SpaceX Falcon 9 FT - ORBCOMM-2 - Dec. 21, 2015 (Return To Flight) DISCUSSION

[nadreck]

Just as an aside, if they had two complete rockets with integrated payload and two complete launch crews etc to avoid fatigue, what is the minimum possible time between launches off the same pad  at the cape?

I believe they could do it in 1 week, but we KNOW they did it 13 days apart once this year already.

[Lee Jay]

They can take two drivers in a truck cab, and rotate sleeping/driving.  They could even take three and still rotate sleeping.  Also, driving at night might be quicker than high traffic times around large cities.  So with multiple drivers, they could get across country averaging about 50mph in about 72 hours or 3 days from Hawthorne.  From Texas probably 36 hours with multiple drivers. 

You can't drive an oversized load at night.  Its not about driver wakefulness, its about other vehicles's safety.

This is almost entirely false.  Curfew is during the work rush, usually something like 6-9am and 3-6pm (depends on the jurisdiction and permit), but nighttime moves are almost always allowed with proper lighting and pilot vehicles.  Most jurisdictions encourage it because there are fewer vehicles on the road making slow moving oversized loads less of a traffic or safety issue.

[Lee Jay]

For a RTF  in Mid-November when does the Falcon 9 1st Stage needs to leave MCGregor? How many days to travel to Cape and get it ready to launch?

Travel time shouldn't be more than three days, assuming they limit drive time to 8 hours a day or so. 

It took 5 days to move a very large load from Houston to Denver.  It took 6 days to move a very over sized load from Salt Lake to Denver.  When I got objects similar in size to a rocket stage moved from California to Denver, it took 3 days.

[Okie_Steve]

Just as an aside, if they had two complete rockets with integrated payload and two complete launch crews etc to avoid fatigue, what is the minimum possible time between launches off the same pad  at the cape?

I believe they could do it in 1 week, but we KNOW they did it 13 days apart once this year already.

Yes, but if the LV and SpaceX are not a bottleneck, what is a lower bound based on things like
replacing umbilicals and range maintenance/personnel availability. Also, what you can do for 2 launches would probably not scale to 20 at the same cadence. But for now, just wondering about a best case lower bound.

[Kabloona]

They can take two drivers in a truck cab, and rotate sleeping/driving.  They could even take three and still rotate sleeping.  Also, driving at night might be quicker than high traffic times around large cities.  So with multiple drivers, they could get across country averaging about 50mph in about 72 hours or 3 days from Hawthorne.  From Texas probably 36 hours with multiple drivers. 

You can't drive an oversized load at night.  Its not about driver wakefulness, its about other vehicles's safety.

This is almost entirely false.  Curfew is during the work rush, usually something like 6-9am and 3-6pm (depends on the jurisdiction and permit), but nighttime moves are almost always allowed with proper lighting and pilot vehicles.  Most jurisdictions encourage it because there are fewer vehicles on the road making slow moving oversized loads less of a traffic or safety issue.

Texas, Florida, and probably other states along that route do not allow oversize loads (in Texas that means over 10' wide or 100' long; in Florida that means over 10' wide) to travel at night. You can check individual state regs for oversize loads here:

http://wideloadshipping.com

[Nomadd]

Texas, Florida, and probably other states along that route do not allow oversize loads (in Texas that means over 10' wide or 100' long; in Florida that means over 10' wide) to travel at night. You can check individual state regs for oversize loads here:

http://wideloadshipping.com

That's only for interstates in Texas. Oversize loads are often required to move at night through towns because they often have to shut down local roads for hours to move through.
 If you really want to have trouble, try moving anything oversize or even larger standard size through Santa Rosa, Calif., land of countless state agencies with conflicting regs.

[Kabloona]

Texas, Florida, and probably other states along that route do not allow oversize loads (in Texas that means over 10' wide or 100' long; in Florida that means over 10' wide) to travel at night. You can check individual state regs for oversize loads here:

http://wideloadshipping.com

That's only for interstates in Texas. Oversize loads are often required to move at night through towns because they often have to shut down local roads for hours to move through.
 If you really want to have trouble, try moving anything oversize or even larger standard size through Santa Rosa, Calif., land of countless state agencies with conflicting regs.

In Florida, Alabama, and probably other states along the route, the oversize load nighttime driving bans apply on all roads, not just interstates.

[kevin-rf]

I don't know, I saw a very oversized load (not a rocket, maybe a jet engine) Friday night in stop and go during rush hour in the left lane on 495 with full MA police escort. Exceptions do happen.

btw. On three lane highways in MA trucks are banned from the left lane or using the shoulder when it is allowed to be used as the travel lane.

