Quote from: matthewkantar on 01/01/2016 06:09 pmThey are definitely going to need more robust coatings for short turnarounds. MatthewWhy? Do you have any solid evidence that the coating as-is right now make flight impossible for that stage?
They are definitely going to need more robust coatings for short turnarounds. Matthew
The top defect on the interstage looks like paint bubbling off of plain old rust. Surely that can't be right. Maybe some flexing? Aero forces?The overall impression is of a vehicle that has endured hard use in a brutal flight regime. We saw what it did to Shuttle and the SRBs but this is the first time anyone has had the opportunity to examine a used, intact first stage booster.
Quote from: realtime on 01/01/2016 01:03 amThe top defect on the interstage looks like paint bubbling off of plain old rust. Surely that can't be right. Maybe some flexing? Aero forces?The overall impression is of a vehicle that has endured hard use in a brutal flight regime. We saw what it did to Shuttle and the SRBs but this is the first time anyone has had the opportunity to examine a used, intact first stage booster.The interstage is composite material, so no rust (hopefully).I'm not sure what you see that indicates hard use in a brutal flight regime. Looks mostly like soot to me... let's call it post-flight patina.
Quote from: Earendil on 01/01/2016 08:50 amQuote from: Darkseraph on 01/01/2016 06:26 am....The fact they said there was no damage was a bit astonishing. Could they have done such a thorough analysis of all the structures and internal parts in just under two weeks?Well, they did say it is OK to be "fired" again. Not "launched". I can see them checking the parts of the engines subject to wear in two weeks since they are so familiar with them and have fired and tested engines many times.However readiness for flight is quite different and not mentioned yet. Full structural testing and/or disassembly should be needed which we all doubt can be done in such short time.The whole and entire point of the SpaceX Falcon architecture is to be able to launch these rockets over and over again without requiring a full teardown of the stage and its engines. "Gas and go" is the goal for this architecture.It's long been recognized that the need to do such a teardown of the RS-25's after each Shuttle flight guaranteed that STS would never be a low-cost reusable system. Musk took that as a Lesson Learned. This system is not designed to require the kind of disassembly you suggest.
Quote from: Darkseraph on 01/01/2016 06:26 am....The fact they said there was no damage was a bit astonishing. Could they have done such a thorough analysis of all the structures and internal parts in just under two weeks?Well, they did say it is OK to be "fired" again. Not "launched". I can see them checking the parts of the engines subject to wear in two weeks since they are so familiar with them and have fired and tested engines many times.However readiness for flight is quite different and not mentioned yet. Full structural testing and/or disassembly should be needed which we all doubt can be done in such short time.
....The fact they said there was no damage was a bit astonishing. Could they have done such a thorough analysis of all the structures and internal parts in just under two weeks?
Multiple engine firing could be and was tested on the ground many times, so I guess they have pretty good idea what to expect from the engines after 20 or even 40 firings..
There's a lot of rocket that isn't in the picture, wonder how it looks?
Gas 'n' go is the end goal. To reach that, a lot of returned cores are going to get a CSI:McGregor treatment in the hands of their creator. The data obtained will serve to provide the next iterations in the Falcon architecture. The first news coming from SX are positive. Saying that the stage looks good enough to fire statically means that they have plugged it in to check the electronics, the telemetry and the health of many components. It also means that they are confident enough with the structure and the engines to go for a static fire. From what we understand, this stage will not be disassembled before it is fired again. It will stay at the Cape until that happens.
Quote from: Dante80 on 01/02/2016 02:39 pmGas 'n' go is the end goal. To reach that, a lot of returned cores are going to get a CSI:McGregor treatment in the hands of their creator. The data obtained will serve to provide the next iterations in the Falcon architecture. The first news coming from SX are positive. Saying that the stage looks good enough to fire statically means that they have plugged it in to check the electronics, the telemetry and the health of many components. It also means that they are confident enough with the structure and the engines to go for a static fire. From what we understand, this stage will not be disassembled before it is fired again. It will stay at the Cape until that happens.Gas n' go is a long term goal, which is very unlikely to be achieved with F9R generation rockets.Gas n' go is of very limited use without 2nd stage reuse.There isn't much of a scenario where there are enough launches to use the 2 Florida pads even for one launch every week each. And then there's the nagging problem of monopolizing the range while ULA needs to do their launches too.That's 12 launches in just 6 weeks.But if you want to obsess, continue obsessing... Sorry to bring some realism to the discussion. Can't help it.The first huge barrier is eliminating static fires at least for re launches. Actually the barrier is eliminating human review of static fire data. If everything could be computer analysed, perhaps the static fire could be done just before the launch.
Gas n' go is a long term goal, which is very unlikely to be achieved with F9R generation rockets.Gas n' go is of very limited use without 2nd stage reuse.There isn't much of a scenario where there are enough launches to use the 2 Florida pads even for one launch every week each. And then there's the nagging problem of monopolizing the range while ULA needs to do their launches too.That's 12 launches in just 6 weeks.But if you want to obsess, continue obsessing... Sorry to bring some realism to the discussion. Can't help it.The first huge barrier is eliminating static fires at least for re launches. Actually the barrier is eliminating human review of static fire data. If everything could be computer analysed, perhaps the static fire could be done just before the launch.
If it's the hold-down scenario, then you miss the launch window. If it's a static fire, then no problem.So the key here is to turn-around after the static fire in a matter of hours/minutes, not days.
Quote from: meekGee on 01/03/2016 05:11 amIf it's the hold-down scenario, then you miss the launch window. If it's a static fire, then no problem.So the key here is to turn-around after the static fire in a matter of hours/minutes, not days.If they are better than 80% confident it will launch they can chance the hold down. That would not come immediately but may well come sooner than expected. They may chose a separate static fire for interplanetary probes and flights to the ISS where a lot is involved in delays.
I'll put it differently...As long as it takes 3 days to recover from a static fire, the impediment to one day turn-around is not the existence of the static fire, but the fact that even from a lowly static fire you still need 3 days...And conversely, if the rocket can be fully turned around in a day, then surely it can do static fires almost at will...