Author Topic: SpaceX Falcon 9 : Iridium NEXT Flight 4 : December 22/23, 2017 : Discussion  (Read 151159 times)

Was there a payload fairing recovery attempt? If so, any results?

Probably since Mr Steven moved in the area, but it seems we'll have to wait for her to return to see whether they've succeeded or not.

Offline speedevil

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I think it is possible to take a flown stage and make it into a mule, including adding bottom mounted RCS, to do these kinds of tests. However I don't think it's necessarily cost effective. I also don't think we'd ever see it on a customer flight.

...I expect the first mules will be Raptor engined. Which means off topic for here.

They have said it doesn't have enough control authority, which presumably is true for the assumptions made, and no on-vehicle mods.

Several things might in principle be done to make those assumptions not hold with limited investment.
A) Much, much better wind prediction for landing winds.
    Taking the mispredicted worst case error from winds from 10m/s over the last 4 seconds to 0.5m/s. Feeding a local instantaneous wind model from high power LASER based doppler radar for studying wind flow out to ~200m, a swarm of drones at 200m radius, or even something as simple as a field of anemometers.
B) Non-fixed cradle
   This might vary from at the high end something able to dynamically control orientation and position of the cradle to catch and slow the caught stage to rest. Or, rather more simply, to accelerate at Tesla truck type speeds, tracking the predicted optimal impact point, then clamp to the deck after braking rapidly.

B) is clearly (probably) useless for a BFR with properly sized control thrusters.

However, A) might be moderately useful for BFR, and perhaps even more useful in the near-term for fairing recovery.
Might even be useful for the rather sillier idea of catching S2 in a net.

Offline dcporter

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Apologies, morning confident that this has been discussed but it will have been back ?? pages: what happened to booster recovery this mission?

This booster was not recovered, hence no booster recovery thread.

Yes right sorry, I was asking why there was no booster recovery, not why there was no thread.

Offline hkultala

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Apologies, morning confident that this has been discussed but it will have been back ?? pages: what happened to booster recovery this mission?

This booster was not recovered, hence no booster recovery thread.

So, who is the first to recover some parts of it with a submarine?

The chinese, to py on spacx tech?


Offline FutureSpaceTourist

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Quote
I think last night might have been the biggest Rorschach test ever

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/944700127100497920

Quote
Having a sinking feeling that most people actually do think it was aliens …

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/944779560104574977

Quote
So strange that people often believe things inversely proportionate to the evidence. Given a set of possible explanations, why pick the extremely unlikely one!?

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/944787213430034432
« Last Edit: 12/24/2017 06:05 am by FutureSpaceTourist »

Apologies, morning confident that this has been discussed but it will have been back ?? pages: what happened to booster recovery this mission?

This booster was not recovered, hence no booster recovery thread.

Yes right sorry, I was asking why there was no booster recovery, not why there was no thread.

Seems like Block 3s are starting to be phased out in favor of Block 4 and soon Block5 cores.
« Last Edit: 12/24/2017 10:52 am by tvg98 »



So I was wondering whether there were accidents caused by people being distracted with the launch, and sure enough it happened.

PS: Some strong language's present

Offline cambrianera

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Apologies, morning confident that this has been discussed but it will have been back ?? pages: what happened to booster recovery this mission?

This booster was not recovered, hence no booster recovery thread.

Yes right sorry, I was asking why there was no booster recovery, not why there was no thread.

Maybe they had no set of legs available.
Three sets are matched to the FH boosters, one set is on Zuma.
The legs are ligth, but not cheap.
Oh to be young again. . .

Offline Herb Schaltegger

Apologies, morning confident that this has been discussed but it will have been back ?? pages: what happened to booster recovery this mission?

This booster was not recovered, hence no booster recovery thread.

Yes right sorry, I was asking why there was no booster recovery, not why there was no thread.

Maybe they had no set of legs available.
Three sets are matched to the FH boosters, one set is on Zuma.
The legs are ligth, but not cheap.
This booster was previously-recovered. There's not a shortage of legs.

And there's some insight on L2 about why the booster wasn't recovered and lack of legs wasn't the reason.
Ad astra per aspirin ...

Offline Skylab

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Mr. Steven, reportedly charged with capturing a fairing has been in port for some time now. Hope we get to see some results soon!

Offline Oersted

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So I was wondering whether there were accidents caused by people being distracted with the launch, and sure enough it happened.

PS: Some strong language's present

The US is finally catching up to Russia when it comes to dashcam excitement!

Offline Nomadd

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So I was wondering whether there were accidents caused by people being distracted with the launch, and sure enough it happened.

PS: Some strong language's present

The US is finally catching up to Russia when it comes to dashcam excitement!
It kind of looks like we're returning fire for Chelyabinsk.
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who couldn't hear the music.

Offline Stan Black

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In this age of recycle and environment considerations, and Blue Planet II, I find dumping a rocket that can be recovered leaving me conflicted.

