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SpaceX Details Its Plans For Landing Three Falcon Heavy Boosters At Once (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: As part of the process to gain federal approval for the simultaneous landing of its Falcon Heavy rocket boosters in Florida, SpaceX has prepared an environmental assessment of the construction of two additional landing pads alongside its existing site. The report considers noise and other effects from landing up to three first stages at the same time. After undergoing a preliminary review by the U.S. Air Force, the document has been released for public comment. As part of the document, SpaceX also says it would like to build a Dragon capsule processing facility on the landing zone to support refurbishment of the Dragon 2 spacecraft, designed to carry crew into orbit. The 130-foot-long facility would provide a "temporary" facility for vehicle propellant load and propulsion system servicing. When it originally designed its Landing Zone 1 facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, for the single Falcon 9 first stage booster, the company envisioned the need for one main pad approximately 200 feet across, and four smaller contingency pads, each approximately 150 feet in diameter. The chosen site had enough acreage to accommodate all five pads. Improvements in the rocket's landing navigation guidance system obviated the need for the contingency pads with the Falcon 9, however. So now the company wants to use the additional space to construct two concrete landing pads, each with an approximate diameter of 282 feet surrounded by an approximate 50-foot-wide hard-packed soil "apron." This would give SpaceX three landing pads and the ability to bring back all three Falcon Heavy boosters to land while also retaining the option to land one or two on drone ships in the Atlantic Ocean. In addition to the potential for a dozen Falcon 9 launches and landings each year, the document says SpaceX may eventually make six Falcon Heavy launches a year, potentially returning an additional 18 boosters to the Florida-based site. The new pads and crane sites would be configured to allow parallel processing of landed boosters. With U.S. Air Force Approval, construction could begin as early as this spring.
are under NCAA review
"This would give SpaceX three landing pads and the ability to bring back all three Falcon Heavy boosters to land while also retaining the option to land one or two on drone ships in the Atlantic Ocean."
I can imagine scenarios where you'd want to land zero, one or three boosters on drone ships. I can't imagine any scenario where it makes sense to land two boosters on drone ships. One way would be to have the center booster and one side booster landing at sea - but if one side booster can return to landing site, so can the other (and landing on land is both cheaper and safer if you can do it.) The other way is to land both side boosters at sea but return the center booster to land - but the center booster is always going to be much harder to return to land, as it burns longer and so is higher velocity and further down range when it has finished boosting.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
But they want to push without fixing the problems they already have.
If you want rapid progress, you have qualified people work on current problems, while other people work on anticipated future problems.
Have you ever watched six-year-olds play soccer? They all cluster around the ball, in a tight little group, with everyone 100% focused on just the immediate problem of kicking the ball. By the time they are eight, they understand that is not a winning strategy.
GPS navigation, communications infrastructure, weather forecasts that have any chance of working...
SpaceX may intend to do serious exploration and colonization with their profits, but their bread and butter are pretty much based on what they get paid for by people who care about shit here on the ground. There's not a lot of exploration in, say, upgrading the iridium network, which is the next launch on the list. Oh, and the return thing is so we can have more of those things for less money. Pretty down-to-earth considerations, that.
And that alone is worth the admi$$ion!
"Not one single Falcon has landed without mayor damage today. "
"mayor"? Si senor, you speeka da english good...
If you want to view the launch live, instructions are here.
Bruce Perens.
Actually, I'm not sure of that. My impression was that the Space Station delivery boosters which go to landing-zone 1 at Canaveral end up in pretty good shape, and some of the ones that land on the barge as well.
The ones that got lots of damage were rockets with so little fuel left from their missions that they had to skip one or two of what otherwise would be re-entry burns. These came down very fast and had frictional heating damage, among other things.
If that rocket lands on its own, within only a few feet of where it's intended to go, having come back from space (and close to orbital space), you really have to assume that everything is working until that moment.
Bruce Perens.
Not one single Falcon has landed without mayor damage today. But they want to push without fixing the problems they already have.
