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SpaceX Successful Static Fire
ron_ivi writes "SpaceX's website is announced that they had a "
great static fire today" where their Falcon rocket successfully had 3 seconds of thrust. Nice pictures and video of the test; and if analysis shows all was well, they'll be launching Thursday."
In 50 years I will be traveling into space because of them!!!
It used to be a guy wouldn't brag if he only had 3 seconds of thrust.
Well, now I don't feel so ashamed of my bedroom issues. 3 seconds!
I'd though a static fire would be bad for the ICs?
sounds like someone needs to start using dryer sheets...
for a minute there, i lost myself...
I think this is great. I love Scaled Composite's X-prize winner, but this company is actually shooting for orbit! If you don't already know; it is a hell of a lot harder to reach orbital speeds as it is to only reach the outer limits of the atmosphere and descend.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
Post a streaming video and picture link on slashdot.... I predict that it'll go dark quick... Oh, wait, it's Akamai hosted.. this should be fun !
If NASA designed cars,
- They would only drive in clear weather
- They would take millions of gallons of gas and burn it all at once and then coast the rest of the way
- The rubber tires would be prone to blowout on cold days
- The undercarriage would be made up of tissue paper
- It would cost billions of dollars to maintain, even when it just sits in the garage
- You would have to schedule your drives and be prepared to have them cancelled at the last minute
- There would only be a handful of cars in the entire world
- Half of those would be scattered across the Atlantic ocean and Texas
- People would show up to watch you drive because the occurrence is so rare
- You'd never be able to pay it off
Does anyone else find it sad that the founder of Paypal has a better rocket company than the creator of DOOM?
Ah well, at least they are both fellow geeks.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
But it is only 45 more years until we get to see 100 year old I Love Lucy re-runs!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Big deal. I produced a successful static fire this winter, when the phone rang and I ran across the carpet in my wool socks and sweater to answer it.
Doesn't anybody else think it's odd that the picture of this rocket being fired (very cool, BTW) has a couple of tanks in the foreground. Not sure what's in the tanks (probably fuel), but I'm sure they don't want to be next to an firing rocket if the rocket has an unfortunate explosition.
It's hard to tell distances in the picture -- there could be a mile separating the two. But having these in the foreground just struck me a little bit odd.
--Lance
Coming from the petrochem industry, I'm not used to seeing the words great, static and fire all in one sentence
So, when will these guys start flying their rag-tag rocket to the Moon to fetch left behind hardware from Apollo and all the lunar probes, and sell them on Ebay when they get back? They were so advanced, though, in that they had a SSTMAB (Single Stage To Moon And Back) rocket...
(this was the main plot line of a cheezoid TV series in the early 80's).
"It used to be a guy wouldn't brag if he only had 3 seconds of thrust."
Now he breaks out the cigarettes and asks, "was it good for you too"?
Video working for anyone?
Or could someone mirror it?
Basically as I see it your apology is like a ream of blue paper, sure its colourful, and maybe a bit different to your stock standard white. However it is also a bit harder to read and is really only suitable for covers and specific other purposes.
And you say you do bad analogies.
Somehow, in some way this proves that Microsoft sucks.
Does this sig remind you of Agatha Christie?
As the first link mentions, the launch is scheduled for Thursday, 1PM PST (4PM EST). According to RLV News, here's a few good sources for real-time commentary and info about the launch:
* Mission Status Center - Falcon Launch Report - Justin Ray
* Out of the Cradle
* NASASpaceflight.com - LIVE: SpaceX/Falcon 1 - 23rd March: launch coverage thread
Also, it was recently revealed that SpaceX has been secretly developing their SpaceX Dragon orbital capsule, which will be able to carry up to 7 people to and from orbit. A full-size prototype of the capsule has already been constructed, and the capsule is expected to enter service by 2009 (several years before NASA's CEV).
The proposed bigger model, the Falcon 9-S5, is comparable to the modern Atlas V. 6 launches to date, 100% success rate. About 2x the price the new guys claim, but then, the Atlas is a proven product.
But the commercial launch market has collapsed. Iridium is done, and nobody wants to launch that many sats again. The geosync comsat market is saturated; everybody is going fibre optic. There's just not that much going up.
Recently Sam Dinkin of the Space Review had a chance to tour SpaceX's facility, and wrote a 4-part article series about it. It's a pretty neat read, and gives you a good idea of the culture of SpaceX and where it's headed. Also, they're apparently looking for good people to hire. ;)
*Part 1
*Part 2
*Part 3
*Part 4
Also, an interesting bit of recent news: Apparently the President of Sea Launch, which is "arguably the world's most successful commercial launch company," has left Sea Launch to join SpaceX. Anybody care to speculate about why he would leave such a cushy position for a start-up?
