Falcon 9 Block 5 Updates and Discussion

[Lars-J]

Do I spot a new COPV type? Looks like a white cover over one of the pressure vessels in the LOx tank. A cover would prevent LOx contact with the carbon fiber fuel, eliminating one possible COPV failure mode.... Could also be a metallic PV. Either way, maybe they’re qualifying them for crewed launches.

From the STP-2 launch.

I think those "white COPVs" have been seen in footage from earlier flights this year. It is probably the updated "crew rated" COPVs.

[su27k]

Do I spot a new COPV type? Looks like a white cover over one of the pressure vessels in the LOx tank. A cover would prevent LOx contact with the carbon fiber fuel, eliminating one possible COPV failure mode.... Could also be a metallic PV. Either way, maybe they’re qualifying them for crewed launches.

From the STP-2 launch.

The white cylinder is not new, has been seen and asked before: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40374.msg1654933#msg1654933

I think what's new is the 3 blade propeller thing at the bottom of the tank, I don't remember seeing that before.

[jerwah]

Do I spot a new COPV type? Looks like a white cover over one of the pressure vessels in the LOx tank. A cover would prevent LOx contact with the carbon fiber fuel, eliminating one possible COPV failure mode.... Could also be a metallic PV. Either way, maybe they’re qualifying them for crewed launches.

From the STP-2 launch.

The white cylinder is not new, has been seen and asked before: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40374.msg1654933#msg1654933

I think what's new is the 3 blade propeller thing at the bottom of the tank, I don't remember seeing that before.

Could the blades be for long coast tank stirring?

*edit from Facebook group source Adam Williams
v1.1 tank vs stp-2

[crandles57]

12 block 5 boosters have been flown a total of 27 times (23 launches). 2 have been deliberately expended and 2 destroyed in attempted landing/transport after landing.

Stats will change over time. However, on these figures, do we see any real potential for more than 27/2=13.5 flights per booster and it will take some time to get there. On such figures, it hardly seems worth doing a substantial refurbishment if a booster is able to do 10 flights before such refurbishment. If they can't do as many as 10, then more details of refurbishment cost versus construction cost are likely needed than available to make such a decision.

Large number of Starlink flights may well reduce proportion of flights that are expended. So more flights per booster than this 13.5 estimate may well eventually happen.

Or perhaps delay before 4th flight of any booster is significant and potentially means some refurbishment needed after only 3 flights? Or is 10 without significant refurbishment still believed by people other than gullible fans?

Thoughts?

[DistantTemple]

suggest you didn't mean to derive 13.5 flights/booster from current performance, which should be 27/12 = 2.25 flights/booster so for. 13 would be great progress...

[Stefan.Christoff.19]

There have been only 24 core flights. Four cores have done 3x (1046-9), four cores have done 2x (1051-53, 1056) and four have done only a single flight (1050,54,55,57). I'm updating the core schedule and will post it later tonight. I will include a calc for average per core. Thank you for that suggestion.

[crandles57]

suggest you didn't mean to derive 13.5 flights/booster from current performance, which should be 27/12 = 2.25 flights/booster so for. 13 would be great progress...

Yes should be 24 core flights, my mistake. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_first-stage_boosters lists 27 but 3 are planned not occurred yet.)

Anyway I meant 24/2 being 2 expended cores from 24 booster flights. So maximum use of cores (with same as past mix of missions) would be expend a core on 12th flight and there would never be a need for a 13th flight from a core even if the boosters were able to do more.

With this mix of missions, if refurbishment needed after 10th flight, may as well not bother with the refurbishment just keep 9 times flown cores for expendable flights. If/when storage of lots of 9* flown booster starts to be an issue fly some on expendable 10th flight particularly if extra performance is useful rather than recovering the core.

Starlink may well change mix of missions towards higher proportion being recoverable not expendable missions.

Hope this explains what I was getting at better.

[Stefan.Christoff.19]

I see what you mean. I'm not sure we can make the conclusion that refurbishment process has so far been uniform and it's minimal (minimally required?) across cores before flight 10. Just looking at the turnaround times - Min 74 days, average 108 days (1.5xmin) and Max 264 days (3.5x min) - it doesn't really have that consistency to be able to know what's the effort involved and when is that terminal refurbishment happening. One can make the conclusion that it's 3 GTO flights. 1047 had the hardest flight profile with 3 GTO flights and got expanded. Following the AMOS-17 discussion thread seems like they may have not done full burn and could have attempted to land on the ship. That's just speculation, but there's enough to wonder.
I would say the manifest so far has driven flight cadance and if there's enough time in the future manifest AND if refurbishment is cheaper than building a new core then maybe that expensive refurb post planned flight life is worth doing. I think the math will get very interesting when Starship is close to coming online.

