Author Topic: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles  (Read 280363 times)

Offline JamesH65

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Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #420 on: 06/09/2016 01:50 pm »
This talk of 'new' and 'reused' boosters may be a bit too black and white.
SpaceX themselves have indicated that different components of the vehicle are expected to have different life cycles.
Who's to say that an otherwise brand new stage might not be fitted with refurbished engines, legs, etc?
Stages might become essentially a high-tech version of Trigger's Broom.

Careful, someone might bring out the Lego are not rockets or something.

I would have thought that as long as removal/replacement is cheaper than new, this is bound to happen. They already have 4 stages x nine engines each. That $36M worth of engines ($1M per engine seems about right) sitting in that hanger (ignoring ones already removed, but you get the gist)

Offline mvpel

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Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #421 on: 06/09/2016 10:32 pm »
I have extracted the non-iPhone photos from the camera SD card and so have a number of higher-resolution shots of the pristine CRS-8 booster taken from the fence line at LC-40 that may prove instructive in the cork-related discussion:



IMG_6268
by Michael Pelletier, on Flickr


IMG_6272
by Michael Pelletier, on Flickr


IMG_6278
by Michael Pelletier, on Flickr


IMG_6281
by Michael Pelletier, on Flickr
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Offline Kabloona

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Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #422 on: 06/10/2016 09:32 am »
Here's another great shot of JCSAT-14 showing the cork on the base of the stage, with some of it missing.

Photo credit: jardeon. https://m.imgur.com/gallery/2BWF8#
« Last Edit: 06/10/2016 09:35 am by Kabloona »

Offline john smith 19

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Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #423 on: 06/10/2016 07:00 pm »
I imagine that it would be most easily done if the core is mounted horizontally on those circular rings, rotating like a bird on a spit while a pressure washer slowly moves from one end to the other, kind of like a lathe.

How much force is needed to remove the soot, anyways? You certainly don't want to use too much water pressure and accidentally damage the skin.
Indeed, once you can put the stage on a horizontal rotating mounting you can carry out all sorts of inspection and repair tasks on it.
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Offline Kabloona

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Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #424 on: 06/11/2016 01:21 am »
On the subject of TPS, we have confirmation from The Roadie posting in another thread that yes, the interstage is covered in (painted) cork:

Quote
I've seen cork being applied to the interstage on a Hawthorne tour. Also the logo and American flag being painted on using rollers and a stencil, not as I expected, an adhesive sticker.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40393.msg1547806#msg1547806

And matthewkantar made a good point about why there would be cork on the (composite) interstage but not the (aluminum) tanks:

Quote
Composites are generally heat intolerant as far as I know, so TPS on the interstage.
« Last Edit: 06/11/2016 02:11 am by Kabloona »

Offline john smith 19

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Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #425 on: 06/12/2016 08:07 am »
And matthewkantar made a good point about why there would be cork on the (composite) interstage but not the (aluminum) tanks:

Quote
Composites are generally heat intolerant as far as I know, so TPS on the interstage.
It's been pointed out that even a coat of paint is sufficient to stop LOX boiloff.

It would seem that between the very poor thermal conductivity of even thin paint layers and Aluminums high thermal conductivity (allowing the heat to spread out long before it gets too hot to lose too much strength) that's perfectly adequate for most short term situations.

Carbon Fiber composites tend to have pretty poor thermal conductivity (some carbon fiber grades are very good conductors but I think the price premium is very large) and of course will start to burn on exposure to high temperature air so ablatives seem pretty sensible.

An interesting question is wheather a study of the ablative layer erosion pattern will show consistent wear, allowing the substitution of permanent heat shielding panels.

One issue that's rarely discussed with ablatives is how do you reuse them? AFAIK only the X15 programme looked at this. The simple answer is you have enough on the structure that you can use it multiple times then scrap the structure. This does not seem adequate for SX. The next question is do you need to strip back to the underlying material, or can you just strip the surface layer, prep the remainder and layer on a new coat?
MCT ITS BFR SS. The worlds first Methane fueled FFSC engined CFRP SS structure A380 sized aerospaceplane tail sitter capable of Earth & Mars atmospheric flight.First flight to Mars by end of 2022 TBC. T&C apply. Trust nothing. Run your own #s "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" R. Simberg."Competitve" means cheaper ¬cheap SCramjet proposed 1956. First +ve thrust 2004. US R&D spend to date > $10Bn. #deployed designs. Zero.

Offline matthewkantar

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Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #426 on: 06/12/2016 07:59 pm »
The composite construction of the interstage saves weight over conventional materials. The savings would seem to be lessened by the required protection of the composite material with some form of TPS. If that TPS is too fragile to allow immediate reuse of the stage, SpaceX may find trades favoring LI-AL or even TI alloy construction so that TPS can be done away with in some areas.

Matthew

Offline rberry

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Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #427 on: 06/12/2016 08:04 pm »
Looks like a landed stage is on the move.

Stephen Smith indicates it is NOT the cleaned up stage from the "Fantastic Four" picture.

I think orientation in the HIF indicates that it is the stage on the far left of the fantastic four picture, so possibly CRS-8 (F9-023).

EDIT - I only see two stages to its left, so probably not CRS-8 (F9-023). Also doubting my orientation of the picture. If I was right the walk-through door should be on the other side. Not real sure....

Headed to McGregor?

https://twitter.com/SpaceKSCBlog/status/742062804761448449
« Last Edit: 06/12/2016 08:26 pm by rberry »
-Ryan

Offline mattrog

Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #428 on: 06/12/2016 08:14 pm »
Looks like a landed stage is on the move.

