SpaceX's Fairing Catchers (GO Ms Tree, GO Ms Chief)

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/julia_bergeron/status/1203353526476382209

All four arms have been installed on GO Ms. Chief and work continues on the joints. The Crew Dragon mockup is back in the nest on GO Searcher. It is quite possible Searcher will be doing some recovery ops ahead of the IFA launch. #SpaceXFleet #SpaceX

Edit to add:

https://twitter.com/julia_bergeron/status/1203359451773882370

GO Ms. Tree now has the attention of the engineers and the first arm is being installed now. #SpaceXFleet

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/gregscott_photo/status/1203720820935315457

SPACEX FLEET: This morning work is progressing on getting the 4th & final arm on Go Ms Tree. Ms Chief got its last arm reattached yesterday. With the addition of the nets this should put both ships back in service in time for JCSAT-18 on Tue 17th #SpaceX #ElonMusk #Space #Science

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/gregscott_photo/status/1204383160303333377

GO MS TREE: As Ms Tree was getting her arms put on Sat she had to make a spin in port to allow for the arms on the other side to be installed. Notice how much she is listing to the Port side from the weight of the single arm. #SpaceX #NASA #Science #ElonMusk

[FutureSpaceTourist]

twitter.com/spacexfleet/status/1207331188496621568

Ms. Chief returned to Port Canaveral this morning without one of the eight support poles that hold up her arms. Photo credit to @Kyle_M_Photo

https://twitter.com/kyle_m_photo/status/1207335242555691011

That's odd.  It doesn't look like there is any damage at the attachment points so hopefully it will be a quick swap.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/gregscott_photo/status/1214610091506311168

Go Ms Chief is undergoing arm completion today & appears that the net lines are being strung as well. All arms were removed and now are strengthened and reattached. Possible that netting will occur this afternoon readying it for the next upcoming mission. #NASA #SpaceX

[jstrotha0975]

Why the He double hockey sticks are they continuing down this road? Just fish the darned things out of the drink.

[su27k]

Why the He double hockey sticks are they continuing down this road? Just fish the darned things out of the drink.

My guess is they can't use every fairing in the water, it depends on whether fairing hits the water soft enough, Elon mentioned something about observing G-load during water impact.

[edzieba]

Impact load, saltwater ingress into the acoustic tiles, saltwater ingress into the composite-Al-honecomb-composite sandwich, saltwater ingress into other components (pneumatic latching & pusher systems, RCS, chute cannons, electronics, etc).
For Starlink, SpaceX can strip the acoustic tiles completely, and can design Starlink satellites to be tolerant of outgassing, and can accept the increased risk of failure due to a damaged fairing (collapse during ascent due to delaminated composite sandwich, rupture due to trapped gas in sandwich, failure of seperation latches or pushers, etc). For customer sats, these design requirements are difficult or impossible to impose on satellites already designed to the current vehicle specifications and the increased risk may not be acceptable. Starlink can use fairings fished out of the drink (and given the limited re-use, only with extensive cleaning and testing) but recovery without immersion is needed for fairings to be used on other launches and to minimise processing for re-use.

[Barley]

They probably still consider this experimental. They may have data other than a binary catch/no catch that leads them to believe they can make improvements.  If they gave up on booster recovery after 3 years where would they be?

[DistantTemple]

Just Guessing, but with "dunked" fairings being re-usable for Starlink, I guess the recovery effort and experimentation will be less than the price of making new fairings for Starlink. I think they are not using the same thick acoustic pannels, or perhaps not any at all. (see photos of unloading of recovered fairings) So Starlink Fairings may be significantly less than the $6M quoted especially, if they can cut other corners too. I accept it costs a lot to lease and run two ships and crew them, as well as the helicopter drop tests, the para-sails, thrusters, and nav computer etc... but frequent effective "income" of even only 2 or $3M for 2 "wet" fairings may pay for the programme from here onwards.

[jstrotha0975]

SpaceX has had 2 successful recoveries of a fairing HALF out of how many tries now. It's time to hang it up and cut costs. Just pull them out of the sea and use them on Starlink launches. Stop beating a dead horse.

[frederickm17]

How many attempts did it take to consistently land a first stage?

[mme]

SpaceX has had 2 successful recoveries of a fairing HALF out of how many tries now. It's time to hang it up and cut costs. Just pull them out of the sea and use them on Starlink launches. Stop beating a dead horse.

Why is it so offensive to you that they work on this?  If they give up and "just" fish them out they still need boats and crews.

It's not hard to imagine that reusing a non-dunked fairing is cheaper than a dunked one. And it seems reasonable that that a non-dunked fairing would get more reuses. If SpaceX thinks it's worth working on, then it's probably worth working on and SpaceX is king at doing things "on the cheap."

[ZachS09]

TBH, it hurts me to either hear from Elon that the fairings narrowly missed the nets, or to watch a short video of a fairing touching the net before falling back into the water.

[Coastal Ron]

SpaceX has had 2 successful recoveries of a fairing HALF out of how many tries now. It's time to hang it up and cut costs. Just pull them out of the sea and use them on Starlink launches. Stop beating a dead horse.

I guess you don't think it's amazing that they have had 2 successful recoveries, but many of us do. SpaceX is likely very happy too.

Look, Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take”, which means no one would have known how easy or hard it was to recover a fairing until they tried. But since fairings cost $6M per mission, SpaceX sees an ROI if they can recover some percentage of fairings.

And the bottom line is that they have the ships, they have the equipment, and they are fine tuning their techniques. Now is not the time to quit.

[Draggendrop]

Appears that Ms. Tree came close...

https://twitter.com/SpaceXFleet/status/1214626422377066498

Ms. Tree came incredibly close last night! Here is a photo from  u/ChannelMarkerMedia on r/SpaceX.

The parafoil got caught in the netting!

[FutureSpaceTourist]

twitter.com/spacecoast_stve/status/1216736218928635904

Like ships passing in the night...only it's in the day. Ms Tree heads out while Rocketship heads in. This was the neat, and unexpected, sight I had when I arrived at Jetty Park this morning! More pics below 👇

https://twitter.com/spacecoast_stve/status/1216736233919066113

[Ludus]

Would they need mods to catch Dragons?

[rpapo]

Would they need mods to catch Dragons?

Maybe, maybe not.  It really depends on how much denser and heavier (both factors) the Dragon capsule is compared to half a fairing.  Both of them bob like corks on the water, so neither is horribly dense.

And then there are their respective descent rates.  Are they greatly different?

Finally, what is the risk of rolling off the side or back of the net?  Especially with a less than perfect catch.  That may be no big deal with the fairing, but with the capsule, especially with people inside?

Like Elon said: they need a lot of practice yet.

[edkyle99]

A fairing half probably weighs a metric ton, give or take.  A Crew Dragon capsule at splashdown probably weighs the better part of 10 tonnes.  Big difference.  Not catching that heavy thing with a spindly net.

 - Ed Kyle