Quote from: yg1968 on 04/22/2014 11:56 pmYes and I think that Chris does a good job of emphasizing that in his article.I didn't mean to imply otherwise.. but some people seem to think that SpaceX are just a few years away from flying daily, or something.
Yes and I think that Chris does a good job of emphasizing that in his article.
Quote from: aero on 04/22/2014 07:19 pm300,000 feet altitude - how close is that to being in space?The Karman line is 100 km, or 328,083.99 feet.
300,000 feet altitude - how close is that to being in space?
Remember that even for relatively low flight rates they want to have a fairly short checklist of things to do before re-using a core.
Sorry if this is obvious - but at what altitude did the first stage separate on the CRS-3 mission?
T plus 2 minutes, 30 seconds, vehicle 63 km altitude, 1.8 km/s, downrange distance 55 km.Stage separation happened about 10 seconds later.
Yeah flying daily is far off, in the mean time...F9R flights from Texas and New Mexico, abort tests, and orbital launches, trying to get the 1st stage back, building a human rated spacecraft that lands vertically, getting ready to debut F9H, working on a new Methane engine, planing to go to Mars and I probably left somethings out.
Quote from: QuantumG on 04/23/2014 01:49 amT plus 2 minutes, 30 seconds, vehicle 63 km altitude, 1.8 km/s, downrange distance 55 km.Stage separation happened about 10 seconds later.Thanks. So a bit below the altitude limit for the dev rocket. Good stuff.
If it's no miracle then why have they had so many range problems to-date? I think there's learning curve to building a rapid launch range that is just as steep as learning to fly the vehicle rapidly. This thing they do where they fly half the team from California to Florida every launch has gotta stop, for a start.
My question is how the range authorities and the FAA are going to handle a rocket coming back to the pad or near the pad. We have almost 60 years of regulations and experience launching expendable rockets. How are they going to handle reusable rockets?
I think it is possible that you are confusing real "business process" range problems that any commercial company might have at any range facing commercial incentives with the inertia of government processes that tend to get locked in by path dependence on historical antecedents, and even if the history was not deep and baked-in, any government-run range is facing the inevitable public choice logic from generally risk-averse public workers.
Only when that is better understood, will SpaceX be able to turn the crank and improve the process, step by step, to get faster turnaround, whether at the new SpaceX private launch site, or at any of their three existing facilities leased from the government.
My question is how the range authorities and the FAA are going to handle a rocket coming back to the pad or near the pad.
I speculate that SpaceX will do something else never done before: implement a system to send control commands to the stage. I expect that the stage will autonomously target a return to a spot just off-shore, and then if all goes well and only on command it will divert to touch down on land.
Quote from: DarkenedOne on 04/23/2014 01:18 amMy question is how the range authorities and the FAA are going to handle a rocket coming back to the pad or near the pad. We have almost 60 years of regulations and experience launching expendable rockets. How are they going to handle reusable rockets? With great difficulty.The folks that matter on the range side of things are government workers who face a very different set of incentives than workers in typical private companies, especially in the tech sector. No one in government gets fired for being slow and methodical about changing the seemingly hard-coded logic of "that's how we do it here." The reverse is not true. Given that set of incentives, the modfications will be challenging.
One burning question for me though: how close did it come to the intended touchdown point?
“We’re going to keep doing tests at McGregor with the F9-R Dev 1 and F9-R Dev 2 will be at Spaceport America. Anything we can test at a relatively low altitude – below around 10,000 feet – will continue to be tested at McGregor,” noted Mr. Musk.Z11“The high altitude stuff – where it’s going atmospheric, 300,000 feet plus – will be tested in New Mexico as we need a much bigger clear area.”
“This year we’ll be able to recover a rocket booster, but I’m not sure we’ll be able to refly it this year,” Mr. Musk continued.“That is likely next year. That’ll complete the picture as far as the booster stage is concerned.”
Quote from: Llian Rhydderch on 04/22/2014 07:56 pmThat is an excellent article, Chris. Really covers the SpaceX reusability waterfront, with both the Grasshopper and F9R prototype vehicle tests, and also the controlled-descent high-altitude tests that are occurring after some of the F9v1.1 operational missions. The historical background was useful context as well.Thanks! A lot of work involved with this one, so that comment really made it worthwhile!
That is an excellent article, Chris. Really covers the SpaceX reusability waterfront, with both the Grasshopper and F9R prototype vehicle tests, and also the controlled-descent high-altitude tests that are occurring after some of the F9v1.1 operational missions. The historical background was useful context as well.
Quote from: Llian Rhydderch on 04/23/2014 04:28 amQuote from: DarkenedOne on 04/23/2014 01:18 amMy question is how the range authorities and the FAA are going to handle a rocket coming back to the pad or near the pad. We have almost 60 years of regulations and experience launching expendable rockets. How are they going to handle reusable rockets? With great difficulty.The folks that matter on the range side of things are government workers who face a very different set of incentives than workers in typical private companies, especially in the tech sector. No one in government gets fired for being slow and methodical about changing the seemingly hard-coded logic of "that's how we do it here." The reverse is not true. Given that set of incentives, the modfications will be challenging.Must we make these assumptions about the FAA, the people that work there and their motivations? Do we have any evidence that the FAA will be an issue, or even relevant for boost back to KSC?