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In Daring Plan, Tomorrow SpaceX To Land a Rocket On Floating Platform
HughPickens.com writes "The cost of getting to orbit is exorbitant, because the rocket, with its multimillion-dollar engines, ends up as trash in the ocean after one launching, something Elon Musk likens to throwing away a 747 jet after a single transcontinental flight. That's why tomorrow morning at 620 am his company hopes to upend the economics of space travel in a daring plan by attempting to land the first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket intact on a floating platform, 300 feet long and 170 feet wide in the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX has attempted similar maneuvers on three earlier Falcon 9 flights, and on the second and third attempts, the rocket slowed to a hover before splashing into the water. "We've been able to soft-land the rocket booster in the ocean twice so far," says Musk. "Unfortunately, it sort of sat there for several seconds, then tipped over and exploded. It's quite difficult to reuse at that point."
After the booster falls away and the second stage continues pushing the payload to orbit, its engines will reignite to turn it around and guide it to a spot about 200 miles east of Jacksonville, Florida. Musk puts the chances of success at 50 percent or less but over the dozen or so flights scheduled for this year, "I think it's quite likely, 80 to 90 percent likely, that one of those flights will be able to land and refly." SpaceX will offer its own launch webcast on the company's website beginning at 6 a.m. If SpaceX's gamble succeeds, the company plans to reuse the rocket stage on a later flight. "Reusability is the critical breakthrough needed in rocketry to take things to the next level." SpaceX announced the plan in December.
After the booster falls away and the second stage continues pushing the payload to orbit, its engines will reignite to turn it around and guide it to a spot about 200 miles east of Jacksonville, Florida. Musk puts the chances of success at 50 percent or less but over the dozen or so flights scheduled for this year, "I think it's quite likely, 80 to 90 percent likely, that one of those flights will be able to land and refly." SpaceX will offer its own launch webcast on the company's website beginning at 6 a.m. If SpaceX's gamble succeeds, the company plans to reuse the rocket stage on a later flight. "Reusability is the critical breakthrough needed in rocketry to take things to the next level." SpaceX announced the plan in December.
Weren't we reading these exact same headlines at nearly the same time last month? What happened?
Even if they can recover the engine intact how many times can it be reused. Saving a few million on a higher chance of blowing up multi billion payloads is not exactly wise economically.
A hi-tech engineering company will continue on with its plans to test a well-engineered aspect of its product that, that after rigorous R&D, is expected to reduce the costs to end users.
It's not Daring. Its business as usual for a company that is doing actual R&D on leading edge products.
But that doesn't mean that I don't want to see it work. Vertical landing rockets are the next step to the world of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet
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Use overflowing hours! Jan 6 620am = Jan 31 8pm.
This attempt is probably going to fail. But that is OK. SpaceX isn't risk adverse so failures don't send the organization into a tailspin.
Go SpaceX!
Is this maneuver easier or harder to do inside the atmosphere of Mars, as compared to Earth? It sounds like a possible plan for return trips from Mars, if the rocket is re-usable.
Once SpaceX has worked out the kinks and has implemented this as a good way to reduce costs, some patent troll will step forward showing that he patented the very concept of this in 1998. "Elon Musk stole my invention".
The lawsuit will of course be filed in the court of East Texas.
Trying to balance a big pencil on a postage stamp that's moving unpredictably and simultaneously in 4 axises (pitch, roll, yaw, altitude) doesn't seem to have very high odds of success. And the worse the sea is running, the lower the odds.
If it works, though, count me really impressed by what would surely be a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
"We've been able to soft-land the rocket booster in the ocean twice so far," says Musk. "Unfortunately, it sort of sat there for several seconds, then tipped over and exploded. [...]"
"Everyone said I was daft to land a rocket in the ocean, but I did it all the same, just to show them. It sank in the ocean. So I built a second one. That sank in the ocean. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank in the ocean. But the fourth one stayed up!"
I think I'll go for a walk now...
I don't think the landing maneuver itself is difficult, they've successfully tested it twice. The hard part is getting it to land in a predetermined area only a few hundred feet across. On most other planets that wouldn't be much of an issue as there are large swaths of barren land, on Earth you generally have either trees, water, property considerations, safety considerations, etc to deal with.
Somehow, I think that a component that pulled a 10 G when launched, went through a massive deceleration while being super heated and exposed to corrosive water and oxygen isn't going to be significantly damaged if it splashes down in the ocean?
That and the fact that landing on a carrier is not always going to be cushy and might miss during a wave swell?
Oh, wait... Americans.
Your analogy is a bit harsh. First off while the booster may look like a pencil it is very bottom heavy due to the weight of the rocket motors and remaining fuel. A better analogy for it would probably like the cardboard tube inside of a paper towel roll with a large marble and some fins glued to the bottom of it. Also the postage stamp is 300ft wide compared to the base of a rocket only 12' wide, A better analogy there would be a napkin. The only major difficulty is that it is being dropped from an extreme height and very little propulsion to get itself to the napkin.
"throwing away a 747 jet after a single transcontinental flight."
Did we learn nothing from the shuttle? The engines in these things operate not terribly far from the limits of materials technology - Sure the shuttle was "reusable" whereby "reusable" meant "It cost more to recondition the thing to fly again than it would've cost to build a big dumb booster."
If the 747's turbines had to be pretty much completely taken out and sent back to the factory to be rebuilt after every single flight (like the shuttle's RDd did), and the rest of the airframe and components had to go through a many weeks long long overhaul just to make sure it hadn't managed to shake something to death (which it dearly tried to do, twice, on every single flight)... YES, you'd be stupid to not build disposable ones. Like the Soyuz... fifty years and as cheaply indestructible as ever.
What an amazing unprecedented breakthough idea.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
You want most of your return to Earth fuel to remain in Mars orbit. Do a powered descent with the Dragon Capsule, and return to orbit with Dragon under its own power to rendezvous with the upper stage that will bring it back to Earth. There's no reason to land a large, heavy upper stage on Mars just to launch it back into orbit again. You want just enough fuel aboard Dragon for the descent and ascent (plus contingency allowance).
This article has a funny way to describe the attempt to soft-land on a floating platform:
... SpaceX acknowledges that the maneuver won't be a slam-dunk. Maybe it'll just be a slam. Or a dunk.
Kinda obvious but awesome nonetheless. I guess that's why Musk makes the big bucks?
These are the cost-saving insights that can be leveraged when one doesn't have a vested interest in wasting as much cash as possible; *cough* ASNA.
Requiem for the American Dream
Skylon will have similar numbers to F9. In fact, possibly better. But as you point the heavy r&d costs will end up like Concorde. By the time that skylon flies, not only will f9 and FH be flying with all development costs paid for, but very likely, MCT will be flying and close to paying off its costs. And the MCT should make FH look positively expensive.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Unfortunately, it sort of sat there for several seconds, then tipped over and exploded.
Sounds like the first stage landed on a popular tourist destination in the middle of season, hoping to get some Mojitos and not burn.
Dragon does not have enough fuel to both land and launch again. SpaceX hasn't demonstrated that it has sufficient capacity to even do a powered landing. I'm not saying itcan't, but you can't look at a Dragon capsule and consider it a vehicle capable of powering itself to orbital launch velocity, even on Mars.