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SpaceX To Test Recovered First Stage, Then Put It On Display (floridatoday.com)
schwit1 writes: Rather than re-fly it, Elon Musk suggested that, after some testing, SpaceX will likely put its first recovered Falcon 9 first stage on display instead. '"[We will] do a static fire at the launch pad there, to confirm that all systems are good and that we are able to do a full thrust hold-down firing of the rocket," Musk said after the stage landed. The static fire will also test the modifications SpaceX has made to Pad 39A to support its rockets.
After that though, the stage will become a display piece. "I think we will keep this one on the ground for tests that prove it could fly again and then put it somewhere — just because it is quite unique," Musk said.' Since they already have a satellite company, SES, willing to buy that first stage, this only underlines how this last Falcon 9 launch changes everything. I don't think the change has sunk in with most people, yet. The last launch was not a one-time event. SpaceX intends to recover as many of its first stages as it can in all future launches. Their Falcon 9 first stage is no longer expendable. Thus, they can afford to put this first recovered stage on display because they expect all future first stages to fly again.
After that though, the stage will become a display piece. "I think we will keep this one on the ground for tests that prove it could fly again and then put it somewhere — just because it is quite unique," Musk said.' Since they already have a satellite company, SES, willing to buy that first stage, this only underlines how this last Falcon 9 launch changes everything. I don't think the change has sunk in with most people, yet. The last launch was not a one-time event. SpaceX intends to recover as many of its first stages as it can in all future launches. Their Falcon 9 first stage is no longer expendable. Thus, they can afford to put this first recovered stage on display because they expect all future first stages to fly again.
You can't just take an amazing piece of expensive kit like that and essentially throw it away! Oh wait - that's what we've been doing with the first stage of every launch forever until just now. Carry on then.
More seriously, congratulations, SpaceX, for taking such a big step forward for humankind.
Watto, the Mos Espa junk dealer, has already submitted the first bid. He has an employee working for him that is pretty good at refurbishing used equipment.
That would indeed be the "smarter" thing to do in terms of pure engineering. In terms of company morale though, possibly not. It may be a much smarter management decision may well be to help everyone to realise how awesome an achievement they were just part of, and to keep company morale up, because it will increase productivity enough to offset the engineering benefit.
Yeah! And let's dismantle those stupid pyramids in Egypt, too! Surely someone in that area could use those huge rectangle rocks!
Or, they've found a bunch of things they don't like and they are going to fix it before next flight. Like engineering.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
2015: Space X recovers the first reusable rocket stage and doesn't reuse it.
You are welcome on my lawn.
They already did that. The pyramids used to be faced in polished white limestone, as well as topped with gold points. The facing was stripped for other buildings and the gold points were melted down.
Absolutely. It became a trophy the moment it touched down sucessfully.
The debate kind of suprised me, I always thought the first one would end up a promotion piece. After all he finally accomplished a vertical powered landing of a 'spaceship' reminicent of the 1950's silver needle spaceships that always landed upright and powered. He just showed us all a reality strait out of our childhood fantasies. Hell, I would have kept it too.
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
You know nothing about rocketry.
A rocket doesn't become damaged and non-recoverable just because it flew for five minutes through the air. The only reason people haven't been able to recover rockets up to now is because the actual act of taking a large moving object at 5000 km/h, decelerating it, maneuvering it through the atmosphere, and landing it gently is really really hard. That, and the thermal stresses on the engines mean that most rocket engines up to now have not been able to sustain multiple full-length firings without refurbishment.
SpaceX has _already_ demonstrated that it has solved both of these problems. The Merlin rockets that SpaceX uses are actually fired around 10 times before even getting mounted on an actual launch vehicle! And no, they aren't 'refurbished' after test firing. The engines have been designed with full re-usability in mind - fill up the tank again and go. The launch vehicles themselves go through static firings before being launched through space. In static firings they get most of the vibration and thermal stresses that they would get if they were actually flying (most of these stresses come from the rocket engines). The point is that SpaceX is already 're-using' its stages. It's just that it has never re-used one that has not been strapped down to the ground. Given all of this, it would be MIGHTY strange if boosters that had flown could not be re-used.
If you're betting on this being the case, don't. You'll probably lose the bet.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
I swear to god Slashdot you would make my day if you had an option to edit a post for grammatical mistakes for a few minutes after posting.
It's easy to pretend to know stuff. Everyone and their mother nowadays seems to be an expert on rocketry.
