Author Topic: Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket  (Read 128447 times)

Offline dcporter

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Re: Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket
« Reply #200 on: 12/05/2013 01:57 pm »
They're not heading back to the launchpad on CRS3, right? My understanding was that they'd be trying for a point farther south with no people nearby.

Offline cambrianera

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Re: Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket
« Reply #201 on: 12/05/2013 02:05 pm »
@neoforce,
I answered on SES-8 discussion thread but repeating here.
No relight of first stage engines happened.
What you see is first stage in full sunlight against a dimming evening sky; if you have still doubts, please review the video and consider you can't see merlins' first stage plumes, while thrusters' plumes are easily visible.
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Offline meekGee

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Re: Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket
« Reply #202 on: 12/05/2013 02:24 pm »
They're not heading back to the launchpad on CRS3, right? My understanding was that they'd be trying for a point farther south with no people nearby.

Musk said they are trying to get approval to get back to shore, full landing.  He mentioned it only once.
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Offline mlindner

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Re: Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket
« Reply #203 on: 12/05/2013 02:24 pm »
No relight of first stage engines happened.

I really suggest you take a look at L2.
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Offline dcporter

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Re: Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket
« Reply #204 on: 12/05/2013 02:28 pm »
They're not heading back to the launchpad on CRS3, right? My understanding was that they'd be trying for a point farther south with no people nearby.

Musk said they are trying to get approval to get back to shore, full landing.  He mentioned it only once.

Yes, but back to shore at a point further south with no people. I don't recall where I read or heard it, but I believe the quote was directly from Musk after the CASSIOPE launch.

Offline meekGee

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Re: Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket
« Reply #205 on: 12/05/2013 02:32 pm »
They're not heading back to the launchpad on CRS3, right? My understanding was that they'd be trying for a point farther south with no people nearby.

Musk said they are trying to get approval to get back to shore, full landing.  He mentioned it only once.

Yes, but back to shore at a point further south with no people. I don't recall where I read or heard it, but I believe the quote was directly from Musk after the CASSIOPE launch.

Yes, definitely not to the pad.  If I were to go, I'd look for a vantage point to the landing, not the launch.
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Offline Elmar Moelzer

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Re: Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket
« Reply #206 on: 12/05/2013 02:50 pm »

Maybe that's why nobody can ever follow my driving directions...  (Take the zeroth driveway on your left) 

Otherwise, it's complicated.  (Studied EE, ended up doing some CE, mostly ME)  But I'm C Native, so zero's it.

ANYWAY.

The launch was not a "burn" in my mind.  It was, you know, THE LAUNCH.
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Offline Jim

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Re: Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket
« Reply #207 on: 12/05/2013 03:03 pm »

Yes, definitely not to the pad.  If I were to go, I'd look for a vantage point to the landing, not the launch.

There isn't any for either coast

Offline cambrianera

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Re: Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket
« Reply #208 on: 12/05/2013 03:04 pm »
No relight of first stage engines happened.

I really suggest you take a look at L2.

Responding to neoforce's doubts, I was referring to the video: the light is not due to first stage engines relighting.
I don't know what happened later (not L2 member).

Anyway, I apologize if I wrote something to be seen as misleading.
« Last Edit: 12/05/2013 03:24 pm by cambrianera »
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Offline Norm38

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Re: Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket
« Reply #209 on: 12/05/2013 04:04 pm »
SpaceX hopes to launch another commercial satellite from the Cape before the year is out, for Thaicom.
Musk said SpaceX might try to recover that rocket's first stage from the ocean, depending in part on data collected during the SES-8 mission.
Link : http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/12/04/spacex-launch-successful/3866655/

What we were told prevented the soft landing of the Cassiope 1st stage was the stage spinning up, that exceeded RCS roll authority.  And the fix SpaceX mentioned was placing the landing legs, to provide extra drag for the roll.

To talk of recovering the Thaicom stage, doesn't that imply the roll issue has been fixed?  How?  There's been no talk of legs being on this flight, only on CRS-3.

Also, the "better than required" performance on SES-8 indicates that have extra margin. Maybe.
Would that extra margin be enough to put legs on the Thaicom flight?

I wonder if anything new was learned about the roll from the SES-8 stage re-entry?  Doubtful right?  Since without the braking burn it never followed the flight envelope to the point where roll developed.
Anyway, another interesting thing to keep track of.
« Last Edit: 12/05/2013 04:06 pm by Norm38 »

Offline TrevorMonty

If they are going land it at a remote location. It will need to have good road access so they can truck it out.
Spacex may need to demo a few successful landings before being allowed to land at pad.

Offline Kabloona

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Re: Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket
« Reply #211 on: 12/05/2013 04:21 pm »


To talk of recovering the Thaicom stage, doesn't that imply the roll issue has been fixed?  How?  There's been no talk of legs being on this flight, only on CRS-3.



Since SpaceX apparently believes the roll was aero-induced, they may already have done some aerodynamic tweaks on the SES vehicle, or somehow added more control authority, to experiment with nulling that roll torque. One way to improve control authority would be to up the GN2 pressure, assuming the thrusters, tanks and plumbing weren't already operating at their limits, and maybe swap in higher-pressure components if necessary.

