Quote from: happyflower on 11/19/2014 01:57 amSo is there a large enough location at the cape to facilitate the return of 3 F9s at the same time?As was said above, the center core will not have enough residual propellant to do a boostback to land. They will either let it sink or maybe try to land on the barge.
So is there a large enough location at the cape to facilitate the return of 3 F9s at the same time?
Building over the crawlerway - interesting. Must really not be any room.
Quote from: newpylong on 11/19/2014 05:49 pmBuilding over the crawlerway - interesting. Must really not be any room.or the crawler way is the easiest, cheapest place to build because it's already a pretty good foundation and the EPA doesn't need to be involved.
Quote from: happyflower on 11/19/2014 01:57 amSo is there a large enough location at the cape to facilitate the return of 3 F9s at the same time?As was said above, the center core will not have enough residual propellant to do a boostback to land. They will either let it sink or maybe try to land on the barge. So there will never be 3 stages returning to land from one launch. 2 at most. The KSC/Cape master plan map shows a proposed generic landing area near the shore north of the launch complexes, but there aren't any details yet.
Quote from: Kabloona on 11/19/2014 03:37 amQuote from: happyflower on 11/19/2014 01:57 amSo is there a large enough location at the cape to facilitate the return of 3 F9s at the same time?As was said above, the center core will not have enough residual propellant to do a boostback to land. They will either let it sink or maybe try to land on the barge. Not true. Return of all three cores reduces the payload a lot. But I understand they can deliver at least 7t to GTO which will enable them to launch even the heaviest Com-Sats while expending only the upper stage. Downrange recovery is considered for payloads heavier than that.
Presumably SpaceX is looking down the road to simultaneous multiple stage returns and planning accordingly.
Landing pads would need to be bigger than 100m2 though, because at that size they wouldn't even cover the leg span of the returning stage (which is 18 meters I believe?). 100m2 = 10 by 10 meters.
Quote from: Beittil on 11/20/2014 03:19 pmLanding pads would need to be bigger than 100m2 though, because at that size they wouldn't even cover the leg span of the returning stage (which is 18 meters I believe?). 100m2 = 10 by 10 meters.He means 100 m x 100 m, which is about twice the size of the barge SpaceX is building for ocean landings, as he mentioned.
Quote from: Kabloona on 11/20/2014 03:46 pmQuote from: Beittil on 11/20/2014 03:19 pmLanding pads would need to be bigger than 100m2 though, because at that size they wouldn't even cover the leg span of the returning stage (which is 18 meters I believe?). 100m2 = 10 by 10 meters.He means 100 m x 100 m, which is about twice the size of the barge SpaceX is building for ocean landings, as he mentioned.I've fixed my earlier post. I hadn't noticed the "superscript" button here before. Anyway, 100m squared is actually far larger than what they've been using for Grasshopper, and in fact almost as wide as the widest airport runway in the world (a Russian one).
Does this video by Florida Today show anything of interest? Apparently, the footage was taken today. http://www.floridatoday.com/videos/news/local/2014/12/17/20547263/