SpaceX long-term stage processing goal = 48 hour turnaround

[Arb]

SpaceX job adverts sometimes yield interesting nuggets information. Here's two from Vehicle Operations Engineer (Launch Engineering)

Identify areas for improvement in ... rapid and reliable processing, and work ... to implement changes to equipment, tooling, operations, and the launch vehicle to serve the company’s long term processing goals (48 hour turnaround from stage arrival to launch, and a 4 hour stage acceptance series in Texas)

Emphasis mine.

Discuss.

[Arb]

Related, they are also still saying (Tooling Manager (Travel Team)):

Help SpaceX achieve its long-term goal of creating the world’s first fully automated launch system capable of rolling the vehicle to the pad, raising it to position, fueling, and executing a full launch sequence in a single hour

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Good finds, thanks. Even with the now reduced 30 mins or so to load fuel, roll out and launch in an hour is pretty ambitious. Coupled with the 48 hr turnaround it's clear SpaceX are aiming to be able to support very high flight rates

I wonder if the 48 hr aim applies to both new and re-used vehicles/stages?

[Kansan52]

I wonder if the 48 hr aim applies to both new and re-used vehicles/stages?

IMHO, yes. Once checked out, a flight proven vehicle should process as smoothly as a new vehicle.

[baldusi]

I wonder if the 48 hr aim applies to both new and re-used vehicles/stages?

IMHO, yes. Once checked out, a flight proven vehicle should process as smoothly as a new vehicle.

Or may be faster, since it will be "proven".

[chalz]

Would 4 hour stage acceptance in Texas just be: getting it off the truck, on the stand, full duration test, back on the truck if all goes well? Do they currently take the engines off the stage to test them individually?

[meekGee]

I understand the quick turn around time goal, but not so much the 4 hour acceptance time goal.

They can't be planning to take each stage back to TX for re-acceptance and still keep 48-hr turn around, since just the drive time is 2 days in each direction.  And of course the stage was just "test fired".

So why would you want to do acceptance testing in 4 hours?  Unless this is for second stages, that still need to be accepted per each flight.

[philw1776]

What's great about over the top, unprecedented aggressive goals like this is it makes engineers think totally "out of the box".  OK, shoot me now because I hate that phrase.  It makes engineers throw out all the preconceived "this is the way it needs to be done" thinking and start with a fresh approach.  Even if they fall short, innovative paradigm breaking approaches will be developed and major improvements made.

[watermod]

For their 4000 some sat configuration I can see the need for lots of launches.  (4000/n-sats per launch)
Is their anything else known to be on their manifest that would require this turn around rate?

 

[Lee Jay]

Related, they are also still saying (Tooling Manager (Travel Team)):

Help SpaceX achieve its long-term goal of creating the world’s first fully automated launch system capable of rolling the vehicle to the pad, raising it to position, fueling, and executing a full launch sequence in a single hour

That one is 7 years old.

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/01/musk-ambition-spacex-aim-for-fully-reusable-falcon-9/

Musk ambition: SpaceX aim for fully reusable Falcon 9
January 12, 2009 by Chris Bergin

...

“One of the goals I have for the Falcon 9 – which will take us many launches to achieve – is to have the vehicle out of the hanger and into the air in under 60 minutes.”

[wannamoonbase]

What's great about over the top, unprecedented aggressive goals like this is it makes engineers think totally "out of the box".  OK, shoot me now because I hate that phrase.  It makes engineers throw out all the preconceived "this is the way it needs to be done" thinking and start with a fresh approach.  Even if they fall short, innovative paradigm breaking approaches will be developed and major improvements made.

Bingo, that is what I was thinking.  SpaceX and other Elon companies have unrealistic goals but they shoot for unrealistic and settle for revolutionary.

[chalz]

For their 4000 some sat configuration I can see the need for lots of launches.  (4000/n-sats per launch)
Is their anything else known to be on their manifest that would require this turn around rate?

Mars colonisation is the main reason they want this. Plus the long speculated new markets that might materialise with reusable fast turn-around rockets. Nothing on the manifest would need it because they plan multiple launch sites in the interim.

[meekGee]

What's great about over the top, unprecedented aggressive goals like this is it makes engineers think totally "out of the box".  OK, shoot me now because I hate that phrase.  It makes engineers throw out all the preconceived "this is the way it needs to be done" thinking and start with a fresh approach.  Even if they fall short, innovative paradigm breaking approaches will be developed and major improvements made.

Personal nit:  You meant "outside the box", right?

[Im_Utrecht]

Actually it is very simple and Elon said it many times.
He want to build a rocket that can be used as an airplane like a 747.
Otherwise he would consider it a failure.

[philw1776]

What's great about over the top, unprecedented aggressive goals like this is it makes engineers think totally "out of the box".  OK, shoot me now because I hate that phrase.  It makes engineers throw out all the preconceived "this is the way it needs to be done" thinking and start with a fresh approach.  Even if they fall short, innovative paradigm breaking approaches will be developed and major improvements made.

Personal nit:  You meant "outside the box", right?

Yes, of course.
I was going to blame autocorrect but I retyped outside and autocorrect was not to blame.

[meekGee]

What's great about over the top, unprecedented aggressive goals like this is it makes engineers think totally "out of the box".  OK, shoot me now because I hate that phrase.  It makes engineers throw out all the preconceived "this is the way it needs to be done" thinking and start with a fresh approach.  Even if they fall short, innovative paradigm breaking approaches will be developed and major improvements made.

Personal nit:  You meant "outside the box", right?

Yes, of course.
I was going to blame autocorrect but I retyped outside and autocorrect was not to blame.

That never stopped anyone else from blaming it...

[RocketGoBoom]

The limitation won't be their own ability to get the rocket ready.

I think the barrier they will run into is the ability to get the times and dates cleared for the down range. It is not trivial it clean air traffic, boat traffic, etc.

[skybum]

I think the barrier they will run into is the ability to get the times and dates cleared for the down range. It is not trivial it clean air traffic, boat traffic, etc.

Clearing air traffic isn't a problem: aircraft do it for each other all the time, continuously. In the scenario where launch vehicles are treated with aircraft-like turnaround times, they would undoubtedly be treated much like any other aircraft.

Same goes for clearing boat traffic: you don't do it for airplane takeoffs, so why do it for a well-proven reusable rocket stage which you have no intention of dumping in the drink?

[Herb Schaltegger]

I think the barrier they will run into is the ability to get the times and dates cleared for the down range. It is not trivial it clean air traffic, boat traffic, etc.

Clearing air traffic isn't a problem: aircraft do it for each other all the time, continuously. In the scenario where launch vehicles are treated with aircraft-like turnaround times, they would undoubtedly be treated much like any other aircraft.

Um, no. They don't, at least not in the U.S. above 5,000 feet or within specified radii around certain designated metropolitan, military and spaceflight installations. Aircraft (and launching/entering spacecraft) in and around those areas in U.S. territory are subject to FAA flight rules and restrictions. There is a LOT of commercial aircraft travel in south Florida and all along the eastern seaboard of North America.

[AncientU]

The limitation won't be their own ability to get the rocket ready.

I think the barrier they will run into is the ability to get the times and dates cleared for the down range. It is not trivial it clean air traffic, boat traffic, etc.

As long as thinking starts from our tightly constrained existing model of rocket launches (rare, military like, expendible, government controlled, etc.), you are correct that this would be the barrier.  But as noted above, thinking out of the box or outside for some, forces engineers to cast all of that off and find what is physically limiting.  Most of the rest are rules people made up and people can change them.