Author Topic: SpaceX's Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship Updates and Discussion Thread 3  (Read 1420864 times)

Offline old_sellsword

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Will the roomba be employed this recovery effort I wonder?

Is there a west coast roomba?

Matthew

Not that we’ve seen. Highly unlikely.

Offline Johnnyhinbos

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Will the roomba be employed this recovery effort I wonder?

Is there a west coast roomba?

Matthew
I was referring to Wednesday’s launch attempt.
John Hanzl. Author, action / adventure www.johnhanzl.com

Offline vanoord

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The octagrabber is almost certainly on the barge, so presumably they'll want to use it.

Assuming the first stage behaves itself, we'll no doubt find out at the end of the week.

As far as I can tell, the tug has dropped out of range of (land-based) AIS coverage and was last seen about 8 hours ago, heading east at about 7 knots (which is, iirc, somewhat faster than Elsbeth III usually managed).

Offline John Alan

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I always got the sense ELSBETH III's captain liked to "slow steam" when towing and save on fuel costs for the trip...
I mean he and crew lives on board... might as well leave early and come back late unless not an option...
When taking OCISLY to the dry-dock in the Bahamas a while back...
He did put the 'coal' to it about 2 hours out IIRC and made real good time into port that day... 
« Last Edit: 10/09/2017 02:35 pm by John Alan »

Offline joesmith

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Sorry to jump in like this but I was curious as to how far away is the tugboat when the Falcon lands.
Thanks
Joe Smith

Offline joesmith

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Second thought,:: over the horizon...minimum?

Offline vanoord

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** ignore me, I mis-read the question... **
« Last Edit: 10/11/2017 10:25 am by vanoord »

Offline envy887

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Sorry to jump in like this but I was curious as to how far away is the tugboat when the Falcon lands.
Thanks
Joe Smith

IIRC the crew has said about 10 miles away. Close enough to see both the booster and the fairings landing. There are some videos on YouTube of the booster landing which were shot from the support ships.

Offline Comga

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Some rough seas are apparently delaying crew from boarding JRTI.

Edit: I should clarify, as of ~24 hours ago.

No Roomba (as of ~28 hours ago, about 12 hours after landing)
What kind of wastrels would dump a perfectly good booster in the ocean after just one use?

Offline vanoord

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Some rough seas are apparently delaying crew from boarding JRTI.

Edit: I should clarify, as of ~24 hours ago.

No Roomba (as of ~28 hours ago, about 12 hours after landing)

The octagrabber lives on OCISLY and doesn't yet have a sibling for JRTI?

Offline Comga

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Some rough seas are apparently delaying crew from boarding JRTI.

Edit: I should clarify, as of ~24 hours ago.

No Roomba (as of ~28 hours ago, about 12 hours after landing)

The octagrabber lives on OCISLY and doesn't yet have a sibling for JRTI?

Sloppy on my part
Wrong coast, wrong day of this week.
No Roomba on JTRI.  Waiting to see what happens on OCISLY this evening.
What kind of wastrels would dump a perfectly good booster in the ocean after just one use?

Offline kaiser

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I always got the sense ELSBETH III's captain liked to "slow steam" when towing and save on fuel costs for the trip...
I mean he and crew lives on board... might as well leave early and come back late unless not an option...
When taking OCISLY to the dry-dock in the Bahamas a while back...
He did put the 'coal' to it about 2 hours out IIRC and made real good time into port that day...

Yea, it's much much cheaper to run engines at idle than full thrust.  If not in a hurry you can save a huge chunk of fuel (and maintenance) costs.

Also, did you account for ocean conditions?  Sometimes we can be going 100% engines and making 4 knots, and other times we can be at engine optimal and be making 11 knots, and if we turn off the engines still be making close to 4 knots.  Just like headwind/tailwind for a plane, you have the same thing with ocean surface currents.

Offline Johnnyhinbos

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I always got the sense ELSBETH III's captain liked to "slow steam" when towing and save on fuel costs for the trip...
I mean he and crew lives on board... might as well leave early and come back late unless not an option...
When taking OCISLY to the dry-dock in the Bahamas a while back...
He did put the 'coal' to it about 2 hours out IIRC and made real good time into port that day...

