings? One argument against is that part of developing FH is building at least one, including side boosters, from scratch. But that's irrelevant if they're nearly identical to first stages. Another is that perhaps reflight will have been shown, but not enough times to prove reliable for the high-profile FH demo.
Want to bring this thread back for the new year, perhaps the year of FH.
[1] You'll save money by just using the recovered stages unaltered for more F9 flights. [2] they frankly can't afford a potential new problem to show up on this already-complicated vehicle.
Quote from: docmordrid on 09/16/2015 03:53 pmMethinks a new, fully reusable, methane fueled launcher powered by Raptors or Raptor variants will replace both F9 and FH. Larger payloads migrate to BFR.Where does that leave the loads of progressively smaller satellites they would need to launch to make money?
Methinks a new, fully reusable, methane fueled launcher powered by Raptors or Raptor variants will replace both F9 and FH. Larger payloads migrate to BFR.
The bread and butter of the launch market is still GTO and ISS destinations. GTO launches can be aggregated easily, can't them ? Plus perhaps hurried launches to GTO could be delivered directly to GEO or near GEO ? How much would that be worth in extra launch value ?
Something I've been puzzling over: Are there any differences, structurally, between the F9 v.1.2 core and the FH outboards? I'm wondering if one of the markets for reused cores might be to reduce FH production costs.