I think there was a thread where this was discussed, but I don't remeber where, so it could be I'm repeating well known opinions, sorry for this.In my opinion, the most usefull aspect to work on is to speed up recovery operations. A "traditional" and faster (long) support ship with an high enough crane could meet the recovery drone ship while still far in the sea, take the stage and let remove the legs and secure it while still out of the port and on the way to it.The drone ship would be ready faster to get another launch. It could get the fuel form this support ship and avoid going to the port for a long time.To enter the port the support ship would not need a special permission, because the stage would be already secured and explosives deactivated.And the crane of the support ship could be enough to lift the stage and put it on land for a truck to drive away.All is needed is a faster and easier to use system to hook the stage on the top, and another system to use a single crane (and two indipendent wires) to bring the stage from vertical to horizontal.I think this is all at hand, and repays itself quickly, at this or higher rate og flights.
Quote from: garidan on 06/03/2016 06:18 pmI think there was a thread where this was discussed, but I don't remeber where, so it could be I'm repeating well known opinions, sorry for this.In my opinion, the most usefull aspect to work on is to speed up recovery operations. A "traditional" and faster (long) support ship with an high enough crane could meet the recovery drone ship while still far in the sea, take the stage and let remove the legs and secure it while still out of the port and on the way to it.The drone ship would be ready faster to get another launch. It could get the fuel form this support ship and avoid going to the port for a long time.To enter the port the support ship would not need a special permission, because the stage would be already secured and explosives deactivated.And the crane of the support ship could be enough to lift the stage and put it on land for a truck to drive away.All is needed is a faster and easier to use system to hook the stage on the top, and another system to use a single crane (and two indipendent wires) to bring the stage from vertical to horizontal.I think this is all at hand, and repays itself quickly, at this or higher rate og flights.Nobody is going to crane something the size of F9 from one ship to another out in the ocean. I'm not saying the sea state would *always* prevent it, but the odds would be hugely against you, and the risks would be way too high.
The cost of a ship with a crane capable of lifting stages at sea would be very substantial and I don't see the couple of days potentially saved having any financial benefit.
I don't see the 7-10 days from launch to the stage arriving back at the Cape being an issue as long as there is a buffer of sufficient new and refurbished cores waiting to launch. The cost of a ship with a crane capable of lifting stages at sea would be very substantial and I don't see the couple of days potentially saved having any financial benefit.The current 'low technology' system seems to be working fine, so I don't see it changing unless there are repeated issues with stages falling over on the barge - in which case there may be a benefit in lifting them horizontal before they can damage themselves.
Quote from: vanoord on 06/06/2016 10:14 amI don't see the 7-10 days from launch to the stage arriving back at the Cape being an issue as long as there is a buffer of sufficient new and refurbished cores waiting to launch. The cost of a ship with a crane capable of lifting stages at sea would be very substantial and I don't see the couple of days potentially saved having any financial benefit.The current 'low technology' system seems to be working fine, so I don't see it changing unless there are repeated issues with stages falling over on the barge - in which case there may be a benefit in lifting them horizontal before they can damage themselves.For high energy missions it takes 4-5 days for the trip out, 4-5 days for the trip back, plus some turnaround time dockside. Even for low energy orbits it's still a minimum 1-week cycle per ASDS. If there's a launch every couple days they will need some more ASDSes. Or some way to leave them on-station and shuttle the cores home.
