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SpaceX Plans Drone Ship Landing On January 17th (nbcnews.com)
Rei writes: With the world's first successful low-speed landing of an orbital rocket's first stage complete, SpaceX looks to continue that success by attempting its second landing — this time, on their new drone ship in the Pacific. While SpaceX has announced plans to turn their successfully-landed rocket, reportedly flight-ready, into a a museum piece, the stage they recover next may be SpaceX's first chance to prove the mudslinging of their competitors wrong and show that Russia's worries are well founded. That is, if they can successfully pull it off.
I'm not sure I understand the point of a ship landing. If you want to end up on a ship, it seems like a close-to-ship splashdown and recovery would be much simpler and cheaper to implement.
...has become Musk's secret hideout down in Baja?
Makes me wonder if his wife is going to play Tiffany Case in the remake of Diamonds are Forever...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I got baited into clicking on the mudslinging link in the summary and I saw no such thing. The worst I saw is X's competitors just mentioning the engineering hurdles that X will have to overcome to have a reusable vehicle. How is that mudslinging?
just a bald rock until now? passengers include; some wrinkled old zionic nazi freemasons, some virgins, a few hymenless monkeys & gargoyles,, some slave laborers & a new world begins? phewww
Landing is cool. But how are they going to get the drone ship to fly in the first place? Is it like the Helicarrier in The Avengers?
I promise you that the US Navy has a great interest in drone ships. Among other considerations, a drone ship can easily be built in such a way that waves do over its decks such that it has very low visibility. One idea is to tow such a vessel to withing a hundred miles or so of a potential target and then release it. It could easily get closer without being noticed and could deliver missiles or other aerial drones quite quickly to the troubled area. These drone ships are capable of going a distance by themselves and could be placed on standby for months or even years. I would not be shocked to see one created that could rest on the bottom until pressed into service and then rise and becoming a battle barge.
They've proven that they can land on land, but their track record with their drone ships isn't so great. Landing an aircraft on a ship adds several dimensions of difficulty that you don't encounter on land (moving platform, smaller landing area, higher winds, etc), ask any pilot who has landed on a carrier. I suppose push comes to shove they could simply build a bigger drone ships, perhaps use an oil platform design to limit deck movement, but where possible building land based pads in various locations is probably preferable.
You can't reuse one until you learn to land them successfully. They have landed ONE. And I can see the rational about saving it for a future museum. When they have 2 or 3 more successful landings, it will then make sense to launch them again.
As much as anything, SpaceX is a monument to Musk's ego.
And the first one of these to succeed has as much PR value as it does technical value, probably more. By putting it in a museum his place as a pioneer of private space travel is assured.
This is as much about waving around his metaphorical penis as it is about space flight. When you're a billionaire doing such things, you get to decide which one goes to the museum.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
With all due respect, they can waste their money in whatever fashion they want to - the primary mission is to launch something, if they accomplish that and then want to land the next 100 boosters so Elon Musk can make his own private modern version of Stone Henge out of them, thats his affair.
Or, you simply realise that landing and reusing are only loosely linked, in that you cannot reuse until you land, but you don't have to reuse just because you land.
"Wouldn't it be nice if ((Insert Company Name Here)) were to actually, you know, pay dividends with that first dollar that they earned? Just a thought, but so far the one dollar they recovered is going to a frame, but it's totally profit if we wanted to but we don't want to so..."
Try having more than about four weeks patience here. They landed one, they're just about to land another. Why does an extra four weeks delay in getting a rocket to refurbish and relaunch matter to you so much?
He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
We want to see multiple launches of the recovered chassis. Anything else is just a process to create more. . . museum pieces. Self congratulatory efforts don't mean that much.
I agree. Still, considering how cleanly the last landing went, I think they may have made some substantial improvements in the landing system during their hiatus. I'd give them much better odds than on the previous attempts. Whether they can keep it upright long enough to refuel to fly back to land... well that's a whole different kettle of fish.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
About half of the financing comes from NASA.
Admittedly SpaceX can still waste money like in any way they like, but at that point it would be appropriate if NASA reduced the money they put in since there clearly is too much of it floating around.
Musk is on his way to being a new Howard Hughes. The Spruce Goose is in the near future. The years of weirdness in the Vegas penthouse can't be that far off. He truly is an admirer of Tesla and wants to follow Tesla's path. Maybe Bezos can be his Alistair Crowley.
