I also would suspect the fairings themselves do not tend to float (unless they have a honeycomb construction or some other fabrication method that adds buoyancy as a side benefit),
Quote from: savuporo on 06/03/2016 07:28 amQuote from: Kaputnik on 06/03/2016 06:59 amPlus I really doubt a steerable chute could have the accuracy to get it down onto a boat anyway.Military precision airdrop steerable parafoils ( Atair, MMIST, SPADES, Zodiac etc) had accuracy of about 50-200 meters ~8 years ago. Depending on payload size and drop altitude of course. Not hitting a barge with that, but i guess military never had a land on a dime requirement.Maybe the boat can drive the last 50-100m to get under the fairing. It doesn't have to land on a droneship, since a fairing coming down under a chute isn't all that dangerous... mass in only ~2t, terminal velocity is probably a few m/s, and there's no explosives aboard. Land it on a airbag sitting on the deck.
Quote from: Kaputnik on 06/03/2016 06:59 amPlus I really doubt a steerable chute could have the accuracy to get it down onto a boat anyway.Military precision airdrop steerable parafoils ( Atair, MMIST, SPADES, Zodiac etc) had accuracy of about 50-200 meters ~8 years ago. Depending on payload size and drop altitude of course. Not hitting a barge with that, but i guess military never had a land on a dime requirement.
Plus I really doubt a steerable chute could have the accuracy to get it down onto a boat anyway.
Quote from: envy887 on 06/03/2016 01:29 pmQuote from: savuporo on 06/03/2016 07:28 amQuote from: Kaputnik on 06/03/2016 06:59 amPlus I really doubt a steerable chute could have the accuracy to get it down onto a boat anyway.Military precision airdrop steerable parafoils ( Atair, MMIST, SPADES, Zodiac etc) had accuracy of about 50-200 meters ~8 years ago. Depending on payload size and drop altitude of course. Not hitting a barge with that, but i guess military never had a land on a dime requirement.Maybe the boat can drive the last 50-100m to get under the fairing. It doesn't have to land on a droneship, since a fairing coming down under a chute isn't all that dangerous... mass in only ~2t, terminal velocity is probably a few m/s, and there's no explosives aboard. Land it on a airbag sitting on the deck.I really like this idea if salt water immersion is an obstacle to reuse. After a few notable learning experiences (see e.g. F1 fuel slosh failure) Spacex has proven themselves to harbor a pretty good stable of controls engineers. I wouldn't be surprised if they could reduce parafoil CEP to the point where the ship catcher wouldn't have to move much at all (Yes, I know analysis without numbers is just an opinion, to quote another poster's byline)Sent from my LGLS885 using Tapatalk
Or use an airplane to recover them. Doesn't have to be a helicopter. Corona used airplanes. Seems like it'd be cheaper, faster, maybe safer. Airplanes are lower maintenance, can cover a much longer range, and SpaceX already uses them sometimes just for observing the booster recovery attempts.Once a fairing halve is caught by the plane, however, I'm not entirely sure how it'd be gently placed on the ground.
There's a trick to that.If the line is long, and the airplane flies in a tight circle, the bottom of the line remains stationary (so the line describes a down-vertex cone.
This could be a driver for fairing recovery, since the cost argument seems to be weak, and production capacity is trivial to scale. If it is just cost, then someone is planning for really cheap launches.
...This could be a driver for fairing recovery, since the cost argument seems to be weak, and production capacity is trivial to scale. If it is just cost, then someone is planning for really cheap launches.
Quote from: AncientU on 06/05/2016 01:44 pm...This could be a driver for fairing recovery, since the cost argument seems to be weak, and production capacity is trivial to scale. If it is just cost, then someone is planning for really cheap launches.If they save $1 in all-up costs, they are ahead. That they are seriously pursuing fairing recovery-reuse at this time suggests that it is high on the list of potential cost saving measures.
I agree that the cost argument is most likely -- though I doubt they'd do all of this capability augmentation for your $1 net per launch (did you mean $1M?)....
Quote from: AncientU on 06/05/2016 04:23 pmI agree that the cost argument is most likely -- though I doubt they'd do all of this capability augmentation for your $1 net per launch (did you mean $1M?)....Meant $1.00. That SpaceX is pursuing fairing reuse at this point suggests that it is potentially low-hanging fruit. That is, if you put recovery-reuse-cost-benefit on a Pareto chart, it would probably be near the top. In any case, that savings from any single effort must be large in order to justify pursuit is a disease that SpaceX does not seem to be afflicted with.