It's harder to actually know stuff. The most important causes for failure on rockets are engine failures, software failures, and structural failures, in that order. Engine failures are typically caused by excessive vibration, thermal stress, combustion containment failures (hot gases touching the walls), turbopump failures, and a few other reasons, and these will often show up in static tests. In fact this is the whole point of static testing. As for software, it's the same whether you're re-using an airframe or not. Finally, as for structural failures, they are caused by vibration, thermal stress, and aerodynamic stress. Of these, a pretty good picture can be constructed from static testing, with only aerodynamic stresses left out. Granted, a single-engine test isn't very accurate for diagnosing problems; full-rocket static tests are better.
While flying through the air in a normal mission profile puts a lot of stress on the airframe, it doesn't do any irreversible damage on the airframe, unless the rocket is very badly designed. Going outside the mission profile (facing the wind the wrong way) can and will do irreversible damage, but spacex are very careful to bring their rockets down gently. If you want to bet that a recovered falcon 9 first stage can't be used, the only way that argument will work is if you argue that the airframe somehow suffers irreversible damage during the recovery maneuver. Other than this, it would be extremely strange.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
Or alternately, they launched and soft-landed a re-tuned second stage, as an admittedly much simplified test of the landing technology. As I recall their original plan was to use this kind of engine for their second stage, and one based on an entirely different fuel for the first stage.
Now, wouldn't it be interesting if there were eventually multiple companies producing different second stages all designed to be lifted to sub-orbit by Falcons? Blue Origin may yet prove more relevant than it initially appears.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
After Lindbergh flew the Atlantic Ocean in the Spirit of Saint Louis in 1927, he didn't then turn around and fly back. Instead he sent the Spirit of Saint Louis back to the US by sea. It now resides in the Smithsonian. This particular SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is historically important, and quite possibly may also end up in the Smithsonian some day.
> A static test does not expose an airframe to the same stress as an actual launch and bringing it back down.
Yes that's completely true and I never said otherwise. But the fact that SpaceX can test fire a rocket stage multiple times, launch it, and recover it again give high confidence to their ability to be able to re-use a launched rocket, simply because so much of what could go wrong in an actual mission could also go wrong in a test firing.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
Not everything must, or should, be done for an "economic purpose." Some things, like pure theoretical physics research or even space and space related things, should and can be done without the need for it to be an economical purpose. In this case, there's a quasi-economic purpose. Mostly, by outsourcing launches to SpaceX, we may end up with less expensive launches and the, perhaps, see economic purposes or even just scientific purposes.
Frankly, it's still being paid for by the government and the government will still be paying for their launches for many years to come. This money is, of course, injected into the various local economies but that's not the purpose. The important thing is that we're going to spend the money anyhow so I'd rather we spent the money on this than spending it to blow up little brown people. Hell, I'd rather they spend all this money on studying the three-toed sloth than spend it on bombing little brown me.
But, then again, some of us have priorities that are different than others. I'm rather fond of wealth accumulation but not at the expense of all else. I'm quite pleased to say that I've accumulated a few dollars but not at the expense of all else. Spending what I spent on this Christmas and, soon, New Years Eve has very little (none, really) economic purpose but I got to have a great time with my two kids. How much is that worth?
How much is it worth if this research ends up enabling us to save the species, avert disaster, do pure research that develops into future technology, or even if it just makes a few people giggle like little schoolgirls and be happy that we're able to attach people to a giant bomb and launch them with such precision that they remain in a state of perpetual falling for long periods of time? No, I'm okay with that. In fact, I'm more than okay with that. I'm ecstatic and probably over-optimistic and that's okay too.
As an aside: It's usually those who pay the least taxes that complain the loudest about taxes. It's usually the people who have accomplished the least who complain about others accomplishing things. It's usually the insecure who want people to conform to their ideals. It's usually those least likely to accept new information and change their views who complain about worry themselves sick because others are doing things that they can't appreciate. I dunno which class(es) you belong to but I'm probably correct in guessing that you fit one of those categories. Perhaps some honest introspection, objectivity, and a healthy dose of reasoning will help you with that? I dunno - I am not a psychiatrist.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
They made this decision before they'd even looked at the returned rocket.
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The song... Hmm... I forget all the lyrics (or most of them) but rain on your wedding day is not ironic. However, if she had had some history of weddings and they all went off without a hitch and then said that this next one wouldn't be canceled because... Wait, what? I'm wasting too much time here. ;-)
Ahh, yes the Alanis Morrisette ironic paradox. If the song is supposed to be about ironic things and actually called "ironic", yet none of the examples given in the song are actually ironic, that is ironic itself. The paradox is that if the whole title and song is ironic, then the title of the song is appropriate again and the song is not ironic anymore, and then you start back at the beginning :D