The Falcon Heavy flight and booster recovery Video shows 5 landing pads. This may be an indication that Space X is working on a 5 core (4 booster) variant.- What would be the capacity of this booster? - Would it make sense from a technical perspective (rocket equation)? - Would this be a reasonable thing to do from a Business Perspective? What do you think?
Quote from: moralec on 01/27/2015 09:56 pmThe Falcon Heavy flight and booster recovery Video shows 5 landing pads. This may be an indication that Space X is working on a 5 core (4 booster) variant.- What would be the capacity of this booster? - Would it make sense from a technical perspective (rocket equation)? - Would this be a reasonable thing to do from a Business Perspective? What do you think? Wrong assumption. There is no such thing. This is the second time you posted this nonsense.
2) Nether you and me have enough evidence to either confirm and discard this. That means that, even if minor, is a possibility. .. 3) Even is Space X is not planing to do this it is very entertaining to speculate about these sort of things.
What a crazy video! ¿Any possibility that the HF transporter/erector/assembly building could support one extra booster? Or new ground infrastructure would still be needed?
Quote from: moralec on 01/28/2015 11:55 amWhat a crazy video! ¿Any possibility that the HF transporter/erector/assembly building could support one extra booster? Or new ground infrastructure would still be needed? It would require new hangar, new GSE, new erector and new pad. nothing that currently exists or is in design for FH can be used for this concept
I'd guess a more likely possibility is returning boosters from both a F9 and a FH on the same day or something like that.. that would be 4 boosters..leaving 1 spare pad.
I think you want more pads than cores. Otherwise it is too easy to run out of pads if something is not nominal.I think this is actually a 4 pad system. The center pad is the crash pad, and the cores normally divert to the side pads, so you have 4 active pads, and one extra pad in case you're otherwise full.So if for whatever reason you're launching FHs fast, you don't absolutely have to get the cores out of the way before the next one comes in.
Theres a master plan pic around here that shows three launch pads with by two five pad landing pad areas ...if all three launch pads launch a FH they'd need 9 spots for booster landings, the plan has ten.Solved?on this page http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=35425.400
There isn't any existing "reliable infrastructure" for such a vehicle
Well what @jim & @Lobo said seem to be not much chance for the 5-core Quin-Falcon to be realize. However in theory the future BFR infrastructure possibly located at Florida could be jiggle to support a Quin-Falcon launch. Of course it is really not very sensible.
Quite wrong. There is no infrastructure (pad and hangar) planned for such a vehicle (5 body) and hence it can't be
Quite wrong. There is no infrastructure (pad, erector and hangar) planned for such a vehicle (5 body) and hence it can't be termed reliable. Concrete pads don't really matter as reliable infrastructure. And a new core also doesn't qualify as reliable
Quote from: Jim on 01/29/2015 03:10 pmQuite wrong. There is no infrastructure (pad, erector and hangar) planned for such a vehicle (5 body) and hence it can't be termed reliable. Concrete pads don't really matter as reliable infrastructure. And a new core also doesn't qualify as reliableThe lack of infrastructure (or plans to develop it) is really the killer evidence against this variant... Honeslty, I don't think will ever see this bird flying.However something (very unlikely) that may occur is that if the development of the BFR gets very delayed SpaceX may consider to develop this vehicle as a heavier alternative in the interim.... I know that this is 100% speculation, but any thoughts on this? Any chance that the BFR infrastructure (to be developed) could be flexible enough to support a vehicle like this for a period of time until the definitive rocket is ready?
I am just kind of interested why US rockets only use two common core boosters while Russian rockets (Soyuz, Angara) are perfectly happy using four boosters. Are US rockets large enough that they don't need the extra thrust of four boosters, is there some practical reason why three cores is good but 5 is not? I'm not asking if SpaceX or ULA should go to five core rockets because obviously they aren't. I'm just curious why a five core rocket was never considered?
Quote from: moralec on 01/27/2015 09:56 pmThe Falcon Heavy flight and booster recovery Video shows 5 landing pads. This may be an indication that Space X is working on a 5 core (4 booster) variant.- What would be the capacity of this booster? - Would it make sense from a technical perspective (rocket equation)? - Would this be a reasonable thing to do from a Business Perspective? What do you think?I already proposed a BFR not as huge as some envision here + 4 boosters based on Falcon9, something symilar to Energya rocket. That would fit perfect with the four small pads + the big central one. This modular BFR could be configured for loads between 80 to 200 tons to LEO depending on the nº of boosters. That architecture don't require to build a monster while they reuse the reliable infrastructure and knowledge of Falcon boosters. In the event of landing and then launching form Mars, you don't need boosters and your rocket is already well sized for that task.
