What if the “bouncy castle” is just down on the deck and the line running across between the arms are meant to snag the parachute lines and then they drop tension on the lines and drop the fairing quickly onto the bouncy castle. That way the first line is out of the way when the second fairing half comes in and they repeat the process.
@NASASpaceflight Pics of Mr. Steven taken on the 24th by me, feel free to use em where ever ~6 hours after arrival into port, there were some workers around, but no fairing to be seen.
I don't think anyone has run the numbers, you could give it a try and see what might be reasonable.
Personally I doubt they would do a high altitude opening...
Quote from: Johnnyhinbos on 12/29/2017 02:30 pmPersonally I doubt they would do a high altitude opening... Me too but I was trying to find an upper boundary for possible time between fairings, what would you suggest? 5 mins?
This thread asked what the specific heat of PICA-X was, I don't think an answer was ever found.https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=36039.0I would suspect it was rather high but?( High specific heat means more heat energy is needed per unit mass to raise the temperature of a material by one degree so it makes a better defense against heat energy. If the thermal conductivity is low that's a good thing too (while defending). This is a place where low density kind of works against you on heating up, but for you on cooling down again. Same with thermal conductivity... low works for you on heating and against you on cooling)
My money is on them eventually having 2 boats out there. Just catching 1 fairing half during the test phase then setting up a second ship when they go into normal recovery operations. KISS principle at work
Quote from: Steve D on 12/30/2017 01:31 amMy money is on them eventually having 2 boats out there. Just catching 1 fairing half during the test phase then setting up a second ship when they go into normal recovery operations. KISS principle at workTwo boats seems the pragmatic approach. I'm not sure I'd want to bet $5 million on everything going right without any glitches. (Or would that be $2.5 million, since you'd only have to wave goodbye to the second half?)If I were trying to find ways to make things more efficient, the first thing I'd have to wonder is whether I can consolidate something *other* than fairing catching. Can I, perhaps, get a fairing catcher that can also tow an ASDS into position? Saves me the same number of boats, but doesn't require perfect timing. (Not saying a fairing catcher can be a ASDS towing craft, but you get the general idea.)
Quote from: ClayJar on 12/30/2017 03:22 amQuote from: Steve D on 12/30/2017 01:31 amMy money is on them eventually having 2 boats out there. Just catching 1 fairing half during the test phase then setting up a second ship when they go into normal recovery operations. KISS principle at workTwo boats seems the pragmatic approach. I'm not sure I'd want to bet $5 million on everything going right without any glitches. (Or would that be $2.5 million, since you'd only have to wave goodbye to the second half?)If I were trying to find ways to make things more efficient, the first thing I'd have to wonder is whether I can consolidate something *other* than fairing catching. Can I, perhaps, get a fairing catcher that can also tow an ASDS into position? Saves me the same number of boats, but doesn't require perfect timing. (Not saying a fairing catcher can be a ASDS towing craft, but you get the general idea.)It may be wrong that both fairing halves are equally valued. The active half may be worth significantly more. IMO, the best argument for investing the effort to catch the fairings at all is that it saves the large capital expenditures needed to make a whole lot more fairings, and thereby enables SpaceX's goal of a much higher flight rate. Catching just 1 could be enough to meet their short term needs and so we won't see anything else until they start getting closer to their limiting rate.