I really doubt that their first "intent for reflight" rocket will have its maiden reflight from the drone ship. They're surely going to go over it with a fine-toothed comb on land before relaunch.
The concept of refueling at and relaunching from the drone ship is pretty exciting for the future, mind you. If they really can get the reliability that high and the maintenance that low, it'd enable all sorts of things.
He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
Apparently, it's an affair that many Slashdotters believe they are participating in.
You are welcome on my lawn.
All we really know is that it landed. We don't know how flight ready it was for another launch, I imagine neither did SpaceX. So this first one I don't think they had any other choice but to strip it completely apart and test everything and then putting it all back together might not make sense. Next landing they probably know what needs replacing and can relaunch the rest. Makes sense to me at least.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Honestly, it's still not going to be that big of a waste... They're going to reuse all the avionics, etc out of that booster. What will end up being the museum piece is the empty shell that landed... I suspect they'll swap out the engines for dummy's and reuse them as well.
Also at this point recovery isn't factored into the cost of the launch... It's just gravy. They charge $50M because they assume the booster is a write off.
Once, they start recovering these with regularity, the pricing structure will suddenly change from $50M to $10M for a launch... Then pressing every booster back into service becomes part of the savings.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
NASAs money is there as progress payments to fulfil NASA contracts, and the ability to land a booster is not part of NASA's contracts with SpaceX. As long as SpaceX is fulfilling the contracts, NASA cannot complain.
Whether they can keep it upright long enough to refuel to fly back to land... well that's a whole different kettle of fish.
Do you actually know that that is the plan? I assumed they'd return the first stages by sea. They need the drone ship because in some configurations and for some missions they can't spare the fuel to fly back to the launch site.
After seeing the successful landing I have little doubt that they can put the rocket in the bullseye, it landed right on the SpaceX logo. But even moderate seas will probably make things difficult. The first stage is quite tall, it wouldn't take much of a nudge to cause it to topple.
Musk himself has stated that is the intent, at least in the past. I don't know if it will ever be a practicality though, it looks to me like they're working towards returning the first stage directly to the launch site where possible, and landing them on a drone ship, securing them and then sailing them back to the harbor nearest the launch site where necessary.
It's been a long time so I can't swear to the veracity, but I'm pretty sure that was the plan - land on the drone ship to refuel for the flight home. Figure - after landing at sea you really only have two options:
- refuel it so it can fly home under it's own power
- try to balance a 12-story pencil on it's end for the duration of a several hundred mile sea voyage to land (or alternately build all the hardware for a massive robotic "tilting gantry" into the barge so that it can be grabbed along its whole length at wherever it happened to land, and laid on its side, all without damaging it) , and then, once you get to land you have to somehow transfer this massive thing to some sort of overland transportation back to the launch facility. Which quite likely involves building your own docks near the launch facility - you're not towing an inflexible 68m long load around many street corners (picture a single trailer about 4.5 semi trailers long and 1.5 wide).
Maybe it's me, but I'd need a *really* compelling reason not to just let the thing try to fly itself back home.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
It's bottom-heavy when it comes home with the fuel mostly gone. It's a bunch of heavy engines at the bottom and all empty tanks above that. And they vent the remaining LOX right after they land, so there is nothing in the upper tank. They will come aboard and weld shoes over the landing legs, but they don't expect it to fall over before that.
Bruce Perens.
As much as anything, SpaceX is a monument to Musk's ego.
...and if his little venture is sufficiently successful in getting mankind into space on a regular basis, let alone as permanent residents, I honestly don't give a damn if it pumps his ego or not.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
What's the alternative? Think long and hard on the logisitics of getting a giant "pencil tube" 41m long and 3.6m wide (224 x 12 feet) from a position balanced on end on a platform hundreds of miles away from shore in the open ocean, back to a (logistically) inland landing facility. What sort of infrastructure do you need? And is it worth investing in it if the long term plan is to fly it home anyway?
Besides, all the hard flying has been done already. It's not like you're doing another second-stage to orbit boost, you're just doing a little hop back home.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
The drone ship is a ship. It moves - it sails to and from port. There are cranes in port. They've already loaded and offloaded rockets from the barge in the past.
Each "hop" is strain on your rocket, new risk, and using up the lifetime of parts that have limited lifespan. Last I heard they were only hoping for a couple dozen flights out of each rocket.
That said, flying back has been mentioned in the past as part of the plan. But for the first go-around, that's very unlikely. They're going to want to give it a full rundown back onshore.