Stephen Smith indicates it is NOT the cleaned up stage from the "Fantastic Four" picture.

I think orientation in the HIF indicates that it is the stage on the far left of the fantastic four picture, so possibly CRS-8.

Headed to McGregor?

https://twitter.com/SpaceKSCBlog/status/742062804761448449
Cleaned it up a bit not sure if it helps ! Just using snapseed on my phone

Offline Kaputnik

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Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #429 on: 06/12/2016 08:40 pm »
Definitely looks like the cleaned up stage is furthest left in that pic. So is that one CRS 8 and we can speculate that the cleanup is for the purposes of reflight?
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Offline rberry

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Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #430 on: 06/12/2016 09:10 pm »
Definitely looks like the cleaned up stage is furthest left in that pic. So is that one CRS 8 and we can speculate that the cleanup is for the purposes of reflight?

I think it has been clearly shown at this point that the cleaned up stage was the the OG-2 stage (F9-021). Quite a bit of photo evidence points to that conclusion.

Now, which stage is being moved and where it is going I think is still questionable.
« Last Edit: 06/12/2016 09:11 pm by rberry »
-Ryan

Offline pb2000

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Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #431 on: 06/12/2016 09:12 pm »
I think we're looking though the small hangar door in that picture, so everything is reversed.
It would be (L to R) crs-8, jcsat, thaicom, orb, which places the truck in front of the thaicom stage.

Edit: The thaicom stage isn't as far into the hangar, so it might be hidden. The orb stage makes much more sense anyways

« Last Edit: 06/12/2016 09:17 pm by pb2000 »
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Offline gongora

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Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #432 on: 06/12/2016 10:20 pm »
There was a recent article with the following information:

Quote
the first recovered booster, from the OG-2 mission, is in the final stages of preparing to depart the 39A HIF for its trip to SpaceX’s HQ in Hawthorne, California.

Offline CyndyC

Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #433 on: 06/12/2016 11:32 pm »
And matthewkantar made a good point about why there would be cork on the (composite) interstage but not the (aluminum) tanks:

Quote
Composites are generally heat intolerant as far as I know, so TPS on the interstage.

That the interstage takes the brunt of the residual heat from the 2nd stage MVAC at separation might also be a reason to layer cork on the interstage.

I'm pretty sure Jim has stated sometime back that ice acts as an insulator on the 1st stage, and looking at the grayscale of returned stages, the ice obviously concentrates in the middle third of the stage. That would be because the RP-1 inside the lower third is not only partly corked, but chilled to only around -7°C/19.4°F, compared to the LOX above it being at around -207°C/-340.6°F, and the LOX in the top third is expended so quickly during launch, why bother with cork there either, especially after the fiasco with cork flying everywhere during an earlier attempt to use it.

I think the bottom third is so close to black because the stage is travelling tail first during its return, not traveling away from the heat of the burn but directly into it, and the bottom third isn't coming back nearly as pre-chilled either. My impression was the SpaceX engineer wanted Herb to have a cigar because he had correctly speculated there is a layer of cork there, not necessarily special paint. Although there could be both, then why don't they go ahead and use the same special paint on the interstage where there is also a need for cork? If they do, it's unlikely the bottom would clean up better than the top, it would be the other way around.
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Offline starhawk92

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Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #434 on: 06/14/2016 06:53 pm »
Here is a picture of the HIF back in mid-May:



I believe, left to right, the cores are:
Left: Core23 (CRS-8)
Middle:  Freshly recovered Core24 (JCSAT)
Right: Orbcomm

When Core 25 came in (Thaicom), they moved JCSAT to the left of center.

So, if the truck is leaving through the door which is open in this picture, then it must be Core 24 headed to McGregor, correct?

Edit:  So looking at the pic of the truck, I don't think it can get to the "wall" -- Now I'm thinking it's Core 25 (Thaicom) which is headed to McGregor.
« Last Edit: 06/14/2016 06:55 pm by starhawk92 »

Offline starhawk92

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Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #435 on: 06/14/2016 06:59 pm »
And here's the picture of 4:



So the are:
Left:  Core23
Left-Center:  Core24
Center/incoming:  Core 25
Right:  Orbcomm, lookin' pretty

So, is the truck above aligned with center, or left-center??

Offline envy887

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Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #436 on: 06/14/2016 07:14 pm »
I see two cores off to the passenger side of that truck, so the one leaving would be the left-center (core 24).

Offline starhawk92

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Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #437 on: 06/14/2016 07:21 pm »
I see two cores off to the passenger side of that truck, so the one leaving would be the left-center (core 24).

If it's leaving two on the passenger side, it would have to be center?  I think?

Offline envy887

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Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #438 on: 06/14/2016 07:37 pm »
You're right. I thought that the truck was parked under the engine end, but looking closer those are definitely interstages. The truck would be right under where the interior photos were taken, lined up with core 25 was during the incoming shot.

Offline mvpel

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Re: Refurbishment of Used Stages/Vehicles
« Reply #439 on: 06/14/2016 08:36 pm »
Remember, the engines always point towards the launch pad.
"Ugly programs are like ugly suspension bridges: they're much more liable to collapse than pretty ones, because the way humans (especially engineer-humans) perceive beauty is intimately related to our ability to process and understand complexity. A language that makes it hard to write elegant code makes it hard to write good code." - Eric S. Raymond

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