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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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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...
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?
What an amazing unprecedented breakthough idea.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
This attempt is probably going to fail.
You're probably right but they have data from two other water landings, so it's not like this is completely cross your fingers territory.
It's still amazing and I hope they pull it off. Elon Musk is the man.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
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).
SpaceX's goal isn't to be merely reusable, it's to be fully and rapidly reusable, with no refurbishment. If they require a substantial amount of refurbishment betwen launches, they will consider themselves to have failed.
The water landings had accuracy measured in miles, while this landing will require accuracy measured in feet. They hope to achieve that accuracy using the new fins, which have never been used at hypersonic velocities before. There's a lot of never-been-done-before for SpaceX going into this launch.
The engines in these things operate not terribly far from the limits of materials technology
The whole Space-X strategy from the start has been to use a lot of little less complicated interchangeable engines instead of a big one. A Falcon 9 is 9 engines, the heavy is 27 engines. And because there's so many of them, they don't have to be used at a full burn. It appears likely to be a lot easier to recover and reuse these.
YES, you'd be stupid to not build disposable ones. Like the Soyuz... fifty years and as cheaply indestructible as ever.
The Soyuz accident rate is worse than the shuttle, and it costs more than even the current non-reusable Space-X flights.
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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.
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.