I honestly wouldn't bother with GTO recovery. Too few flights.The Impetus is the very high launch rates of LEO sats. Make a dedicated stage for that, and just expend GTO stages. Seems to me like a better trade off.
Maybe with a raptor, larger diameter, carbon fibre tank and a lot of luck. But that would take away development talent from ITS.
@elonmuskConsidering trying to bring upper stage back on Falcon Heavy demo flight for full reusability. Odds of success low, but maybe worth a shot.https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/847882289581359104
I thought his comments about a "Hail Mary" during the presser were just the adrenaline talking and I'll be super surprised if SX attempts this on the first FH demo.But it wouldn't be the first time SX surprised me. Never a dull moment.
@elonmuskConsidering trying to bring upper stage back on Falcon Heavy demo flight for full reusability. Odds of success low, but maybe worth a shot.
Quote from: NX-0 on 03/31/2017 07:03 pm@elonmuskConsidering trying to bring upper stage back on Falcon Heavy demo flight for full reusability. Odds of success low, but maybe worth a shot.Any ideas how they might go about achieving this? Parachute landing, or propulsive landing? Deployable heat shield, or ablative-covered tanks? Probably going to need some serious heat protection as Stage 2 will need to re-enter at much faster than LEO speeds if it's sent a sat to GTO. Will need bigger batteries and maybe other consumables, too, to be able to still have power 4.5 hours or so after launch when it will be re-entering from a GTO mission...
Quote from: meekGee on 03/31/2017 04:29 pmI honestly wouldn't bother with GTO recovery. Too few flights.The Impetus is the very high launch rates of LEO sats. Make a dedicated stage for that, and just expend GTO stages. Seems to me like a better trade off.Thats quite a good argument here. For the massive constellation, a dedicated second stage design would make sense. However, it doesnt solve the problem of near 0 payload when adding all the required bits to the current second stage. Dedicated design or not, there is just not enough margin. Maybe with a raptor, larger diameter, carbon fibre tank and a lot of luck. But that would take away development talent from ITS. Might be better to concentrate on an ITS version that can deploy stats. Should be easier than a design of a F9 reusable second stage.
<SNIP>But without efficiently launching CommX there's no funding for Musk's ITS timeline, either.
For a first test, that's pretty easy, I'd do something that requires minimal modifications to the 2nd stage, like put a heat shield on the nose and attempt a controlled re-entry.
Quote from: shooter6947 on 03/31/2017 07:29 pmQuote from: NX-0 on 03/31/2017 07:03 pm@elonmuskConsidering trying to bring upper stage back on Falcon Heavy demo flight for full reusability. Odds of success low, but maybe worth a shot.Any ideas how they might go about achieving this? Parachute landing, or propulsive landing? Deployable heat shield, or ablative-covered tanks? Probably going to need some serious heat protection as Stage 2 will need to re-enter at much faster than LEO speeds if it's sent a sat to GTO. Will need bigger batteries and maybe other consumables, too, to be able to still have power 4.5 hours or so after launch when it will be re-entering from a GTO mission...I don't think they would be able to do much modification for shielding... My assumption is that they would use mostly propulsive braking. A quick de-orbit burn, and then a 2nd longer burn as a pre-atmospheric braking burn (to kill virtually all velocity), and then hope that it stays intact until a parachute deploys.
I'm not totally clear how they would do it at all without fitting some kind of kit to give it legs and a second engine etc. (as we've discussed in many many threads) unless he means just seeing if they can splash it down gently (or land ON the bell which then gets squished)