Les Kovacs, ULA: want to throw a wet blanket on concept of reusability. Additional systems needed to land stages comes at cost of payload.
QuoteLes Kovacs, ULA: want to throw a wet blanket on concept of reusability. Additional systems needed to land stages comes at cost of payload.Want to throw a wet blanket on Kovacs’ shortsighted biased comment. Build the vehicle with 10-15% extra payload capacity beyond most industry needs, then use that extra capacity whenever practical to re-use the rocket. Rocket costs a bit more to build ONCE* than an expendable that’s maxed-out but you don't have to build a new one for every launch. Uh, does his comment mean Kovacs is not onboard with ULA’s Vulcan? Even returning “parts” of a rocket for re-use also comes at cost of payload. #disingenuous #illogical Vulcan* - All things being equal it would cost a bit more. But SpaceX is beating ULA's costs even when Falcons are flown as expendables
Quote from: DreamyPickle on 05/02/2017 06:51 pmQuote from: gospacex on 05/02/2017 02:06 pmThere is a "naysayer roadmap" on the Internet for it Falcon 1 is not provenContract with NASA is not provenFalcon 9 is not provenDragon is not provenISS resupply is not proven1st stage return is not provenBarge landing is not provenReuse is not proven=== You are here ===Falcon Heavy is not provenEconomy of reuse is not provenDragon 2 is not provenCrewed flights are not provenLunar flyby is not provenCapsule propulsive landing is not provenRed Dragon is not provenAn interesting note about this is that "Economy of reuse is not proven" is pretty much non-falsifiable. SpaceX has already reused a rocket without going bankrupt and they claim to be profitable. What more can they prove?The question is not "Is SpaceX profitable?" Elon Musk has said they spent about a billion dollars developing recovery and reuse. So that needs to be recovered before they are making money with reuse. How long that takes depends on how much they discount the rockets for launch and how much it costs to refurbish them for the next launch. The issue boils down to the question - when do they make more money by reusing rockets than they spent on making them reusable? An additional facet of this is "how much of your capabilities have you intentionally sacrificed to make your rocket reusable?" which is what ULA has been asking. There is a big gap between the expendable capabilities of the Falcon 9 compared to the capabilities it has when it's landing again. IOW, how much money could you have made by simply using the maximum capabilities of your rocket? This is why ULA likes the idea of just recovering the engines with a parachute, it puts much less of a dent in the maximum capability of the rocket.
Quote from: gospacex on 05/02/2017 02:06 pmThere is a "naysayer roadmap" on the Internet for it Falcon 1 is not provenContract with NASA is not provenFalcon 9 is not provenDragon is not provenISS resupply is not proven1st stage return is not provenBarge landing is not provenReuse is not proven=== You are here ===Falcon Heavy is not provenEconomy of reuse is not provenDragon 2 is not provenCrewed flights are not provenLunar flyby is not provenCapsule propulsive landing is not provenRed Dragon is not provenAn interesting note about this is that "Economy of reuse is not proven" is pretty much non-falsifiable. SpaceX has already reused a rocket without going bankrupt and they claim to be profitable. What more can they prove?
There is a "naysayer roadmap" on the Internet for it Falcon 1 is not provenContract with NASA is not provenFalcon 9 is not provenDragon is not provenISS resupply is not proven1st stage return is not provenBarge landing is not provenReuse is not proven=== You are here ===Falcon Heavy is not provenEconomy of reuse is not provenDragon 2 is not provenCrewed flights are not provenLunar flyby is not provenCapsule propulsive landing is not provenRed Dragon is not proven
Maybe the NRO was ground testing a new optical tracking system and figured they'd hide the test in plain sight.
Okay, so RTLS is a prerequisite for nice close-ups like that, because they likely wouldn't be able to get such a good view from out at sea?
Quote from: sanman on 05/02/2017 11:13 pmOkay, so RTLS is a prerequisite for nice close-ups like that, because they likely wouldn't be able to get such a good view from out at sea?Correct. Unless you have a tracking ship out there with a very stabilized telescope platform.
Quote from: Wolfram66 on 05/02/2017 06:44 pmQuote from: Lar on 05/02/2017 06:40 pmQuote from: Wolfram66 on 05/02/2017 04:57 pmThere could have been ride share CubeSats that S2 deployed. I believe the planned de-orbit was planned for orbit 3. saw that somewhere on NSF...I might be missing something but wouldn't the NRO not be very keen on rideshares? My expectation was zero cubesats, as their orbits might give away info about the primary bird.unless the cubesats were NRO's and are testbed for future technologies. Point. In which case we may never know.... no announcement, no orbital elements, nothing.Want to keep a really big secret? Wrap it in outer layers of secrets that are themselves hard to penetrate and not necessarily relevant/related. Include some false secrets too... (see "Footfall" for a plot device example of that)
Quote from: Lar on 05/02/2017 06:40 pmQuote from: Wolfram66 on 05/02/2017 04:57 pmThere could have been ride share CubeSats that S2 deployed. I believe the planned de-orbit was planned for orbit 3. saw that somewhere on NSF...I might be missing something but wouldn't the NRO not be very keen on rideshares? My expectation was zero cubesats, as their orbits might give away info about the primary bird.unless the cubesats were NRO's and are testbed for future technologies.