I gotta disagree with that statement. They certainly still go boom.
/.)
The recent (October 2002) photon M2 launch failure is a good example (there's a truly spectacular video of it floating around, but I'm not gonna subject the only host I know of to
Or the zenit launch failure in the '90s that left a big smoking hole where the launch pad was. Both these involved the rocket failing shortly after liftoff, basically falling out of the sky fully fueled. When the tanks break up, you get many thousands of pounds of fuel and oxidizer nicely mixed. What happens after that is usually "Boom!"
Most US, European and Japanese launchers have range safety (aka self destruct) systems, which help if the vehicle is actually flying, but they aren't likely to make difference if the failure happens very near the pad.
I suspect the tanks that the OP asked about are actually quite far away, and just look close due to the
foreshortening effect of a long lense.
The launch of ST5 happened at last on Wednesday after being postponed several times.
Some moderator seems to be on drugs.
I thought "thrust" was measured in Newton Seconds?
BBH
"Falcon 1 Maiden Flight Update: Posted March 22, 2006 No major issues were discovered following the static fire, but, as a cautionary measure, we are going to take one more day to review data and verify system functionality. Launch is now scheduled for Friday at 1 p.m. California time."
"Falcon 1 Maiden Flight Update: Posted March 22, 2006 No major issues were discovered following the static fire, but, as a cautionary measure, we are going to take one more day to review data and verify system functionality. Launch is now scheduled for Friday at 1 p.m. California time" Well good to see they are looking after safety
SolarVPS - Quality Windows and Linux Virtual Servers
In Soviet Russia
3seconds of thrust makes give sputnik
I'm just wondering about how they keep the rocket down. Probably the engines give only a percentage of their power or something. But I'm not really sure.
On a more practical note, with the number of competing vendors and the number of technologies in play, it's not a question of if but of how. Will the laser drives beat the chemical boosters but lose out to the space elevator?
Unless the dimwits with the guns and bombs manage to foobar our entire world, somebody's getting systems running in the next fifteen years or so. As an old L5 member I say, it's about damn time!
-Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
SpaceX has delayed this launch for about two years now. It has filled its followers with false hope that commericialization of space is just around the corner.
You may not have noticed but on there website it says that they're delaying it again from Thursday to Friday.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
The launch is taking place on a 7 acre island near Kwajalein Atoll. The island is evacuated before the rocket is fueled. You can read about it here. I wish these guys luck. There're going to need it.
an ill wind that blows no good
SpaceX's info page states triple redundant systems as a reason for increased reliability.
r ts/ariane.html . For those who don't want to read the link, here's the simple summary. The rocket had triple redundant flight systems. Shortly after launch, the primary system failed due to a software bug. Backups immediately failed too due to the exact same software bug. The rocket's range safety failsafes went off. Rocket go boom!
One problem - pretty much every other rocket out there has dual or triple redundant avionics too.
Also, SpaceX doesn't state whether they do things Boeing style (External interfaces and functionality of the flight avionics boxes are specified, and then each of the three units comes from a different manufacturing and design team, resulting in them not only having different software but different hardware), or Ariane style? For a description of what happens when you do triple redundancy Ariane style, see http://www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de/publications/Repo
Elon is copying technology that already exists and making a fairly conventional rocket - single engine pintle motors. He's also funding a full-scale production facility.
John is not. He is funding it by selling off his collection of cars. His development team is a group of friends. His idea is a little different - a VTVL with a hovering tail setdown, not a splashdown. He's working on four throttled throatless engines on his stage - a radically different beast. Control law between multiple engines is a pain. Quite frankly it hasn't been done yet - Apollo used 1 single gimbleable engine, and even that was in reduced gravity! Much easier since your closing velocities will be slower. Etc.
Long story short, Elon is repeating history but trying to cut costs and make it manageable. John is trying to do things a new way.
Isn't that fuel tank a little close? ;-)
My head asplode.
Anybody else think that all that hot fire of death was a little close to the fuel tankers and trees?
Don't know about you, however I want an engine that fires for more than 3 seconds before I'll feel comfortable flying into space with it.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Wake me up when John reaches even 250 ISP and doesn't crash or otherwise damage/destroy his vehicle every fifth time he starts up the engines. Wake me up when he sticks with a single fuel/oxidizer combo for a year (some he stuck with for less than a few weeks).
