SpaceX to begin testing on Reusable Falcon 9 technology this year

[apace]

I never understood the point of quickly reeusable. CHEAPLY reuseable seems more important.

If I had to spend 3 months refurbishing but only spent 5% of the cost of a stage that is a sweet deal!

Need more flights? Then build more rockets! Have 10 rockets in the refurbishing pipe and you can launch every 10 days. It isn't like they'll have only the one rocket. And their factories are scaled to produce plenty anyways.

The time element once you have a fleet of rockets costs you almost NOTHING.

Wrong calculation, think about the workforce which is needed. If you have quick reusable stages, you need less workforce which is in the refurbishing circle. Somewhere will be the point between quick and cheap ;-) which is best.

[clarkeo]

Yeah exactly if it takes 3 months to refurbish then it is taking three months because people are working on it (a rocket wont refurbish its self) and that costs money. Raw material cost for spacex could only be so much in the end its the workforce that is the big cost.
Although I do get what you mean on shorter time scales for example recovery down range and returning to the launch pad although if your doing that frequently ie multiple times per day that means you need to purchase a fleet of boats and maintain them say maybe 20 if the trip back to launch pad is 1-2 days by boat.
At some point it just stops scaling well and eventually Elon wants space travel to be as common as an international air route. And then you go hey if we sacrifice 10% of our payload to orbit then we can make it return itself and simplify the whole process! Then you can put the money you saved on that fleet of boats into engine development and get back that 10% in performance, once you've proved re-usability it will be the standard. I mean the maths makes sense, its far more logical to make a re-usable craft even if it sacrifices 50% of its payload to orbit! I think the main thing is the development risk, it has been considered such a hard problem no one had the money to burn on it.

[Idiomatic]

Obviously it is likely that time = money in many cases. But this isn't always true. Landing location could be one of those cases. Landing back on the pad could save time at a great financial cost.

In any case, the goal needs to be low cost per pound. That should be ALMOST the only goal of the company. Beyond being able to ship useful volume/weights, $/lb to leo is the only thing that needs to be focused on.

If that happens to result in high turn around. Then so be it.

[douglas100]

I'm sure they will test the technology. But  I think it will be quite some time before they will have something to bring to market.

After all spacex is not a research lab getting grant from gov, and they have many more things needed to be done with limited resources atm. It makes no sense to try if they don't think there is a huge reward in front of them. We just don't know the detail of their approach.   And don't you ever forget for one second, Elon musk is a business man, not a scientist.

Nevertheless this is an R & D effort. The recovery and refurbishment of the liquid propellant first stage of a launch vehicle has never been done before. They've chosen their approach and they're going to test it. This is perfectly logical and correct. Their first attempts at recovery (some thermal insulation and parachutes) failed so they've changed tack. You can see from the discussions on this thread that it is not a given that this new approach will succeed. It might fail technically, or it might work technically but not be economical. I think they've set themselves quite a challenge. That's what I meant when I said I thought it would be some time before they will have something to bring something to market.

[charliem]

I think they will test boost-back and power landing in an incremental way.

For example once F9v1.1 is operational a first test could aim to try restart the engines after staging to shed some speed, and see if the first stage is then able to fall and reach the ocean surface in one piece.

A second test could be boost-back near the launch area and splash-landing there, etc.

If that's the case we'd see first results as early as next year.

[MP99]

I think they will test boost-back and power landing in an incremental way.

For example once F9v1.1 is operational a first test could aim to try restart the engines after staging to shed some speed, and see if the first stage is then able to fall and reach the ocean surface in one piece.

A second test could be boost-back near the launch area and splash-landing there, etc.

If that's the case we'd see first results as early as next year.

I have been thinking those same baby steps towards land landing.

I was thinking later for a first demo, but I guess this would just need bigger versions of the V1.0 parachutes, an early MECO and M1D restart.