He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
It's not to be "balanced" for the return journey - the plan has always been to weld steel shoes to the deck to hold it in place. And it's very bottom-heavy. It's not at all at risk of falling over.
The way to transport it off the barge is called a crane, it's already been done, and it's not tricky.
The "compelling reason" is because rocket launches are complex procedures in the best of circumstances, that's anything but the best of circumstances, and they don't even know if the thing is flightworthy. And they certainly don't want their first reuse flight to be a failure.
Patience. It'll happen eventually.
He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
Oh, and as for the size of the crane you need? This size (right hand side, yellow - the cab is in white for a size comparison). And as for how you transport them? Like this. Same way as they already do.
He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
There's certainly a lot of this. Most of what SpaceX does is derived from NASA research anyway, but if you want to start a war just mention that to the fanboy worshippers out there.
Even the vertical landing was done in the 60s--on the moon. Doing it in earth's gravity was beyond our materials and especially computing power until recently. I will applaud SpaceX for dusting the concept off and implementing it with modern engineering because it's damned sure Boeing wasn't interested in doing it, but it's not like this is truly new.
They aren't giving dev money they are paying for commercial delivery contracts and payouts from the commercial crew contract.
Since the Falcon 9 is developed with SpaceX's money they can spend it however they please
Oh, for sure. I don't disagree at all.
Which is why I said When you're a billionaire doing such things, you get to decide which one goes to the museum.
He can stroke his ego and waggle his metaphorical penis all he wants ... he's the one footing the bill.
I'm not required to like the man. But he is pushing spaceflight forward, and he can crow about it all he wants -- right up to putting stuff in museums if they want it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
About half of the financing comes from NASA. Admittedly SpaceX can still waste money like in any way they like, but at that point it would be appropriate if NASA reduced the money they put in since there clearly is too much of it floating around.
Doesn't work that way, you can't go to Apple and say you make too much money so sell me an iPhone for half the price. Your choices are:
1) Buy something else
2) Not buy it
3) Create it in-house (since you're NASA)
There are alternatives, but not cheaper ones. Leaving the ISS stranded is not an option. And in-house you get a massive government project with pork to every district. But if you want to start your own rocket company, remove the bloat and undercut SpaceX on price just do it and NASA will be happy to award you contracts. What are you waiting for?
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
About half of the financing comes from NASA. Admittedly SpaceX can still waste money like in any way they like, but at that point it would be appropriate if NASA reduced the money they put in since there clearly is too much of it floating around.
Doesn't work that way, you can't go to Apple and say you make too much money so sell me an iPhone for half the price. Your choices are:
1) Buy something else
2) Not buy it
3) Create it in-house (since you're NASA)
There are alternatives, but not cheaper ones. Leaving the ISS stranded is not an option. And in-house you get a massive government project with pork to every district. But if you want to start your own rocket company, remove the bloat and undercut SpaceX on price just do it and NASA will be happy to award you contracts. What are you waiting for?
In business, I have literally seen cases where a customer tells the supplier they are making too much money, and forces a price-reduction on them.
Just because you cannot do it with Apple doesn't mean large companies and consortia cannot.
(note: Not arguing about whether NASA should, only that it is done)
I don't think they plan on stripping it down, I think they plan some low-power static test fires to verify that it would be able to achieve full thrust again. I don't know if they can do that without stripping it down, but I would imagine that they would generally want to keep it as whole as possible just for posterity.
It BELONGS in a MUSEUM!
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Since SpaceX is landing those stages on NASA property close to Titusville FL they can complain and exert oversight. In fact I hope they are skeptical and exercising due diligence in making sure that their personnel and the people downwind are safe. I assume that this is why SpaceX had to use those floating pads the first two times they tried this.
Except they're not doing that they've announced that they're going to inspect it and then stick it on 39A and fire it up for a static fire. They do that for all flight rockets, put them on the pad and go through the entire launch process except at the point where a real launch would release the rocket they shut the engines off.
The engines mass definitely helps bring the center of mass closer to the ground but from what I can find that still puts it at about 1/3 of the way from the bottom of the stage. A few degrees of tip shouldn't be a problem but 5 degrees from a off center landing and another 5 degrees from rough seas could very well do it.
SpaceX is renting the use of that property, what they do with it is none of NASA's business so long as they stay within the law.
They used the barge the first couple of times in order to demonstrate to the FAA they could aim for a small target, which they did. Landing those rockets would have been a bonus.