Quote from: Jimmy Murdok on 01/29/2015 01:42 pmQuote from: moralec on 01/27/2015 09:56 pmThe Falcon Heavy flight and booster recovery Video shows 5 landing pads. This may be an indication that Space X is working on a 5 core (4 booster) variant.- What would be the capacity of this booster? - Would it make sense from a technical perspective (rocket equation)? - Would this be a reasonable thing to do from a Business Perspective? What do you think?I already proposed a BFR not as huge as some envision here + 4 boosters based on Falcon9, something symilar to Energya rocket. That would fit perfect with the four small pads + the big central one. This modular BFR could be configured for loads between 80 to 200 tons to LEO depending on the nº of boosters. That architecture don't require to build a monster while they reuse the reliable infrastructure and knowledge of Falcon boosters. In the event of landing and then launching form Mars, you don't need boosters and your rocket is already well sized for that task.They could do that. But again, why?Why have outboard F9 boosters? Why not just make the booster core as powerful as you want it? Then you are landing just one core back at the launch site, rather than it plus a bunch of F9 boosters?
Economies of scale?
Hey, why stop at only 5!? Seriously though, I have my doubts about even the Falcon Heavy being reliable with 27 separate engines (not just multiple chambers like Russian rockets). The last rocket to have so many engines exploded quite a lot, and although I think Falcon can be more reliable than that, it's still a little too many for comfort. In many ways, it's not the rocket they would have liked to have designed, but its the one they could make with their experience with smaller kerolox engines. It's not even that rocket will necessarily blow up, but think of the amount of scrubs and delays they have had with single core rockets so far, and then add two more cores with lots of fun things that can be found to be wrong enough to delay the launch.I wouldn't be incredibly surprised if Falcon Heavy gets phased out for a simpler 5-meter methalox reusable vehicle that is suited to heavier GSO payloads, but has manned spaceflight uses too. In fact, it seems a bit of saner stepping stone than building your 100 colonist mars rocket right off that bat. If they don't do that, there will be more hydrogen upper stage options available at the end of the decade that would be a far better idea than 5 cores with 45 engines under them. :/
Hey, why stop at only 5!? ...
They could do that. But again, why?Why have outboard F9 boosters? Why not just make the booster core as powerful as you want it? Then you are landing just one core back at the launch site, rather than it plus a bunch of F9 boosters?The only reason you might want to do that would be if BFR already existed and was flying, but SpaceX decided they wanted more capacity. Then it might be cheaper to modify the existing core to mount outboard boosters than to build a larger, more powerful core.But, BFR doesn't exist and they can just make it the capacity they want it.Besides, if they did want some sort of modular design, or a shorter stack with parallel boosters, it's make more sense to make BFR a mult-core LV. They have to build a new core anyway, so this would get their produciton up, and keep all pad ops the same (same cores, engines, and propellants). Rather than having different sized cores with different propellants.But even then, the only reason to go with a multi-methalox core configuration is if they wanted to fly a single methalox core for some reason. The reason FH is tri-core, is because SpaceX wants the single core, so a multi-core is a cheaper way to upgrade than building a whole new class of LV. Same with D4/D4H, and Angara. If you are -only- going to fly the multi core version, then it's cheaper/easier/more effient to just make a single larger core. And if you are going to fly just one core of a tri-core, for what payloads would you use it? What payloads are out there that FH won't be able to handle? And even if there are some, if your BFR is reusable, why can't you just fly it on the full BFR? The stages aren't expended so there's not really much more cost involved in that. If everything was expended then it might make sense for BFR to be a tri-core where each single core could cover a payload class above FH. That single smaller core would be cheaper than a larger BFR flying well below it's capacity. But with reusabilty, that paradigm changes. It can become more cost effective to have just one really large LV and use it for various medium-heavy class payloads that are well below what it could handle, than to have intermediate sized LV's for those payloads.
Wandering the web I found someone who took my "F9Advanced" concept and put some pretty pictures with it here:http://richspacetech.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-falcon-shuttle-reusable-launch.html12 F9-stages and 10 F9US all wrapped up in a fully reusable launch and no "raptor's" needed... SERIOUSLY doubt this would even enter SpaceX's or Elon's thinking... You never know though Randy