Which is normal for rocketry when you're trying anything new. Every program either (a) re-uses proven components or (b) deals with early very high failure rates or both. It took ten years to go from the first firing of the Saturn V's rocket engine (the Rocketdyne F1) to it's firs successful use, and there explosions along the way.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Not the way I read it. If you plan to launch every six weeks, you may well end up with one unit on a launch pad being assembled, refurbished or upgraded while another is being launched. Be nice to have a place for that one to land. Remember that these things are BIG (and getting bigger) and that transporting them to a launch site is a non-trivial problem. If you land them at the launch site, you don't have to spend time and a lot of money moving them to the site later. OTOH, I have no idea what the constraints are on "Return To Base" for these things.
The downside is, of course, that if anything goes wrong with the launch or landing, you're potentially down two or even three launchers instead of just one.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Not one single Falcon has landed without mayor damage today.
But that's still five landings right?
They refuse to acknowledge their problems.
So? They don't have to acknowledge problems to you. And really what use would you be, if they did do that?
Maybe your news sources are not reliable. Musk's previous business efforts have made a ton of profit and he has reinvested his own funds in his more recent efforts. Tesla is a public stock company, so both institutions and individuals are invested in it. SpaceX is privately funded, you can see who the investors are here.
Bruce Perens.
Not only have they landed a number of them, but the launch of comsat SES-10, currently expected sometime in February, is being done on the booster that flew ISS resupply mission CRS-8, and was the first successful landing on the droneship at sea. Another used stage is undergoing conversion to be used as one of the boosters on the Falcon Heavy launch that will use these pads.
It's not that anyone is dodging an important question. It's that the question is, I'm sorry, naive. The benefits of space research are around you every moment of your life.
The Apollo program, for example, used some of the first integrated circuits. This work progressed to essentially all modern electronic devices.
Bruce Perens.
The main reason why crossfeed isn't being worked on is that the extra capacity it would deliver isn't needed by any customers. The heavy is already a beast of a launcher without it. But, if someone came up with a mission that required the extra capacity and was willing to pay for its development, then they would restart work on crossfeed.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
They have enough polar-orbit launches on the manifest that every two weeks means once per month per coast. Polar at Vandenberg, equatorial at Canaveral.
Bruce Perens.
Do you have the same issue with professional sports, network television, and shopping malls? Each is a huge money sink, with not much of lasting value to show for them. Go boycott sports bars showing ESPN next to Disney stores, just leave the adults here alone.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
... does any of this matter? Where is the 4K footage of any of the 'landings' of Falcon? By a strange coincidence, they keep having drop outs in the video because of alleged problems beaming the video signal to whatever is picking it up - so presumably they have numerous 4K cameras mounted on the barges, that don't transmit video, they just record it. So where is the 4K footage? You would think they would want to see, in great detail, every part of the landing, would you not?
I know how they fucking did it.
THey ZIP Stripped those punk ass rockets together!!!
Do you have the same issue with professional sports, network television, and shopping malls? Each is a huge money sink, with not much of lasting value to show for them.
Not much of lasting value? Only to the naive who look at it from a very narrow and wrong headed perspective. Each of those examples are multi-billion dollar industries which employ millions of people and provide valuable goods and services to many more millions. If I go to my local shopping mall and buy a wrench which I then use in my workplace and maybe stop at the local sports bar and watch the game on the TV there absolutely is lasting value there. Bank accounts were enriched, work was facilitated, tax revenues were generated, people were employed, and the economy has grown. In what universe does that not qualify as lasting value? Might not be as sexy as sending rockets into space but it's no less important in the big picture.
This is what I hate from SpaceX. They refuse to acknowledge their problems.
Not one single Falcon has landed without mayor damage today. But they want to push without fixing the problems they already have.
This is what I hate from SpaceX. They refuse to acknowledge their problems.
Not one single Falcon has landed without mayor damage today. But they want to push without fixing the problems they already have.
It takes time for major construction projects, from approval through to actual building and beyond.
They have verified enough to know what they are trying to achieve is possible, so they are pushing forward with the parts they need to get out of the way.
Also, every time one of their boosters have landed they have done a full examination, learnt what they could, and then made or planned modifications to reduce the risk of the same issues occurring again. This is the definition of learning, and if they weren't do it these are lessons no one, let alone SpaceX would learn. Not to mention at least one of landed their boosters is near-launch ready.