[Kabloona]

Massachusetts does allow oversize loads under 12' wide to travel at night. Unfortunately Massachusetts is not on the route between California and Florida.

[WHAP]

In the 4-5 months between the failure and RTF, does the time saved by driving at night make any real difference?  I get it - no one willing to talk has any "real" information about RTF activities, but after more than a page of discussing travel times and regulations between Hawthorne, McGregor, and CCAFS, maybe it's time to move back to something more on topic.

[macpacheco]

In the 4-5 months between the failure and RTF, does the time saved by driving at night make any real difference?  I get it - no one willing to talk has any "real" information about RTF activities, but after more than a page of discussing travel times and regulations between Hawthorne, McGregor, and CCAFS, maybe it's time to move back to something more on topic.

L2 has some extra information, which will be collated for a future article no doubt.
L2 is highly recommended.
But even people with L2 access like me are also very antsy... We want a launch... tomorrow !

[Tonioroffo]

What if the thing happens that we don't dare to talk about...  partial or full failure of the RTF mission because of unexpected issues in the FT changes?

Dark times for SpaceX?  Can the company survive another setback?

[Jakusb]

What if the thing happens that we don't dare to talk about...  partial or full failure of the RTF mission because of unexpected issues in the FT changes?

Dark times for SpaceX?  Can the company survive another setback?

Why discuss something as dark and negative as that, while it has not happened yet, and hopefully never will? Let's cross that bridge when and IF it gets there.

Edit: I personally do not see any positive benefit of doing that prematurely.

[LouScheffer]

What if the thing happens that we don't dare to talk about...  partial or full failure of the RTF mission because of unexpected issues in the FT changes?

Why discuss something as dark and negative as that, while it has not happened yet, and hopefully never will? Let's cross that bridge when and IF it gets there.

Edit: I personally do not see any positive benefit of doing that prematurely.

It's not morbid to have some idea of what you will do if the worst happens.  That's why they sell life insurance.

Nixon thought about what to do if the first astronauts died on the moon. Eisenhower worried about what to do if D-day failed.  The Manhattan project worried about what to do if scientists were killed in the Trinity test.

When you try something hard, you need to at least think about the possibility of failure.

[deltaV]

What if the thing happens that we don't dare to talk about...  partial or full failure of the RTF mission because of unexpected issues in the FT changes?

Dark times for SpaceX?  Can the company survive another setback?

Failure of the RTF mission wouldn't be that bad since any RTF mission is effectively a test flight and test flight failures are par for the course. The really bad scenario IMHO would be a failure on another flight next year from an unrelated cause, which would suggest that SpaceX's cost-cutting is hurting reliability.

[Comga]

Oh, come on, people.  Let's not get silly.

Every launch is very important.  No one involved is going to party after a failure.  it would not be "not that bad".

We would be sufficiently nervous if this was just the RTF.  With it being RTF and the debut of the F9-V1.1-FT it's worse.

There are obviously some significant new aspects beyond replacing the struts identified as the cause of the failure.  We all know it is best to change one thing at a time, but that's now how real life works.

However, SpaceX won't disappear with a failure.  They do have several billion dollars of business that they can conduct with the vehicle they have, specifically the NASA contracts.  They have too much invested and accomplished to just fold the tent.  It would not be pretty, just like this forum will get even uglier with more months of handwringing and speculation. 

Man, am I anxious for flights to resume!

[Lars-J]

What if the thing happens that we don't dare to talk about...  partial or full failure of the RTF mission because of unexpected issues in the FT changes?

Why discuss something as dark and negative as that, while it has not happened yet, and hopefully never will? Let's cross that bridge when and IF it gets there.

It's not morbid to have some idea of what you will do if the worst happens.  That's why they sell life insurance.
...
When you try something hard, you need to at least think about the possibility of failure.

And are you suggesting that the people at SpaceX aren't spending sleepless nights considering such scenarios?  They know how important it is.

What they do in this regard matters. Not what we pontificate about here. So don't make it seem like worst case scenario is an essential form of discourse here. Because if it is, when are you going to post the "What it first SLS launch fails" or "what if first updated Antares launch fails" threads too?

[meekGee]

[wannamoonbase]

What if the thing happens that we don't dare to talk about...  partial or full failure of the RTF mission because of unexpected issues in the FT changes?

Dark times for SpaceX?  Can the company survive another setback?

Yes

[Kansan52]

SpaceX will continue as long as customers have confidence. Comments from SES about how SpaceX stepped up and informed SES about the investigation and recovery confirms SpaceX can retain customer confidence.