OTOH think of all the diesel they saved by not steaming out there with an ASDS...
But yeah I kind of agree with you. Single-use launch vehicles are starting to look like how we used to do this...
In a strange way, the idea of dumping a reused booster actually validates the economics of reuse.

Recalling the days when people said "They'll never be able to recover them" which quickly turned into "They can recover them, but they won't be able to refly them." Now, they're so successful at recovery that they can actually make a business decision about expending a booster after one reflight.

Those kinds of economic profit-and-loss decisions are what you'd expect if reuse was actually about profitability and not just one charismatic rich guy's obsession.

Should the rocket be dumped in the sea or recovered then scrapped?
« Last Edit: 12/24/2017 02:48 pm by Stan Black »

Offline sevenperforce

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In a strange way, the idea of dumping a reused booster actually validates the economics of reuse.

Recalling the days when people said "They'll never be able to recover them" which quickly turned into "They can recover them, but they won't be able to refly them." Now, they're so successful at recovery that they can actually make a business decision about expending a booster after one reflight.

Those kinds of economic profit-and-loss decisions are what you'd expect if reuse was actually about profitability and not just one charismatic rich guy's obsession.

Should the rocket be dumped in the sea or recovered then scrapped?
Exactly.

Offline hootowls

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In this age of recycle and environment considerations, and Blue Planet II, I find dumping a rocket that can be recovered leaving me conflicted.

OTOH think of all the diesel they saved by not steaming out there with an ASDS...
But yeah I kind of agree with you. Single-use launch vehicles are starting to look like how we used to do this...
In a strange way, the idea of dumping a reused booster actually validates the economics of reuse.

Recalling the days when people said "They'll never be able to recover them" which quickly turned into "They can recover them, but they won't be able to refly them." Now, they're so successful at recovery that they can actually make a business decision about expending a booster after one reflight.

Those kinds of economic profit-and-loss decisions are what you'd expect if reuse was actually about profitability and not just one charismatic rich guy's obsession.

Should the rocket be dumped in the sea or recovered then scrapped?

(Non reflight booster) Dumped unless someone pays for recovery. ASDS deployment itself (excluding the rest of the booster handling) is not inexpensive. And there’s the risk of damage to the ASDS that might impact the schedule of a needed recovery.

Offline TorenAltair

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Imho, not everything is about money or costs but of changing attitude in general to the Earth system (ecosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere etc.). We're basically killing only ourselves, Earth will harbor life long time after we'll be vanished. Just my opinion.

Offline HVM

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And Scott get, -yet again, basic stuff wrong, not even put timing of the staging right. Also irregular part of the second stage's plume is due the first stage's short boostback burn. Blah.

Ah, sorry I'm just grumpy, and both of the TMRO and Scott's Tube annoy me for some reason. I should like all space related stuff in YouTube (there not so many space related channel in there) but no.
« Last Edit: 12/25/2017 07:58 am by HVM »

Offline catdlr

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And Scott get, -yet again, basic stuff wrong, not even put timing of the staging right. Also irregular part of the second stage's plume is due the first stage's short boostback burn. Blah.

Sorry, that will be my last post from him.  Thanks for the critique HMV.  Post deleted.
« Last Edit: 12/25/2017 07:28 am by catdlr »
Tony De La Rosa, ...I'm no Feline Dealer!! I move mountains.  but I'm better known for "I think it's highly sexual." Japanese to English Translation.

Offline HVM

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So now that feel guilty, here is Scott Manley's vid.


Everyday Astronaut's

Offline Llian Rhydderch

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I don't think the "Should ..." question is really for us. 

Normative questions like that are best left for the private entity that made the thing, owns the thing, and can consider all of the costs associated with the recover/DontRecover decision.

SpaceX made the decision, for quite likely a complex set of many things that made up their rationale, including that it was apparently a block 3 booster, ...

They own the rocket, and incur the costs of recovery.  They get to decide. 

In this age of recycle and environment considerations, and Blue Planet II, I find dumping a rocket that can be recovered leaving me conflicted.

OTOH think of all the diesel they saved by not steaming out there with an ASDS...
But yeah I kind of agree with you. Single-use launch vehicles are starting to look like how we used to do this...
In a strange way, the idea of dumping a reused booster actually validates the economics of reuse.

Recalling the days when people said "They'll never be able to recover them" which quickly turned into "They can recover them, but they won't be able to refly them." Now, they're so successful at recovery that they can actually make a business decision about expending a booster after one reflight.

Those kinds of economic profit-and-loss decisions are what you'd expect if reuse was actually about profitability and not just one charismatic rich guy's obsession.

Should the rocket be dumped in the sea or recovered then scrapped?
Re arguments from authority on NSF:  "no one is exempt from error, and errors of authority are usually the worst kind.  Taking your word for things without question is no different than a bracket design not being tested because the designer was an old hand."
"You would actually save yourself time and effort if you were to use evidence and logic to make your points instead of wrapping yourself in the royal mantle of authority.  The approach only works on sheep, not inquisitive, intelligent people."

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