SpaceX is spending a lot of engineering effort on reusability, and on these experiments, in addition to the actual costs of the barge and recovery team, etc. Development engineering is not cheap...
What I'm wondering is how many more crashes the company accepts before abandoning the idea altogether. There is a number, and it is not infinite.
SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said during an interview just before the April 14 launch that the first attempt to put the Falcon 9 booster down on a land-based platform could come as early as this summer.Earlier this year, SpaceX and the Air Force announced plans for the company to convert unused launch pads at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station into landing pads.SpaceX recently began construction on the Cape Canaveral landing pad and environmental work is underway for the landing pad at Vandenberg, Shotwell said in the interview, conducted here at the 31st Space Symposium.The first attempt to stick a Falcon 9 booster on a landing pad at Vandenberg could come as early as July following the launch of the French-U.S. Jason-3 ocean altimetry satellite mission, she said.“We’d love to land Jason-3, which we’re going to launch in July; we’d love to land that on land at Vandenberg,” Shotwell said.Another possibility “might” be following the scheduled June launch of a commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station from the Cape, Shotwell said.
At a press conference at the Kennedy Space Center about an hour after the launch, SpaceX vice president Hans Koenigsmann said that an initial analysis of data from the rocket stage showed no obvious problems during the landing attempt. He was optimistic that whatever flaw caused the hard landing could be easily corrected.“I’m pretty sure we’ll figure this out and make it work,” he said. “It’s just a matter of finding the right parameters, finding the right method to do this. I don’t think there’s something fundamental” that needs to be changed.
F9 has already started to kill one of the "e"s in EELV.
Fingers crossed for @SpaceX. Break a leg! #DontYouNeedThoseToLand #Space
Quote from: Pelf on 04/14/2015 09:52 pmQuote from: edkyle99 on 04/14/2015 09:27 pmHow many more attempts before SpaceX gives up on first stage landing? They've tried twice for the barge and crashed both times, with a third attempt called off by rough waves. Three prior return tests without the barge also had mixed results. These experiments are bold and interesting, but they're not free. - Ed KyleSure they're free. NASA paid for the rocket. SpaceX isn't selling them at a loss as far as I'm aware.SpaceX is spending a lot of engineering effort on reusability, and on these experiments, in addition to the actual costs of the barge and recovery team, etc. Development engineering is not cheap (engineering hours time money), and since the stages keep crashing it appears that more development engineering, and therefore more money, is needed to make it work. If a stage can be made to actually land and survive, it is still only the first step in the development process. What I'm wondering is how many more crashes the company accepts before abandoning the idea altogether. There is a number, and it is not infinite. - Ed Kyle
Quote from: edkyle99 on 04/14/2015 09:27 pmHow many more attempts before SpaceX gives up on first stage landing? They've tried twice for the barge and crashed both times, with a third attempt called off by rough waves. Three prior return tests without the barge also had mixed results. These experiments are bold and interesting, but they're not free. - Ed KyleSure they're free. NASA paid for the rocket. SpaceX isn't selling them at a loss as far as I'm aware.
How many more attempts before SpaceX gives up on first stage landing? They've tried twice for the barge and crashed both times, with a third attempt called off by rough waves. Three prior return tests without the barge also had mixed results. These experiments are bold and interesting, but they're not free. - Ed Kyle
SpaceX is spending a lot of engineering effort on reusability, and on these experiments, in addition to the actual costs of the barge and recovery team, etc. Development engineering is not cheap (engineering hours time money), and since the stages keep crashing it appears that more development engineering, and therefore more money, is needed to make it work. If a stage can be made to actually land and survive, it is still only the first step in the development process. What I'm wondering is how many more crashes the company accepts before abandoning the idea altogether. There is a number, and it is not infinite. - Ed Kyle
even if they land it, it doesn't mean they can reuse the stage.
I thought there's almost no prop/LOX left at the end.