However, ISTM the first few v1.1s are more likely to max their chances of mission success by keeping the all-up mass down, and not attempt any sort of futzing with recovery - maybe a brief M1D restart but without the full-length braking burn. Was gonna suggest they might leave the dracos off, too, but suspect they may be required to orientate the stage for a restart.

cheers, Martin

[meekGee]

Do you remember how the F9F2 first stage was tumbled intentionally?  (in comparison with F9F1).

Notice that we didn't get the comparable F9F3 footage of the first stage falling away.  Any ideas why?  Surely the camera is still there for engineering reasons, and "first stage falling away" is always a pretty shot.

Is there anything to be learned from the impact point of the first stage debris of all three flights?  (Are these known?)

Personally, I'm really curious to see a) if they need a top-side RCS, and b) if they can throttle down the center engine to land gently.

[Lars_J]

Notice that we didn't get the comparable F9F3 footage of the first stage falling away.  Any ideas why? 

Night launch, remember?

[meekGee]

Conspiracy buster! 

[douglas100]

I think they will test boost-back and power landing in an incremental way.

If that's the case we'd see first results as early as next year.

Absolutely. That's the sensible way to go about it. As for results, I don't like making predictions. Remember that this effort, while important to them, is not top priority. Getting a reliable launch service up and running with regular Dragon flights to ISS is the number one consideration.

[oiorionsbelt]

I think they will test boost-back and power landing in an incremental way.

If that's the case we'd see first results as early as next year.

Absolutely. That's the sensible way to go about it. As for results, I don't like making predictions. Remember that this effort, while important to them, is not top priority. Getting a reliable launch service up and running with regular Dragon flights to ISS is the number one consideration.

While I agree that reliable launches to the ISS is a top priority for SpaceX, I also think that the whole company is not involved in this effort. I would guess there are parts of SpaceX who's main goals are not related to ISS resupply, but rather research and development.

[MP99]

Absolutely. That's the sensible way to go about it. As for results, I don't like making predictions. Remember that this effort, while important to them, is not top priority. Getting a reliable launch service up and running with regular Dragon flights to ISS is the number one consideration.

While I agree that reliable launches to the ISS is a top priority for SpaceX, I also think that the whole company is not involved in this effort. I would guess there are parts of SpaceX who's main goals are not related to ISS resupply, but rather research and development.

Elon runs SpaceX, and ISTM no-one else's goals matter.

cheers, Martin

[cordor]

I never understood the point of quickly reeusable. CHEAPLY reuseable seems more important.

If I had to spend 3 months refurbishing but only spent 5% of the cost of a stage that is a sweet deal!

Need more flights? Then build more rockets! Have 10 rockets in the refurbishing pipe and you can launch every 10 days. It isn't like they'll have only the one rocket. And their factories are scaled to produce plenty anyways.

The time element once you have a fleet of rockets costs you almost NOTHING.

How could "3 months refurbishing" cheaper than no reburbishing?

[cordor]

Obviously it is likely that time = money in many cases. But this isn't always true. Landing location could be one of those cases. Landing back on the pad could save time at a great financial cost.

In any case, the goal needs to be low cost per pound. That should be ALMOST the only goal of the company. Beyond being able to ship useful volume/weights, $/lb to leo is the only thing that needs to be focused on.

If that happens to result in high turn around. Then so be it.

Rocket can take advantage of the forward motion, and land on launch pad locate on the other side of the world.  Maybe a sea platform in indian ocean. From there they deploy local customer's payload and launch it again. Now it's heading to pacific.

[douglas100]

Rocket can take advantage of the forward motion, and land on launch pad locate on the other side of the world.  Maybe a sea platform in indian ocean. From there they deploy local customer's payload and launch it again. Now it's heading to pacific.

First of all, a recoverable first stage doesn't go "halfway round the world." A typical first stage doesn't go fast enough for that.

There are no "local" customers in the sense you describe. A customer chooses the launch vehicle and launch site depending on various factors, cost and reliability being two of the main ones. Political considerations aside, location is way down the list. The cost of sending the payload to a launch site even halfway round the world from the manufacturer is trivial compared with the other costs connected with processing and launch.