Yea, it's much much cheaper to run engines at idle than full thrust.  If not in a hurry you can save a huge chunk of fuel (and maintenance) costs.

Also, did you account for ocean conditions?  Sometimes we can be going 100% engines and making 4 knots, and other times we can be at engine optimal and be making 11 knots, and if we turn off the engines still be making close to 4 knots.  Just like headwind/tailwind for a plane, you have the same thing with ocean surface currents.
Small nit. Not true re running at idle. Diesels need to be run with a load - something to the tune of 70% WOT. Otherwise you kill the engine. Displacement hulls in the ballpark length of Elsbeth III run around 8 knots. It’s built right into the physics of the hull shape. 4 knots generally means the tow can’t handle more in a given sea state. The barge hulls of the ASDS “ships” aren’t built for speed.
John Hanzl. Author, action / adventure www.johnhanzl.com

Offline vanoord

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Do we know what vessel is towing JRTI back?

A quick browse of marinetraffic is rather bereft of candidates other than a tug named 'Pacific Falcon', which is very appropriately named, but my natural suspicion doesn't want to conclude that SpaceX may be using a vessel of that name to recover Falcon 9s in the Pacific!

Offline old_sellsword

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Do we know what vessel is towing JRTI back?

A quick browse of marinetraffic is rather bereft of candidates other than a tug named 'Pacific Falcon', which is very appropriately named, but my natural suspicion doesn't want to conclude that SpaceX may be using a vessel of that name to recover Falcon 9s in the Pacific!

Betty R Gambarella
« Last Edit: 10/12/2017 05:36 pm by old_sellsword »

Offline vanoord

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Do we know what vessel is towing JRTI back?

A quick browse of marinetraffic is rather bereft of candidates other than a tug named 'Pacific Falcon', which is very appropriately named, but my natural suspicion doesn't want to conclude that SpaceX may be using a vessel of that name to recover Falcon 9s in the Pacific!

Betty R Gambella

Cheers.

Looks like JRTI is alongside in the port.

Online ChrisC

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The octagrabber is almost certainly on the barge, so presumably they'll want to use it.

Assuming the first stage behaves itself, we'll no doubt find out at the end of the week.

As far as I can tell, the tug has dropped out of range of (land-based) AIS coverage and was last seen about 8 hours ago, heading east at about 7 knots (which is, iirc, somewhat faster than Elsbeth III usually managed).

MarineTraffic shows Elsbeth III in Port Canaveral.  Nobody tracking the return of OCISLY this time?  I was expecting to see first use of the octograbber.
« Last Edit: 10/13/2017 05:19 pm by ChrisC »
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Offline John Alan

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The octagrabber is almost certainly on the barge, so presumably they'll want to use it.

Assuming the first stage behaves itself, we'll no doubt find out at the end of the week.

As far as I can tell, the tug has dropped out of range of (land-based) AIS coverage and was last seen about 8 hours ago, heading east at about 7 knots (which is, iirc, somewhat faster than Elsbeth III usually managed).

MarineTraffic shows Elsbeth III in Port Canaveral.  Nobody tracking the return of OCISLY this time?  I was expecting to see first use of the octograbber.

See this link... Tug in use (it seems) this outing with OCISLY...
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:430027/mmsi:366943250/imo:9103295/vessel:HAWK
ELSBETH III was sidelined it seems...  :(

(Details up above this thread)
« Last Edit: 10/13/2017 05:25 pm by John Alan »

Offline envy887

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...  I was expecting to see first use of the octograbber.

It's already been used on the BulgariaSat mission.

Offline vanoord

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MarineTraffic shows Elsbeth III in Port Canaveral.  Nobody tracking the return of OCISLY this time?  I was expecting to see first use of the octograbber.

Different tug this time - https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:430027/mmsi:366943250/imo:9103295/vessel:HAWK

It's currently out of land-based AIS range and I'm not spending $157 to get access to the satellite AIS data!

The Octagrabber was used last time, so presumably will be used again this time.


Meantime, there are some good photos of B1041 being unloaded in LA:
https://imgur.com/a/Z6cMW
https://imgur.com/a/TbHSe

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