Quote from: wannamoonbase on 07/13/2017 07:34 pmEdit: Also, where is it going to housed and deployed from, I can envision several places to store it and have it expand from. The most water proof, to me, would be on the exterior of the fairing, before expanding and enveloping the fairing.Isn't the Bouncy Castle deployed on surface and the parafoil "flies" the fairing into it?
Edit: Also, where is it going to housed and deployed from, I can envision several places to store it and have it expand from. The most water proof, to me, would be on the exterior of the fairing, before expanding and enveloping the fairing.
Quote from: AC in NC on 07/14/2017 12:30 amQuote from: wannamoonbase on 07/13/2017 07:34 pmEdit: Also, where is it going to housed and deployed from, I can envision several places to store it and have it expand from. The most water proof, to me, would be on the exterior of the fairing, before expanding and enveloping the fairing.Isn't the Bouncy Castle deployed on surface and the parafoil "flies" the fairing into it?There seemed to be people with information who suggested it was carried with the fairing. I can't recall the source, though. A case could be made for either option.
There seemed to be people with information who suggested it was carried with the fairing. I can't recall the source, though. A case could be made for either option.
To me what makes the most sense is to use guidance and steerable chutes which BTW can be low weight and have a chase ship with the bouncy castle on it and guide the ship for the catch at the landing.
I think Elon's use of the term "bouncy castle" implies that the castle will be on the ocean in some form. If it were to be carried with the fairing, he would have used something like "air bags" or whatever the term was for spirit+opportunity's landing balloons.
A steerable chute system requires guidance, positioning and a lot of control authority. This is all a lot of mass...
The Dragonfly is one of the two 10Klb-capable systems developed by the US Army NSC JPADS ACTD. TheDragonfly team is a collaborative effort between Para-Flite Inc., developer of the decelerator system, Wamore Inc.as the developer of the AGU, Robotek Engineering, providing the avionics suite, and Charles Stark DraperLaboratory leading the GN&C software development. The program began in fiscal year 2003 and fully integratedsystem flight tests commenced in the first quarter of fiscal year 2004....The AGU connects to the parafoil risers and is suspended between the parafoil and the payload. The AGUcurrently weights approximately 175-lb. The design has proven extremely rugged and robust through flight test. As with the parafoil design, great attention has been paid to minimization of unit cost. The AGU and its avionics suite rely heavily on the effective integration of commercial-off-the-shelf components. Primary system electromechanical subcomponents include: a pair of 1.5 hp brushed servomotors, motor controller, 68:1 gear reducers, 900Mhz RF modem (as test equipment), microprocessor, dual-channel GPS, and three 12VDC sealed lead acid batteries. Two batteries provide 24VDC to the actuators, while the third battery provides power to the avionics.
I'd like to remind everyone that Bob Truax was planning to use inflated mats on a barge to recover one of his sea-launched rockets. I believe it was the Excalibur version, sometime in the late 1980s. So the idea isn't new to SpaceX.
Does anyone know of any updates from the last two launches? Its all gone quiet, which could be taken as somewhat worrying.
...(I note that the recovery vessel for the last flight has winching gear and a large canvas tent on deck, hinting they have something they want hidden.)
Quote from: faramund on 08/29/2017 09:55 pmDoes anyone know of any updates from the last two launches? Its all gone quiet, which could be taken as somewhat worrying.Alternatively, they're quite close to - or at least can see a path to - success and don't want to give competitors any insight into what the problems and potential solutions are. After all, you can implement fairing recovery even on an expendable booster. (I note that the recovery vessel for the last flight has winching gear and a large canvas tent on deck, hinting they have something they want hidden.)
Quote from: CuddlyRocket on 08/30/2017 02:46 amQuote from: faramund on 08/29/2017 09:55 pmDoes anyone know of any updates from the last two launches? Its all gone quiet, which could be taken as somewhat worrying.Alternatively, they're quite close to - or at least can see a path to - success and don't want to give competitors any insight into what the problems and potential solutions are. After all, you can implement fairing recovery even on an expendable booster. (I note that the recovery vessel for the last flight has winching gear and a large canvas tent on deck, hinting they have something they want hidden.)Thinking about it not really. Fairing sep occurs so far down range you need a ship (maybe a plane) out there already to collect it. But you won't have one out there unless you've got something else (like a stage) to recover already. So having the infrastructure in place to do stage recovery may be the only way to afford to do cost effective fairing recovery. At a minimum of $5m a pop a few reuses could lop a significant (for SX) chunk off their bottom line costs.
Quote from: john smith 19Thinking about it not really. Fairing sep occurs so far down range you need a ship (maybe a plane) out there already to collect it. But you won't have one out there unless you've got something else (like a stage) to recover already. So having the infrastructure in place to do stage recovery may be the only way to afford to do cost effective fairing recovery. At a minimum of $5m a pop a few reuses could lop a significant (for SX) chunk off their bottom line costs.I wouldn't say that it's only financially viable if you already have a ship in the area. A decent sized ship might cost you $15k/day and you'd need to use a lot of days before you even start to make a dent in the $5M worth of hardware that the boat just caught.
Thinking about it not really. Fairing sep occurs so far down range you need a ship (maybe a plane) out there already to collect it. But you won't have one out there unless you've got something else (like a stage) to recover already. So having the infrastructure in place to do stage recovery may be the only way to afford to do cost effective fairing recovery. At a minimum of $5m a pop a few reuses could lop a significant (for SX) chunk off their bottom line costs.