My question is, if they can reuse fairing halves even after a dunk, why even bother trying to catch them? It has proven a difficult problem to solve. The only explanation that makes sense to me is that refurb after it drops in the water is still significant enough to pay for the crazy ship.It seems they are pursuing a less ambitious goal along with a more ambitious goal. Just seems odd to do both and odd that they didn't go for soft landing in water first before going all in on the ship.
1. Question: was the mid air capture considered?
How about a large drone f
How about a large drone fitted with a line and grapple(s) and a deflated balloon and hydrogen cylinder?Launch the drone(s) from Mr Steven when at an appropriate distance / altitude pilot the drone(s) up to the descending fairing and aim to fly over the top of it with several lines / grapples to tangle in the chute and its cords. When snagged inflate the balloon to provide extra lift and time for Mr Steven to get underneath the faring. When positioned slowly deflate the balloon so fairing drones and balloons all recovered. Parachute might not be reusable.
Quote from: Slarty1080 on 12/06/2018 06:17 pmHow about a large drone fitted with a line and grapple(s) and a deflated balloon and hydrogen cylinder?Launch the drone(s) from Mr Steven when at an appropriate distance / altitude pilot the drone(s) up to the descending fairing and aim to fly over the top of it with several lines / grapples to tangle in the chute and its cords. When snagged inflate the balloon to provide extra lift and time for Mr Steven to get underneath the faring. When positioned slowly deflate the balloon so fairing drones and balloons all recovered. Parachute might not be reusable.Honestly, if you're close enough to launch a drone, maneuver, attach lines, tangle a chute, inflate balloons, do some more Rube Goldberg stuff etc, etc, just grapple it with a rope that's attach to Mr. Stevens and reel the sucker in. Heck, have Elon on the deck dressed as Capt. Ahab shooting a whaling gun with a big suction cup tipped spear and reel it in while cackling. Feel off topic? Maybe. But drones, with grappling hooks and balloons, etc just make things so complicated. Or have the fairing dangle a lightweight line that Mr. Stevens catches and reels in. Or, or, or. But most likely, just tune things up a bit better for better control, better info to the captain, etc.I had a project where a team of MIT scientists were trying to get pilots to fly an incredibly complex and stringent flight path through the sky. Years of work, lots of rube goldberg and other contraptions, plane modifications, chase and escort planes, etc, etc and tons of study. You know what worked? Adjusting the UI to the pilots. 3 or 4 iterations later on the UI and they were nailing it. Likely something similar here; getting better info to the crew, presented better so that they can dial it in more precisely. I know, not as sexy as drones with grappling hooks and inflatable helium balloons, but much more practical and workable.Even pro baseball players warm up with a little throw / catch, give the crew a bit more practice and they'll probably finally dial it in with the latest set of fairings.
Aren't the fairings fiberglass? Aren't there millions of fiberglass boats in the ocean that float for decades?Sea water isn't battery acid, it doesn't dissolve metal on contact. Salt corrosion takes a long time.If fairings are being reused, then invest in some anodized coatings, etc, let them splash and fish them out.Even if they don't touch the water they will be in a marine salt spray and fog environment. They need to be designed to get salt water on them and get washed down.
Quote from: Norm38 on 12/07/2018 01:28 pmAren't the fairings fiberglass? Aren't there millions of fiberglass boats in the ocean that float for decades?Sea water isn't battery acid, it doesn't dissolve metal on contact. Salt corrosion takes a long time.If fairings are being reused, then invest in some anodized coatings, etc, let them splash and fish them out.Even if they don't touch the water they will be in a marine salt spray and fog environment. They need to be designed to get salt water on them and get washed down.Carbon fiber, way different than fiberglass.The fairings are subjected to loads and temperatures that no boat ever experiences. We'll see what they come up with. Even if they are recovered in the net, I'm still not sold they are reuseable until we see them fly a second time, successfully.
More pics from encapsulation on Facebook (credit: Lockheed Martin).
Seems likely that we’ll be able to reuse fairings that soft-landed in the ocean. May not need net at all. Would still love to see the catch happen though ⚾️ 👍
I wonder how much "reuse" might need to be qualified in that case. How much of what's in the interior of the fairing would be damaged by salt water spray getting all over it? Do we know enough publicly to take a stab at that?