I could easily keep going. It's a hobby rocket club. Nothing of any sort of use will ever come out of it. And I say this as someone who grew up admiring John.
People said I was dumb, but I proved them.
210 with no throat could easily = 250 with isentropic expansion. The flow is severely underexpanded. Come on man you should know this.
He switched to LOX in April of last year. That was LOX/Methanol. He's using Ethanol now and according to my email archive that's been since July. Methanol and Ethanol are pretty similar though, the issue was film cooling with the Methanol, IIRC.
VTVL is big. He's no Elon (I said that in my original post) but his head is in the right place. Elon is replicating, John is innovating.
Anybody else think that all that hot fire of death was a little close to the fuel tankers and trees?
Anybody else think that the average geek, wanna be rocket scientist, is full of crap?
Points to ponder:
+ This island is tiny. Even a geek like yourself could throw a ball from one side of the island to the other.
+ You actually want your propellant tanks, particularly the LOX tank, close to the launch vehicle, as handling propellant is troublesome, particularly on a hot, humid, tropical island.
Many in the space buisness are thrilled to death to see fresh blood willing to be creative and cost effective in an era where the big two launch providers hose you around for a quarter billion for a heavy lift ride to orbit. If these SpaceX guys succeed, then you can just about do double the number of science missions for the same money, as the launch costs shrink tremendously.
GO SPACEX!
He's made both normal and throatless engines, and has gotten no decent ISP with either. The reason he's working more with throatless engines now is because he kept damaging his engines before ;) I swear, the armadillo aerospace blog is one disaster after another, half of which would have been resolved simply by reading history and the other half of which would have been resolved by doing the math first.
John is not "innovating". He's repeating the mistakes of the past. Remember his doomed experiments with thrust vectoring? How long did it take for him to give up what has been shown time and time again to not work well in rockets? How long did he stick with peroxide?
People said I was dumb, but I proved them.
200 isp with no throat = a cf (coefficient of expansion) of 1. IIRC (im at work) a 1.4 cf is very conservative. That puts him at 280, right now, no design changes other than slapping a nozzle on the end.
... Peroxide was bad from one perspective but it was excellent in another perspective. Peroxide's virtue is quick turnaround time and handleability. He was able to turn around engines quickly and perform quick experiements. That level of playing around and discovering truths is not available when you move to a cryogenic/pressurized oxidizer/fuel combination. So while in the long run it was a setback there was a lot of valuable lessons learned and in fact it may have sped up the learning curve (IE: they may be further ahead of the game than if they started with LOX/Ethanol.
He's a tinkerer. He isn't in a race with anyone. He's said that before. He puts 1% of Id's revenue into it (not much) and then his own personal money. This is a diversion for him. He's not trying to be Elon. He's trying to do something different (I've said it the third time now, sunk in yet?)
And on the peroxide note
I'm a fan of both camps, I wish Elon well but you have to realise they are doing the same thing Boeing and LM and Raytheon have all done before. Pintle engines are old: he's not even getting that good of performance out of them. 2 stage to orbit vehicles optimization is a classic textbook problem. Both men are examples of people who aren't Aerospace engineers but look up at the stars, who found themselves in money due to hard work and good fortune in their fields and wanted to pursue space. They are taking different routes and again I commend both. I just think I find more value in what John is doing. His vehicle is unique - VTVL hasn't been done yet, not that he's there, but if he does it he will be the first. Differential throttling is spot on. I think he's finally got it.
They say they're looking for good people to hire, but the fact that they don't have any specific positions listed on their website leads they don't really plan on hiring anybody new unless you've got an absolutely killer resume, in which case they'll find something for you to work on.
I would send in my resume just in case, but I loathe the thought of living in southern california. I don't know what is wrong with aerospace companies that they have to set up shop in places that are clicking hot like LA, New Mexico, or Texas, or where the local culture is weird like LA or Seattle, or where life is just plain ridiculously expensive and crowded like LA.
200 isp with no throat = a cf (coefficient of expansion) of 1. IIRC (im at work) a 1.4 cf is very conservative. That puts him at 280, right now, no design changes other than slapping a nozzle on the end.
;) Carmack is going nowhere near orbit; he's just wrecking low performance engines based on 1930s to 1950s technology after taking every other wrong turn that's been taken before.
Except for the little fact that I just pointed out that he hasn't been able to get engines with nozzles and any sort of reasonable thrust behind them not to damage/destroy themselves, which is why he's working without a nozzle in the first place.