 And since we saw in video that S1 did its post-sep ACS thrusting, I'd be surprised if SpaceX didn't go ahead and actually attempt a relight with residuals.

If so, they may have been able to get enough data before stage breakup to verify a fix to the roll issue.
« Last Edit: 12/05/2013 04:37 pm by Kabloona »

Offline kevin-rf

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Re: Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket
« Reply #212 on: 12/05/2013 05:30 pm »
If they are going land it at a remote location. It will need to have good road access so they can truck it out.
Spacex may need to demo a few successful landings before being allowed to land at pad.

One can assume it will not be landing to far inland, so all they need is a good hovercraft ;)
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Offline douglas100

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Re: Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket
« Reply #213 on: 12/05/2013 10:25 pm »

Since SpaceX apparently believes the roll was aero-induced, they may already have done some aerodynamic tweaks on the SES vehicle, or somehow added more control authority, to experiment with nulling that roll torque. One way to improve control authority would be to up the GN2 pressure, assuming the thrusters, tanks and plumbing weren't already operating at their limits, and maybe swap in higher-pressure components if necessary.

 And since we saw in video that S1 did its post-sep ACS thrusting, I'd be surprised if SpaceX didn't go ahead and actually attempt a relight with residuals.

If so, they may have been able to get enough data before stage breakup to verify a fix to the roll issue.

Quite possibly. There was a comment about information on L2 about what was done post staging on this flight. (Don't have L2 myself.) But as Musk's remarks were reported, there was no mention of legs being fitted on the next flight. It's not clear that the legs are even ready. SpaceX might be waiting for F9R to fly to test them first.

I think they might want to repeat what they did on the CASSIOPE flight with the next launch and attempt to recover the stage from the sea. I also think that getting Thaicom 6 off before the end of the year is possible, but I think it's more likely it will slip to early January. But a slip of a week or two isn't a big deal: performing another successful flight is.
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Offline Antares

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Re: Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket
« Reply #214 on: 12/06/2013 04:02 am »
I'd think from the Cape Canaveral jetty to Complex 46 would be a pretty easy sightline.  Might not be able to see touchdown, but the stage would be visible above the treeline.
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Online Jakusb

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Re: Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket
« Reply #215 on: 12/06/2013 07:08 am »

No relight of first stage engines happened.

I really suggest you take a look at L2.
Hi, I am a L2 member, but no clue to what you refer to. Can you please post a link?

Offline cosmicvoid

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Re: Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket
« Reply #216 on: 12/06/2013 07:15 am »

No relight of first stage engines happened.

I really suggest you take a look at L2.
Hi, I am a L2 member, but no clue to what you refer to. Can you please post a link?
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=33397.msg1128213#msg1128213
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Offline macpacheco

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Re: Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket
« Reply #217 on: 12/09/2013 05:05 pm »
Going one step at a time... I would rather have them do a water landing at least half a mile from shore, in the shallowest spot they can find (but far away from people and any wild life reserve). If it lands intact, easy peasy to recover, if something goes wrong and it breaks up, they can recover every single piece with divers (if its shallow enough, just a sea crane could get everything).

This way they can prove to NASA they have terminal control, that they're able land very precisely outside Grasshopper tests, and if it goes well, they could land in a somewhat remote area with just concrete on away from the active areas of the Cape (for the CRS launch).

Even with seawater, they could refurbish everything that got wet for a relative bargain and use it as GH2 !

I wouldn't believe NASA would like to see a crash inland (even a small risk), so I don't think this speculation of a surface landing for Thaicom-6 launch will pan out (even if legs are ready and Thaicom contract gives them enough fuel reserves for landing).

Finally Falcon 9 quoted performance for standard GTO launch is 4850Kg payload, a 30% hit leaves 3395Kg payload capability, very little margin over Thaicom-6 3300Kg (i've seen quotes for both 3,2 and 3,3 tons). If the launch is super sync GTO, then 15% hit for at sea recovery might be the only choice anyways. I know Elon said F9R performed better than expected, but we don't know how much better !
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Offline savuporo

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Re: Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket
« Reply #218 on: 12/09/2013 06:43 pm »
so I don't think this speculation of a surface landing for Thaicom-6 launch will pan out (even if legs are ready and Thaicom contract gives them enough fuel reserves for landing).

Finally Falcon 9 quoted performance for standard GTO launch is 4850Kg payload, a 30% hit leaves 3395Kg payload capability, very little margin over Thaicom-6 3300Kg (i've seen quotes for both 3,2 and 3,3 tons). If the launch is super sync GTO, then 15% hit for at sea recovery might be the only choice anyways. I know Elon said F9R performed better than expected, but we don't know how much better !
Thaicom 6 is exact same bus as SES-8 was and is quoted to be 125kg heavier.
http://www.orbital.com/NewsInfo/Publications/Thaicom6_Factsheet.pdf
http://www.orbital.com/newsinfo/publications/SES-8_Fact.pdf
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Offline Wetmelon

I know Elon said F9R performed better than expected, but we don't know how much better !

He quoted the engines running at about 85% capacity.  Not sure how exactly that translates to fuel efficiency though.

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