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SpaceX Sets Feb. 24th Target Date For Next Launch
Rei writes: After some consternation about the pacing of Falcon 9 upgrades, SpaceX has announced that it plans to launch again from Cape Canaveral with a target date of February 24th. While the primary mission will be to place the SES-9 communications satellite in orbit, this will also mark their fourth attempt to land the first stage on an autonomous drone ship, after their last launch touched down softly but fell over when one leg failed to latch. SpaceX is working to significantly accelerate the rate of production and launches — they are reportedly moving the factory from 6-8 cores produced per year to 18 at present, and expect to reach 30 by the end of the year. After the upcoming launch, they expect to launch one rocket every two to three weeks.
We have enough landing crash videos to last us a while. Might as well land one successfully now.
they are reportedly moving the factory from 6-8 cores produced per year to 18 at present, and expect to reach 30 by the end of the year
Hooray for more space junk!
"Launch into Oblivioon" sounds like a particularly bad anime, in which a group of teenagers is transported into a shadowy realm in which they, as the last hope of humankind, must do battle with an evil force bent on destroying our universe--but mostly they just walk through weird forests and talk about whether character X merely likes character Y, or if he/she like-likes her/him.
It seems since our new Slashlords have taken over there have only been 1 in 10 stores about the great Elon. WTF Timmy? Work harder.
Yeah! And let's stop those repetitive posting about Linux altogether, we have enough of them already! /sarcasm
More seriously though, why are you complaining? A quick search of the tag "x elonmusk" show about 1 story per week. Furthermore, I'm very interested to follow those space launch and rocket engineering kinda fall into the spirit of /. afaik.
Elok
Complexity. Money. Risk of inadvertent rocket damage.
Best just to learn to land the rockets right.
We should start dealing in those black-market beagles.
Excuse me, this TV series treatment is proprietary and your unauthorized disclosure is a copyright violation. Consider this to be a Takedown Notice, and act accordingly, or suffer unimaginable consequences.
Yours Truly,
Hollywood
- 100% of the Falcon 9 Full Thrust landings have been successful.
- 0% of the Falcon 9 v1.1 landings have been successful.
- There has been one F9 FT flight so far.
- The F9 FT has (among others) improved thrust (and thus more reserves for the return flight) and improved landing gear.
- After the successful return of the F9 FT some things were noted about the FT drives and launches were pushed back 4-6 weeks as it looks right now.
Judging from many comments posted so far in this topic it looks like the presence of Olgino trolls / bots is increasing on /.
This is even more evident in politically charged discussions.
So, congratulations to /. -- it's finally has been noticed and taken seriously.
Is SpaceX taking a page out of AMD's playbook now?
Both SpaceX and United Launch Alliance plan 14 launches this year according to nasa launch maniefest. Antares and Orbital two each. Russia plans 17 Soyuz and Proton launches.
The booster isn't strong enough. Much of it is about as thick, and as strong, as a coke can (but much bigger). There are just enough structural ribs and the like to support the load during launch (and after landing) but if you grab it in the wrong place it will just break. The mass is mostly at the bottom (engines) so I gather it's quite stable once it's sitting on its feet and they weld covers over the feet to hold it in place for the voyage home.
Why not use some sort of collar made of cables on some masts around the deck to support the top of the booster? When the booster come in, the hoop is wide open so as not to obstruct. As it passes though, the loop tightens and the booster is kept upright even if it tips. By the time it lands, the loops is snug against the top of the rocket and the booster is secure, even if the platform rocks.
That was actually my first reaction: "Oh, obviously it'll be something like 'this' that they'll be using...", the first time I heard they'd be landing them at all.
Then I got really annoyed at them not having something like that, and trying to land on a pitching platform.
The platform landings themselves make sense, particularly if you locate the launch and landing facilities out in international waters so that the world really has no say in whether or not you are allowed to launch and/or land, but really: there's a lot simpler tech that would work to avoid losing the things over and over again.
That said, once they get it right (assuming they ever do), and assuming the weather cooperates all the time, having solved the problem, the per launch additional equipment costs will be marginally lower than they would have been, had they gone with a "hug truss" system in the first place.
Personally, I was thinking they were going to do a least three dirt landings to give them a confidence interval and more data, since that data may change what they decide to do in the process of landing, which in turn might add complications to the water landings that they had not yet considered.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Yes.
However, if I am designing an experiment, I try to limit any simultaneous changes to dependent variables.
That's not to say that I *won't* (I have) vary multiple independent variables at the same time, but if I do, I usually have at least a "hunch" that the direction I'm moving them both (all) is toward a saddle point.
Perhaps the person deciding this has already concluded the independence of the variables and the probable location of the saddle point. If so, good on them; from outside, I really haven't reached the same conclusion, but, alas, I do not have all of the data they have.
Which is why I stated my comment the way I did, rather than accusing them of bad judgement.