Quote from: Wolfram66 on 05/02/2017 04:57 pmThere could have been ride share CubeSats that S2 deployed. I believe the planned de-orbit was planned for orbit 3. saw that somewhere on NSF...I might be missing something but wouldn't the NRO not be very keen on rideshares? My expectation was zero cubesats, as their orbits might give away info about the primary bird.
There could have been ride share CubeSats that S2 deployed. I believe the planned de-orbit was planned for orbit 3. saw that somewhere on NSF...
Quote from: Lar on 05/02/2017 06:49 pmPoint. In which case we may never know.... no announcement, no orbital elements, nothing.Want to keep a really big secret? Wrap it in outer layers of secrets that are themselves hard to penetrate and not necessarily relevant/related. Include some false secrets too... (see "Footfall" for a plot device example of that)This one will be hard for amateur observers to track, Basically no one north of London will ever see it. Especially if it's sun sync such that it's always at it's highest latitude during the day. You'll have to be pretty far south to get a glimpse of it at night. Might just rule out it ever being spotted by many of the usual people who make it a habit of tracking these birds.
Point. In which case we may never know.... no announcement, no orbital elements, nothing.Want to keep a really big secret? Wrap it in outer layers of secrets that are themselves hard to penetrate and not necessarily relevant/related. Include some false secrets too... (see "Footfall" for a plot device example of that)
You'd need a second system near the ASDS which would be able to image the launch until the rocket cleared the horizon plus then you have to try and stabilize the position making platform at sea which is no easy task. Not impossible. It's something akin to stabilizing the main gun barrel of an Abrams tank while it drives at full speed, which it can do. But it isn't 'easy'.
Elon Musk has said they spent about a billion dollars developing recovery and reuse. So that needs to be recovered before they are making money with reuse. How long that takes depends on how much they discount the rockets for launch and how much it costs to refurbish them for the next launch. The issue boils down to the question - when do they make more money by reusing rockets than they spent on making them reusable?An additional facet of this is "how much of your capabilities have you intentionally sacrificed to make your rocket reusable?" which is what ULA has been asking.
This one will be hard for amateur observers to track, Basically no one north of London will ever see it. Especially if it's sun sync such that it's always at it's highest latitude during the day. You'll have to be pretty far south to get a glimpse of it at night. Might just rule out it ever being spotted by many of the usual people who make it a habit of tracking these birds.
Quote from: whitelancer64 on 05/02/2017 07:18 pmElon Musk has said they spent about a billion dollars developing recovery and reuse. So that needs to be recovered before they are making money with reuse. How long that takes depends on how much they discount the rockets for launch and how much it costs to refurbish them for the next launch. The issue boils down to the question - when do they make more money by reusing rockets than they spent on making them reusable?An additional facet of this is "how much of your capabilities have you intentionally sacrificed to make your rocket reusable?" which is what ULA has been asking.Which is a bogus question.Payload has a fixed mass. You get paid for orbiting this payload. Any extra performance you have over this weight on this flight would not earn you a single extra dollar.If you can orbit the payload of this fixed mass and land the stage, you "sacrificed" nothing for reusing this state.If you can orbit the payload of this fixed mass only by expending the stage, you are no worse than your competitors who do not have reuse option at all.ULA are not stupid, they know this too. They are just not yet resigned to accept the new reality.
Quote from: pb2000 on 05/02/2017 11:40 pmMaybe the NRO was ground testing a new optical tracking system and figured they'd hide the test in plain sight.If that's the case, then Musk should offer them a discount in exchange for being able to make use of their tracking technology - because it sure does provide a new level of thrill to spectators. Besides, it could probably come in handy for debugging/investigation if flight anomalies (eg.RUDs) occur in the future.
Don't be too pessimistic. Most of the active observers are at latitudes South of London. And since it is not in a Sun synchronous orbit, it will precess into evening/morning visibility for both hemispheres throughout the year, just like ISS does. Already at the end of May the nominal orbital plane will be at high Beta angle and and parallel to the terminator, meaning visibility from the Northern hemisphere for the entire night, allowing for NROL-76 search marathons. So chances are high it will be spotted sooner rather than later.
I'm guessing that attempting to 'stealth' a spacecraft with low-optical reflectivity material would be counter-productive as it would greatly increase the internal heating from sunlight.