Actually, all of the ground landings take place right next to the ocean.
It's not that hard to conceive of a rocket booster coming back to Earth going off course by a fair distance and "landing" where it shouldn't. Definitely less chance of harm to property if this happens over the ocean than over land. It's not a worry that keeps me up at night or anything but it's certainly among the possible outcomes.
Cape Canaveral isn't anyone's back yard.
Cape Canaveral is just a few miles from quite a few people's literal back yards. It's not terrible hard to imagine a returning rocket booster (or parts of one) going off course by a few miles. Not likely I'll admit but not entirely impossible either.
All of Musk's businesses lose money every year
Except that they don't. Tesla has lost money to date but periodically shows a small profit and is approaching breakeven despite investing heavily in new products and technology. So far investors have liked what they have seen. Paypal was hugely profitable. SpaceX is private but there are rumors that it is profitable from credible sources.
Where exactly do they get the funds for all this expansion, or for the Gigafactory or the Tesla 3 tooling and production?
The Gigafactory is a joint venture with several partners, primarily Panasonic. Money for Tesla 3 development and tooling comes from sales of the Model S and X as well as loans and stock sales. (you are aware that the entire point of going public is to raise money to build the company right?) Plus Musk has put a lot of his own personal fortune into the ventures. It's no mystery where all these ventures get their funding. When you've started numerous successful businesses like Elon Musk has it's not terribly hard to get funding.
And yet, units are still calculated by them in feet, goat jumps and what have you although science established unified replacements long time ago.
They are incompetent and do not inspire confidence or show capability. How can they reach Mars if they can't reach for Meters on earth.
it was actually more than ten years, von braun was blowing up V2s long before he started working on apollo.
What the hell are they planning to launch that requires 3 - 5 Rockets Simultaneously. That's how I read this article.
Cool shit is on the horizon people.
There are two types of countries. Those that use meters, and those that have been to the moon.
There is $100B in raw materials for every man woman and child alive today. Why not utilize it?
Besides socialism only works if we have unlimited resources. There are unlimited resources, but they are in space. All we have to do is go get them.
On a plus side for those people who would "benefit" people who are productive members of society, that have a work ethic, intelligence, and curiosity, will finally have way to ditch all you socialist leaches once and for all. They will leave you behind to starve.
This definitely seems like a "Hey hold my beer, and watch this!" type of scenario with predictable results... Though you never know with these guys, landing a rocket on end, on a floating platform in the ocean also seemed a bit nuts yet they did it anyway.
Point is with a sea landing, you can make it physically impossible for the booster to land in someone's backyard.
This is Florida we're talking about.
Or maybe Texas.
Come on.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
They should be focused solely on delivering the first F9H payload to a precise orbit, like ULA is.
That's still five landings more than ULA, right?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I have to say, that's a fantastic analogy that I'm going to be using in the future. Possibly including a showing of a video with 6-year olds playing soccer.
So? They don't have to acknowledge problems to you. And really what use would you be, if they did do that?
Did that other AC say SpaceX has to acknowledge problems to him specifically? I don't see it.
So the question should be what use would it be (not him specifically), to acknowledge problems in general. Well, we do like free markets no? Free markets work because people are free to raise concerns for problems.
Maybe SpaceX themselves won't address those problems, but somebody else might decide that they'll start a business to do just that. Maybe that project will become more successful, or not. We don't know. But the free market is all about letting people try.
Go die in a fire, you soccer pedo.
Uh, spacex WAS profitable. At the current moment there is doubt.
It will take more than one rocket blowing up to make it lose money unless you are looking at a very short time scale. There is nothing about the economic big picture of SpaceX today that is meaningfully different than it was a few months ago. Now if they start having a lot of disasters then that might be a different story. But every company that builds rockets loses a few sooner or later.
Have you ever been to Cape Canaveral?
Several times. Been on a tour to the VAB as well.
Then you have a nice long causeway with a lots of water as a further buffer before you get to anything like privately owned land.
According to Zillow there are over 100 houses for sale on Cape Canaveral just south of the Air Force Base as I type this. There are thousands of homes just a few miles to the west of the launch sites. A very reasonable safety buffer but not so far away that one could reasonably claim zero chance of something heading the wrong way.
