Author Topic: SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 - Dragon - CRS-5/SpX-5 -Jan. 10, 2015 - DISCUSSION  (Read 610036 times)

Offline jimvela

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The first time I see video of a 1st stage landing intact anywhere - on a barge, on a landing pad, whatever- I'm going to have a n enormous celebration!!

It has been within the realm of possibility to do that for quite some time. 

The difference is that no big aerospace company had the stones or the desire to spend precious shareholder monies in making it happen, and no "little" newspace company could afford the major (to it) capital investment to prove that this type of reuse is capable.

As soon as one of those first stages is recovered intact, the whole world is on notice that reusability might just be possible (it does not prove it- there's a HUGE step from getting it back to getting it back and being able to economically re-fly it).

But at that point, any private enterprise that wants to compete for commercial launches has to get serious about R&D to drive those launch costs down in response.

A decade or so after that, even if the upstart or other little guys fail, the big boys will arrive to the party.

Competition should then benefit us all.


Offline Zakrah

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In the Antares threads it was mentioned that an O2 tank might be swapped out for an N2 tank to replace the one that was just lost.

This is the ISS N2 tank on Tuesday morning at Kennedy Space Center, ready to be filled. Fill was going to occur on Wednesday or Thursday. I'm told if this thing blows during fill it would damage that end the SSPF, and there were blast shields for the workers to stay behind during the fill just in case.


Offline Nate_Trost

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Do not taunt Happy Fun COPV.

Offline jaufgang

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Just remember that Elon has downplayed chance of first-time success, calling it a 50-50 shot. Also, events like this don't really catch public media attention without video, which may not happen this flight.

What I find inspiring about that "50/50" estimate is the belief that they are indeed downplaying their estimates, which would mean that internally they probably predict a somewhat higher probability of success.  If Musk and his team really felt this was a 50/50 bet, I would expect them publicly to be expressing a much lower expectation than that. 

When a successful landing happens on the platform located just off the Cape, within range of on-shore video cameras, that will be a big event.

The platform itself should be an excellent location to mount cameras.  I'd be shocked if there weren't at least a small array of video cameras mounted at the edges and corners of this barge, some pointing upwards to record the approach and some pointing towards the landing target zone in the middle (and perhaps some pointing radially outward in order to catch any possible near miss?).  It should be pretty easy to send the video feed into a small recording computer in a protected location below the landing deck that would be safe from and damage from the exhaust plume.  And even if the camera views become completely obscured by smoke at the moment of landing, whatever footage they could get of the approach and of the stage and platform after smoke dissipates would have value and be incredibly cool.   And that would be equally true in the event of either a successful landing or any type of failure on or near the platform.   

Offline laika_fr

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The barge is located inside the OG2 landing area so SpaceX is using a proven trajectory, ahem, i think i'am gonna watch this flight.
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Offline Prober

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In the Antares threads it was mentioned that an O2 tank might be swapped out for an N2 tank to replace the one that was just lost.

This is the ISS N2 tank on Tuesday morning at Kennedy Space Center, ready to be filled. Fill was going to occur on Wednesday or Thursday. I'm told if this thing blows during fill it would damage that end the SSPF, and there were blast shields for the workers to stay behind during the fill just in case.

Do we know the contractor for this tankage?
 
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Online AnalogMan

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In the Antares threads it was mentioned that an O2 tank might be swapped out for an N2 tank to replace the one that was just lost.

This is the ISS N2 tank on Tuesday morning at Kennedy Space Center, ready to be filled. Fill was going to occur on Wednesday or Thursday. I'm told if this thing blows during fill it would damage that end the SSPF, and there were blast shields for the workers to stay behind during the fill just in case.

Do we know the contractor for this tankage?
 

ATK designed and manufacture the Composite Overwrap Pressure Vessel (COPV), and the Recharge Tank Assembly (RTA) Valve Assembly (RVA) is designed and manufactured by Cobham.
« Last Edit: 11/07/2014 06:16 pm by AnalogMan »

Offline deruch

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The barge is located inside the OG2 landing area so SpaceX is using a proven trajectory, ahem, i think i'am gonna watch this flight.

I think that's just a coincidence.

1.  The exact coordinates from the FCC filing are actually just outside the OG2 recovery zone (to the NW).  Not at it's center.  However, the filing did list a radius for the boat position of 20 nautical miles, which would overlap parts of the previous recovery zone.