Quote from: envy887 on 06/06/2016 05:01 pmQuote from: vanoord on 06/06/2016 10:14 amI don't see the 7-10 days from launch to the stage arriving back at the Cape being an issue as long as there is a buffer of sufficient new and refurbished cores waiting to launch. The cost of a ship with a crane capable of lifting stages at sea would be very substantial and I don't see the couple of days potentially saved having any financial benefit.The current 'low technology' system seems to be working fine, so I don't see it changing unless there are repeated issues with stages falling over on the barge - in which case there may be a benefit in lifting them horizontal before they can damage themselves.For high energy missions it takes 4-5 days for the trip out, 4-5 days for the trip back, plus some turnaround time dockside. Even for low energy orbits it's still a minimum 1-week cycle per ASDS. If there's a launch every couple days they will need some more ASDSes. Or some way to leave them on-station and shuttle the cores home.At the moment, it appears SpaceX can support a launch to GTO every two weeks, max. And a launch very two weeks is pretty much the fastest cadence I think we can expect right now, total -- mixing in Vandenberg launches and RTLS launches. Which means that, for right now, it appears one ASDS will handle the traffic (if barely, as in the situation right now, when we are looking at two launches to GTO barely more than two weeks apart).If SpaceX gets to where their launch cadence exceeds once every two weeks, we'll see a change -- likely the building of another ASDS. But looking at the manifest, I just can't see a need for a higher launch cadence, at least for now.But, I bet they have a plan for when their cadence goes up...
the next Falcon 9 is now scheduled for lift-off in eight days. It takes what, five days for the ASDS to get on station for a GTO launch, right?So, anyone seeing any indications that OCISLY will be ready to sail again in another three or four days?I imagine they need to refill the diesel tanks, remove the welded blocks from where they had the last stage tied down, repaint the deck, etc.
Quote from: the_other_Doug on 06/06/2016 04:51 pmthe next Falcon 9 is now scheduled for lift-off in eight days. It takes what, five days for the ASDS to get on station for a GTO launch, right?So, anyone seeing any indications that OCISLY will be ready to sail again in another three or four days?I imagine they need to refill the diesel tanks, remove the welded blocks from where they had the last stage tied down, repaint the deck, etc.Since it was a successful landing, I'd assume they don't have a lot of repairs to do.So it's comes down to whether they're going to repaint the landing pad, not necessary but they usually do.I found a video showing them working on OCISLY after some bad landingshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Anm7aBAKDRE?t=1240and it looked like they painted the logo from scratch in about 9 hours,plus maybe a day if they repaint the deck black before doing the logo.If they're short on time they could always just touch up the paint and take her out.
What happens if they have a high energy crash onto OCISLY, difficult to see them completing repairs in time now the launch schedule is down to around 2 weeks.
Since it was a successful landing, I'd assume they don't have a lot of repairs to do.So it's comes down to whether they're going to repaint the landing pad, not necessary but they usually do.I found a video showing them working on OCISLY after some bad landingshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Anm7aBAKDRE?t=1240and it looked like they painted the logo from scratch in about 9 hours,plus maybe a day if they repaint the deck black before doing the logo.If they're short on time they could always just touch up the paint and take her out.
Elon Musk @elonmusk Base is 300 ft by 100 ft, with wings that extend width to 170 ft. Will allow refuel & rocket flyback in future22 Nov 2014
It would seem to me that a lot of recent discussions recently on how SpaceX intends to improve its ASDS operations have forgotten this comment from Elon a while backhttps://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/536263260056850432QuoteElon Musk @elonmusk Base is 300 ft by 100 ft, with wings that extend width to 170 ft. Will allow refuel & rocket flyback in future22 Nov 2014Emphasis mine.
Quote from: Garrett on 06/07/2016 12:36 pmIt would seem to me that a lot of recent discussions recently on how SpaceX intends to improve its ASDS operations have forgotten this comment from Elon a while backhttps://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/536263260056850432QuoteElon Musk @elonmusk Base is 300 ft by 100 ft, with wings that extend width to 170 ft. Will allow refuel & rocket flyback in future22 Nov 2014Emphasis mine.Flyback was discussed extensively in this thread. There are a number of challenges to doing flyback, and it's probably quite far in the future yet.
ASDS position coordinates are the same as for Thaicom 8, so it looks like SpaceX has found the "sweet spot" for GTO mission landing attempts.