[Comga]

I see what you mean. I'm not sure we can make the conclusion that refurbishment process has so far been uniform and it's minimal (minimally required?) across cores before flight 10. Just looking at the turnaround times - Min 74 days, average 108 days (1.5xmin) and Max 264 days (3.5x min) - it doesn't really have that consistency to be able to know what's the effort involved and when is that terminal refurbishment happening. One can make the conclusion that it's 3 GTO flights. 1047 had the hardest flight profile with 3 GTO flights and got expanded. Following the AMOS-17 discussion thread seems like they may have not done full burn and could have attempted to land on the ship. That's just speculation, but there's enough to wonder.
I would say the manifest so far has driven flight cadance and if there's enough time in the future manifest AND if refurbishment is cheaper than building a new core then maybe that expensive refurb post planned flight life is worth doing. I think the math will get very interesting when Starship is close to coming online.

Although “Engineering is done with numbers” not all numerical calculations constitute engineering.
24 and 2 are just happenstance and unrelated to long term performance.
We can’t predict anything with them.

[docmordrid]

Brendan Byrne ✓ @SpaceBrendan (WMFE Orlando)
SpaceX's Jessica Jensen says because of Block 5 efficiency and re-usability, the company has actually scaled back manufacturing of new Falcon 9 boosters. #SpaceX #CRS19 #Falcon9

(H/T @EmreKelly for the Q)

https://twitter.com/SpaceBrendan/status/1201977656780177411

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/futurejurvetson/status/1205283677371957249

Table of dreams, at SpaceX today.
My, how big they are!  And some nice shadow waffles too.  At hypersonic speeds, the upper atmosphere is like molasses, so these fins near the top of the booster effectively guide and stabilize the return flight.

[MikeAtkinson]

F9 price mentioned three times, as "a little under $ 30 million" and "$ 28 million, that's with everything"

11 cores at the cape.

30 days to refurbish core.

Dedicated maintenance team for refurbishment.

[Hobbes-22]

Video is invite-only, it seems.

[RedLineTrain]

Video is invite-only, it seems.

Now it is.  In the last 15 minutes, it was switched to private.  Can confirm that he said the $28 million number, but he seems to have been mixing up cost and price a lot.

[wannamoonbase]

Video is invite-only, it seems.

Now it is.  In the last 15 minutes, it was switched to private.  Can confirm that he said the $28 million number, but he seems to have been mixing up cost and price a lot.

Who is ‘he’?

$28M is an impressive number. 

[RedLineTrain]

Video is invite-only, it seems.

Now it is.  In the last 15 minutes, it was switched to private.  Can confirm that he said the $28 million number, but he seems to have been mixing up cost and price a lot.

Who is ‘he’?

$28M is an impressive number.

Christopher Couluris, Director of Vehicle Integration, SpaceX

[billh]

I'm guessing he wasn't supposed to say what an F9 mission cost them to fly. We haven't heard that number before, although it is in line with speculation here. That's probably why it went private.

[wannamoonbase]

I'm guessing he wasn't supposed to say what an F9 mission cost them to fly. We haven't heard that number before, although it is in line with speculation here. That's probably why it went private.

Why assume it's a real number?  Maybe it's less than that and saying that number justifies market costs.  (Tongue in cheek)

These are highly skilled people, I'm sure if he said a number that it was ok for him to say it.

1 month to turn a booster is an interesting number.  That bodes well for Starlink flight rate with a modest size fleet of boosters.

Fairing reuse and turn around would be great information too.

[marsbase]

I'm guessing he wasn't supposed to say what an F9 mission cost them to fly. We haven't heard that number before, although it is in line with speculation here. That's probably why it went private.

He was speaking to an outside group with little understanding.  It was obvious that  the $28M number would get out, as it did.  So I suspect the actual launch cost is $20M and he is just giving the customers something to feel good about when they pay $35M.

[vaporcobra]

I'm guessing he wasn't supposed to say what an F9 mission cost them to fly. We haven't heard that number before, although it is in line with speculation here. That's probably why it went private.

We already know from Musk saying that Starlink satellites are already around $500k each and that launch costs are still less than satellites costs that the cost of an internal launch is less than $30M. The $28M figure is thus very specific and very interesting