Author Topic: Fairing reuse  (Read 974388 times)

Offline Lars-J

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #980 on: 07/14/2017 01:33 am »
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.

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.

Offline Norm38

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #981 on: 07/14/2017 02:30 am »
A steerable chute system requires guidance, positioning and a lot of control authority. This is all a lot of mass. It may trade better to simply let the fairings land where they may with a drogue and cushion the impact.
But they can only land on the ocean if they aren't steered towards a ship. Do they need airbags if landing in water? If they do land on a ship, what possible benefit is there of them carrying the airbags?

Offline wannamoonbase

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #982 on: 07/14/2017 03:24 am »
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.

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.

Ditto, that's why I asked.

If the Bouncy Castle isn't carried with the fairing then I think it's a pretty safe assumption that the goal would be to prevent the fairing from contacting the water.  So how would it be positioned so accurately for the landing and given anything but calm seas it would have to deploy moments before splash down.

That's why I thought deploying from on board the fairing makes sense.
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Offline rsdavis9

Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #983 on: 07/14/2017 12:13 pm »


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.

I think it was a comment from Gwynn. She said something that could be interpreted either way.

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.
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Offline Kabloona

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #984 on: 07/14/2017 09:55 pm »
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.

Yes, because if the fairing carries its own bouncy castle, there's no need for high accuracy in the chute steering (because it wouldn't need to hit a fixed target), which seems to be the long pole in the tent at the moment.

And having the ship carry the bouncy castle means the castle can be quite large/heavy, which isn't the case if the fairing is carrying it.

Online Space OurSoul

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #985 on: 07/15/2017 12:00 am »
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.
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Offline HMXHMX

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #986 on: 07/16/2017 01:47 am »
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.


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.

Offline savuporo

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #987 on: 07/16/2017 02:07 am »
A steerable chute system requires guidance, positioning and a lot of control authority. This is all a lot of mass...

From an (old) description of DragonFly JPADS-10K system. Note lead acid batteries ... Fairing halves would probably require JPADS-30K equivalent.

Quote
The Dragonfly is one of the two 10Klb-capable systems developed by the US Army NSC JPADS ACTD. The
Dragonfly 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 Draper
Laboratory leading the GN&C software development. The program began in fiscal year 2003 and fully integrated
system 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 AGU
currently 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.

Source:
NPS.edu pdf

EDIT: add DragonFly spec .. which is just one of a few operational JPADS systems
http://airborne-sys.com/product/dragonfly-army-cargo-delivery-parachute/

« Last Edit: 08/29/2017 07:10 pm by Lar »
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Offline john smith 19

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #988 on: 08/29/2017 06:40 pm »
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.
A good reminder that there are very few new ideas in this field, although wheather or not SX knew of that when Musk mentioned it is another matter.   :(

It's impressive how small the control package on a modern parafoil can be to (150lb to control a load of 10 000 lb)

In hindsight fairing reuse is one of those ideas that's an obvious way to lower reuse costs, but has not been attended to because of the bigger payoffs of (say) upper stage reuse, despite their exponentially more difficult complexity.

It's been quite astonishing to me how fast this process has come together once the decision was made to pursue it.

That said I'm not sure it would have been possible without the "enabling technology" of a recovery barge on station to land the first stage on.

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Offline faramund

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #989 on: 08/29/2017 09:55 pm »
Does anyone know of any updates from the last two launches? Its all gone quiet, which could be taken as somewhat worrying.

Offline CuddlyRocket

Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #990 on: 08/30/2017 02:46 am »
Does 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.)

Offline old_sellsword

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #991 on: 08/30/2017 03:34 am »
...(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.)

If you're referencing the large white tent and A-frame on the back of NRC Quest, those have nothing to do with fairing recovery. They're for working on recently recovered Dragons before they get back to port.

Offline john smith 19

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #992 on: 08/30/2017 06:22 am »
Does 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.
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Offline kaiser

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #993 on: 09/08/2017 04:18 pm »
Does 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.

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.

Offline john smith 19

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #994 on: 09/09/2017 07:38 pm »
Quote from: john smith 19
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.

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.
The money does mount up. A 10 day voyage (3 day out, 3 day back, 4 days on site for scrubs) is $150K, before refurb and reassembly costs). As always launching at the first opportunity is better.
It's a fair point, but you've got to have a company that's motivated to want to save those bottom line costs to begin with.
AFAIK fairing recovery could have been attempted by any LV mfg since the late 1960's, if they cared enough about launch costs to do so.  :(
« Last Edit: 09/10/2017 12:05 am by john smith 19 »
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Offline wannamoonbase

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #995 on: 10/13/2017 04:53 pm »
Bump

We've had a few missions lately and a bold statement from Gwen on fairing reuse next year.

Any new information on development or experimental recovery?
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Offline Azular

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #996 on: 10/14/2017 03:23 am »
At the ISS Research & Development Conference 2017 on July 19 during 'An Innovation Discussion with Elon Musk'

Elon Musk ... "I think weve got a decent shot of recovering the fairing by the end of the year and possibily reflight by either late this year or early next"



 :)

Edit: Okay, time marker didn't seem to work, look at about 7:26 into the recording
« Last Edit: 10/14/2017 03:42 am by Azular »
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Offline SmallKing

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #997 on: 10/15/2017 04:43 am »
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Offline ChrisC

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #998 on: 10/31/2017 02:22 am »
During the KoreaSat countdown coverage, the host started to say that the "fairing boat" was in position for recovery, but corrected himself to refer to the "drone ship".

Nonetheless, one hopes to see something from SpaceX or Elon, because this could be the last fairing mission for a while.  I suppose we can expect that Zuma has a fairing, but considering the secrecy, maybe they wouldn't let us see any fairing recovery news from that mission.  Then we have a Dragon mission (no fairing), then Iridium (west coast: fairing recovery?), then finally back to Canaveral for Hispasat and a fairing mission.
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Offline hamerad

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Re: Fairing reuse
« Reply #999 on: 11/03/2017 07:13 am »
hmm intact fairing possibly?

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« Last Edit: 11/03/2017 07:52 am by hamerad »

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