I am pretty sure that SpaceX has some means to destroy the returning booster before it gets close to the ground the 10+ miles off course it would need to be before getting close to private property.
As am I. However the mere fact that such a thing would be necessary indicates that it is possible (however unlikely) for the rocket to miss by multiple miles. I doubt I'll live to see it happen but it isn't impossible.
There are two types of countries. Those that use meters, and those that have been to the moon.
....you know that NASA is using the metric system right?
Elok
Yep, there are using the metric system now and we haven't returned to moon since. Coincidence? I think NOT! ;)
Yes, that would be twenty years before Apollo. The V-2 rockets used alcohol/water and liquid oxygen, and the Rocketdyne F-1 engine used LOX and RP-1 (kerosene, more or less). The gas generator which drove the turbopump for the F-1 engine had almost exactly half the thrust of the V-2 rocket, and that was just the fuel pump. The actual Saturn V rocket of course had five of the F-1 engines. I'm not sure it's particularly meaningful to compare the V-2 program with Apollo, and I don't think it's particularly reasonable to consider the former a step in the development of the latter, or if so, then one would also have to include the work of Goddard as well. I'd say that the history of early modern rocketry falls fairly neatly into a few eras: Goddard's work (20s-30s), the V-2 program (40s), the "Wild West" era described by John Clark, and the Apollo era (1960s). Yes, each era led to each subsequent era, but to lay all of this at the feet of Von Braun misses lots of important contributions from other people. Von Braun had the army funding to build big missiles, but as far as I know he did little or no research on propellants, and the general principles of liquid propelled rockets came from Goddard. If Von Braun is the only rocket scientist you've heard of and you don't care about the actual history involved, sure, your statement makes some sort of sense. Mostly not though. But do check out the linked PDF, aside from a regrettably necessary proliferation of chemistry terms it's a pretty interesting story.
The space program was an early customer of integrated circuits, along with military customers, but IC's would have been developed with or without NASA and the DoD, just a little slower perhaps. This is characteristic of such organizations - NASA and DoD have actual applications for advanced technology and have big budgets are willing to spend big bucks to develop and then purchase state of the art technology when there is an advantage to doing so.
But the merits of NASA are not really in the follow-on technologies developed. If you spend billions per year on R&D you'll get some technology out no matter what.
The true benefit of space exploration is just that - the space exploration. Finding out about our planet, our solar system, the Universe, and where we came from and where we fit in as a species. Setting foot on the moon. Traveling to Mars in the next decade or two (probably). Considering establishing civilization on Mars. These are the true benefits of space exploration, the rest is just icing on the cake.
Did that other AC say SpaceX has to acknowledge problems to him specifically? I don't see it.
The thing is, SpaceX has been real open about what they're doing. As a result, I believe that the AC would have those concerns, if the AC had been paying even a little attention.
4chan is that way ->
For a forward-looking company, they seem to think that the last 40 years of space travel never even happened.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Are any businesses profitable from the start? It takes some longer than others to become profitable. Amazon ran at a loss for a long time. It's very expensive to build up the infrastructure and knowledge to charge enough for rocket launches to get into the black. So, if you're doing that, you set up a plan with contingencies, go to your proposed investors, and talk to them. If you've got a decent chance of a big business success, and Space-X definitely has, some investors will be happy with large risks and continued losses for a long time.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Many people have answered with the generic benefits of space exploration. But your question is how does SpaceX's being able to land 3 rockets simultaneously benefit anyone?
Reduced cost. Reduced cost to putting up satellites. That is worth billions and billions of dollars simply on the commercial/capitalist side of things.
But reduced cost also is beneficial to science. Being able to get more Hubble Telescopes up, more weather satellites or anything else you can imagine.
And those are just the immediate tangible benefits. You may now fill in the remaining blank with whatever Engineering/Science/Futurism dream you may have. Giant solar panels beaming limitless energy ground-side (meaning nobody will bother sending troops to the Middle East) or whatever other fantasy you might have. Reality is there will be amazing benefits, and we probably haven't thought of them yet.