Its also worth noting that NASA is not a regulatory agency, its a development agency - it can rent stuff to SpaceX, it can buy services from SpaceX, but it cant do shit to enforce regulations or oversight on SpaceX.
SpaceX comes under the remit of the FAA.
Alistair Crowley?
Which one on Downton Abbey is that?
SpaceX is *investing* in testing landing to make future launches cost them less. Ironically, NASA wouldn't be allowed to do that because it is "not mission related" even though it is the biggest step forward in access to space in the last 30 years. This complaint about misuse of funds is almost a perfect demonstration for why NASA is better off buying launch service rather than hardware.
NASA has *always* purchased launch services, they have never built a booster or vehicle themselves.
Investing in improvements to launcher knowledge and advancement of technology is 100% part of NASA's mission, just as improving knowledge and technology in the aviation sector is as well - which is why they still carry out experiments in both areas.
With all due respect, they can waste their money in whatever fashion they want to - the primary mission is to launch something, if they accomplish that and then want to land the next 100 boosters so Elon Musk can make his own private modern version of Stone Henge out of them, thats his affair.
Actually, I think SpaceX's primary mission is to go to Mars. The commercial launch business is just to fund the Mars R&D. I'm guessing it's also why SpaceX continues to be privately held - their long-term goal isn't to "maximize shareholder value," it's to put people on Mars.
Eagerly awaiting Musk's Project Azorian.
Although I might be pretty long in the tooth before we get to hear the story unless somebody burglarizes the wrong warehouse again.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
No, the second stage really gets to orbit and is beyond propulsive re-entry. It would need a heat-shield and would have to dissipate a lot of speed through heat and ablation. SpaceX has a really good phenolic heat shield technology which they use on Dragon, it's capable of direct ballistic re-entry from Moon or Mars transfer orbits, and can be re-used after the lower-energy re-entry from LEO. But obviously lifting one and the other necessary components reduces the payload weight to orbit.
Musk continues to talk about re-use being the difference between 100% and 1% of vehicle cost. He doesn't get those economics without second-stage re-use. So, obviously he thinks it's in the future for SpaceX.
Bruce Perens.
So it can decline to be SpaceX's biggest customer if SpaceX doesn't behave in NASA's interest in a wider sense. This is how governments and big businesses steer less secure organisations all the time: "We want to pay someone for X... it's going to be you if you also do Y, but we're not actually paying for Y, you understand.
More than half of the 20 launches so far were either wholly non-NASA (the vast majority) or had a significant non-NASA secondary payload (minority).
Out of the 29 launches planned for 2016, 22 of them are wholly non-NASA.
Out of the 16 launches currently penciled in for 2017, 11 of them are wholly non-NASA.
I dont think SpaceX needs NASA, I think NASA needs SpaceX.
I think they want to do a hop-to-shore once the technology is matured enough, but the balanced-pencil analogy isn't really applicable. The vast majority of the rocket's mass is in the engine cluster; the rest of it is mostly a thin, hollow tube with some empty tanks. IIRC, the original plan with the drone ships was that once the rocket landed, crew would arrive and weld brackets over the landing legs to hold the rocket down, then return to shore and offload with a normal crane. Then tip the rocket onto an appropriate truck, and take it to the refurb facility.
No, they purchased launch vehicles. Only in the last few years have they purchased launch services. They used to buy a truck, which was custom-built to specifications mandated by Congress, and then drive it themselves. Now they give their stuff to FedEx (at least some of the time).
You misunderstand - the primary mission each time SpaceX launch is to launch something. What they do after the payload is safe is unrelated to the primary mission.
You do realise that the Shuttle was operated by other companies for NASA right? NASA didnt operate it.
And NASA bought launch services all the time on third party launchers, the Shuttle was far from the only platform NASA used.
This will cost hundreds of astronauts lives.
There is no way they can continuously keep re-using highly explosive rocket boosters over and over and the cost is outrageous compared to a one-time use booster.
You could very easily re-word that to say "We think we can get your product cheaper from someone else, and if you don't drop the price we will do so." It only works if that's actually true, though. When you try to force suppliers who are offering competitive prices to take a cut you get a lot of resistance.
Just to clarify: I've seen contracts where any cost-saving incurred by the supplier is partially passed on the customer - this is a trait in contracted manufacturing, where you get goods produced as a set, and if the supplier manages to optimise production, the savings are shared.
Meanwhile, if the supplier cannot hit the target costs, they don't bear all the expenses (only most of it)
Daddy likey!