He's a tinkerer. He isn't in a race with anyone. He's said that before. He puts 1% of Id's revenue into it (not much) and then his own personal money. This is a diversion for him.
Thank you for repeating my initial point.
Peroxide's virtue is quick turnaround time and handleability.
Quick turnaround, kind of. If you want to change designs, most of the time that's going to involve your catalyst pack. Much of the time, your catalyst pack is clogged by the HTP's stabilizers. You also need to scrub anything that's ever going to touch the HTP extremely well; it's time consuming.
Handleability, definitely not. Not only is HTP horribly corrosive, not only do you have to scrub down your tanks extremely well to prevent the tiniest big of particulate contamination, not only do its stabilizers pose problems, but it also has this nasty habit of exploding: heat increases the rate of decomposition, and the faster it decomposes, the more heat it releases. Ask the sailors on the HMS Sidon and the Kursk what they think of the stability of HTP. Oh wait..
He was able to turn around engines quickly and perform quick experiements. That level of playing around and discovering truths is not available when you move to a cryogenic/pressurized oxidizer/fuel combination.
What "truths" has he discovered that weren't discovered in the 30s through 50s that haven't already been extensively discussed? My biggest critique is with those who pretend that it's a serious rocketry project when it's just a repeat of every other mistake in the book.
(IE: they may be further ahead of the game than if they started with LOX/Ethanol.
You mean, by starting with the fuel that they're *actually* going to use? What sort of rocket program would do something as silly as that?
I wish Elon well but you have to realise they are doing the same thing Boeing and LM and Raytheon have all done before. Pintle engines are old: he's not even getting that good of performance out of them.
He's pretty much optimized the economic side of it. I like his approach of partially pressure-stabilized vehicles as well: they have enough structural strength that they can be erected without having to be filled first. It makes transport a lot easier. Yet they're built light enough that they need pressure stabilization to launch, which gets you a better mass fraction.
All of the aspects of the Falcon seem to be economically optimized. Sure, they're not advancing any tech, but at least they're not playing back in the 1930s like Armadillo.
VTVL hasn't been done yet
Major distinction: VTVL to orbit hasn't been done
People said I was dumb, but I proved them.
Well...were there any problems as a result of it? No? Then I guess it wasn't too close after all. Maybe...just maybe they have some clue what they're doing, considering they've fired this engine dozens of times before.
This post made me laughed out. And you are completely right.
Sure, book learnin's all well and good, but nothing surpasses experience. I wonder how many people are still alive that have hands on experience with ALL the engine designs that john has tried, or has yet to try?
since he doesn't have an aerospace engineering degree(or any degree, for that mater. book learnin' ain't for everybody), I think he is doing pretty well for himself.
They warned me the web streaming video (via satellite) would be stop and go.
And I got to see it up to about +1 second (hadn't cleared the tower yet) and hear it up to around +6 seconds (counting up, and going up).
Then the web stream stopped. I haven't been able to reconnect. No news yet on the website.
Wha' Hoppening????
Rats.
2 4/234203
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/
He's repeating the mistakes of the past.
I'm not saying this as a rocket scientist (because I'm not), or even as someone who knows anything at all about the details or pros&cons of the rocket technologies that you guys are talking about (because I don't -- well, a little, but not enough to contribute much to the discussion at that level). But I often like to point out that, to the scientific/inquisitive mindset, sometimes there can be value in "repeating the mistakes of the past".
For one thing, it's always possible that one of those mistakes was not really as big a mistake as it seemed in the first place -- you might find that unequal advances in various supporting technologies have changed the weights of the various pros and cons, such that some particular approach turns out to be more practical now than it was the last time anybody tried it. That could represent an opportunity that nobody would notice, because nobody is considering that approach anymore, because "everybody knows" that it's no good.
But an even better reason is that going through such an exercise can give you a deeper understanding of the field than you would get by just following the established literature. Which of these is more intellectually satisfying?
This:
"What about doing it this way?"
"Oh, that's no good."
"How do you know that?"
"Because the textbook gives such-and-such reasons why it wouldn't work out."
Or this:
"What about doing it this way?"
"Oh, that's no good."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I tried it and found that it didn't work out, for such-and-such reasons."
Standing on the shoulders of giants is great, and I don't mean to knock it overall, but don't forget that those giants learned a lot of things along the way that you don't get if you just use their results. It's one of those "the journey is the destination" things.
David Gould
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