2.  The OG2 recovery zone was so much closer in to land than that of previous missions because they flew that really lofted trajectory.  Given the very light payload on the OG2 launch, there was a lot of margin for flying pretty much however they wanted.  I don't imagine they will try to duplicate that trajectory with the much heavier payload on this mission.

3.  A boost-back flight profile, as opposed to the lofted, ballistic one of the OG2, allows SpaceX to demonstrate controlled flight in all the regimes that will be required for eventual RTLS.  Given that SpaceX's goal is to secure range approval for a full-up attempt at RTLS, I think the closer recovery zone reflects that there will be some moderate boost-back.  It looks to be about a third of the way back to the cape, which strikes me as a good first step towards their goal.

Shouldn't reality posts be in "Advanced concepts"?  --Nomadd

Offline saliva_sweet

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I don't imagine they will try to duplicate that trajectory with the much heavier payload on this mission.

Can't be ruled out though. I would think they'd try to stick to the tried methods for the first landing attempt as much as possible and omit the untested boostback burn. We will have to pay attention to the range and altitude callouts during flight if we don't find out earlier.

Offline toruonu

Quote
Can't be ruled out though. I would think they'd try to stick to the tried methods for the first landing attempt as much as possible and omit the untested boostback burn. We will have to pay attention to the range and altitude callouts during flight if we don't find out earlier.

Wasn't a boostback done on the CRS-4 mission? So it's not an untested maneuver though not sure if they consider it a success, not much of the first stage return of CRS-4 has been discussed.

Offline saliva_sweet

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Wasn't a boostback done on the CRS-4 mission? So it's not an untested maneuver though not sure if they consider it a success, not much of the first stage return of CRS-4 has been discussed.

That test was rather preliminary and nowhere close to the extent required to get to the barge position. On the other hand we know that landing in that location can be accomplished without boostback. We'll have to wait and see what will happen. Too early to say boostback is definitely happening IMO.

And cheers to a fellow estonian on NSF  :)

Offline wtrix

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And cheers to a fellow estonian on NSF  :)

He's not the only one :-)

Offline MTom

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Wasn't a boostback done on the CRS-4 mission? So it's not an untested maneuver though not sure if they consider it a success, not much of the first stage return of CRS-4 has been discussed.

That test was rather preliminary and nowhere close to the extent required to get to the barge position. On the other hand we know that landing in that location can be accomplished without boostback. We'll have to wait and see what will happen. Too early to say boostback is definitely happening IMO.

And cheers to a fellow estonian on NSF  :)

It could depend on the BO-patent too: they needs some boostback instead of a single ballistic trajectory. Only a guess.

Offline macpacheco

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Wasn't a boostback done on the CRS-4 mission? So it's not an untested maneuver though not sure if they consider it a success, not much of the first stage return of CRS-4 has been discussed.

That test was rather preliminary and nowhere close to the extent required to get to the barge position. On the other hand we know that landing in that location can be accomplished without boostback. We'll have to wait and see what will happen. Too early to say boostback is definitely happening IMO.

And cheers to a fellow estonian on NSF  :)

It could depend on the BO-patent too: they needs some boostback instead of a single ballistic trajectory. Only a guess.
That patent is being litigated between BO and SpaceX, so as long as SpaceX is confident it can invalidate it, SpaceX can proceed. The worst that could happen is SpaceX looses the litigation and ends up paying damages for knowingly violating the patent (treble damages).
Looking for companies doing great things for much more than money

Offline llanitedave

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Damages which I think would be quite hard to quantify.
"I've just abducted an alien -- now what?"

Offline Avron

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Damages which I think would be quite hard to quantify.

with prior art .. good luck collecting

Offline Lar

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not too far down the patent discussion fork please, guys.. :)
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Offline MattMason

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The current liftoff time (pending delays noted in the Update thread) is 17:15 EST (5:15 PM) on December 9.

According to NOAA's sunset calculator, that gives 15 minutes of daylight before 5:30 sunset, calculated from Miami's location). Think that's enough time for a decent visual recording of the flyback test to the barge? I'm unclear as to the general amount of time required from stage 2 separation to touchdown in the past tests as SpaceX's videos don't illuminate elapsed time.
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Offline hopalong

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Plugging in the location of the barge (31N 78W approx) gives the local sunset as 22:10UTC, 17:10 EST. So the landing will be in twilight at best. But giving some good floodlights and that modern cameras can see very well in low light, we should get some good images.

Offline rpapo

First stage launch to landing will be less than fifteen minutes.  That much we saw with ORBCOMM.
Following the space program since before Apollo 8.

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