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SpaceX Successfully Landed the 12th Falcon 9 Rocket of 2017 (theverge.com)
Shortly after launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket successfully landed on one of the company's drone ships in the ocean. "It marks the 12th time SpaceX has successfully landed the first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket this year, the 18th overall, and the second this week," reports The Verge. "It was also the third time that the company has successfully launched and landed a rocket that had already flown." From the report: The vehicle for this mission has flown before: once back in February, when it lofted cargo to the International Space Station and then landed at SpaceX's ground-based Landing Zone 1. Going up on this flight is a hybrid satellite that will be used by two companies, SES and EchoStar. Called EchoStar 105/SES-11, the satellite will sit in a high orbit 22,000 miles above Earth, providing high-definition broadcasts to the U.S. and other parts of North America. While this is the first time EchoStar is flying a payload on a used Falcon 9, this is familiar territory for SES. The company's SES-10 satellite went up on the first "re-flight" in March. And SES has made it very clear that it is eager to fly its satellites on previously flown boosters.
Musk may be pushing for some very interesting deadlines and pretty outlandish sounding concepts...
However his cars, even with all the weaknesses they have, are viable and his space company also successfully delivers.
I'd say that should at least be impressive.
And I watched SpaceX go from blowing up rockets, to making orbit less than ten years ago, to becoming a (semi) reliable truck to the ISS, to LANDING A FREAKING ROCKET ON A BARGE, to reflying reused rockets almost casually.
That's how engineering is supposed to work. Incremental changes leading to improvements in reliability and capability, and hopefully reduction in cost.
Interesting as the Space Shuttle was, it was an engineering mistake, it was basically launching a crewed space station and then landing it each time. If it had been able to turn around and fly again in a matter of days or weeks that would be one thing, but it took months to refurbish any individual craft between flights. So expensive to design and build, expensive to launch, expensive to prepare for next launch. And for some reason we used it as a cargo vehicle when it would have been much more cost effective to launch cargo with an unmanned rocket with a faring designed for that cargo. The space station probably could have had much larger individual segments and could have been assembled faster if the components didn't have the shuttlebay as their design constraint.
SpaceX's approach, with both the reusable rocket and the inexpensive capsule intended for use in the limited time between the ground and the station, and then the station and the ground, makes a lot of sense. Hopefully they'll get man-rating soon.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Interesting as the Space Shuttle was, it was an engineering mistake, it was basically launching a crewed space station and then landing it each time.
The Space Shuttles were basically a fleet of space stations. One thing I wondered about is if NASA couldn't just launch one or more into space with the intention to not land them. They couldn't stay there forever, of course. At end of life the orbiter could be allowed to burn up in the atmosphere. If they really wanted to save it then repair it in orbit and land it with a return crew. Since it would never fly again then that opens options to land in an unconventional manner, not on a runway, to make the landing easier/cheaper/whatever. Such as a sea landing and just let it sink once the crew were recovered.
Then I realized that the public relations of allowing for the destruction of these iconic spacecraft would be more than NASA could bear. There were only three craft left that had gone to space. At the time they were retired the craft were considered suitable for flight only after considerable expense on craft that had already been flown well beyond their intended lifespan. Getting them to fly on even a one way trip would likely cost a lot of money for little benefit.
Perhaps what NASA should have done is make the retirement in orbit part of the planned uses of the craft from the start. They built six of them. As each new one was built they could have retired older ones in orbit as small space stations. Convert the payload space as a larger living space before retirement. Keep them useful as space stations before everything wore out and the technology became embarrassingly out of date.
SpaceX's approach, with both the reusable rocket and the inexpensive capsule intended for use in the limited time between the ground and the station, and then the station and the ground, makes a lot of sense. Hopefully they'll get man-rating soon.
In a way they've turned the Space Shuttle idea upside down. They reuse the booster stage and have one time use of the orbiter. SpaceX got to learn from NASA's mistakes. Too bad NASA couldn't learn from their own mistakes.
NASA needs to take on a different role in space. They should not be launching spacecraft, only provide government oversight and research. They need to act more like the FAA. The FAA provides oversight on private aircraft, they don't offer flights to people. NASA should let private industry launch payloads to space, not compete with them.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Yup, after the moon landings, the American space program fell apart at the seams. They lost three times more people in the space program than Russia. Things devolved into a total disaster and they completely lost their ability to launch men into space.
The Americans have been desperately trying to catch up with the Russians again(!) and Space Exploration and Boeing may both have a good thing going, but their rockets are still not man rated.
The American program is still far behind the Russians in terms of cost, quality and reliability.
There is R&D to recoup, but there has already been a cost reduction for launch customers, on top of what was already the cheapest launch system in its payload class. Since it was already highly price competitive, SpaceX's incentive to lower costs to customers even further is small - there is no competitive need. The details are private, but estimated that the cost to SpaceX is about 35% less than a fully expendable rocket, and they pass about 10-15% cost reduction on to customers.The difference they pocket to recoup R&D costs and continue with more R&D for further cost reductions. The internal cost will fall more once stages are reused more times.
So it is already worth while, but this is not the whole picture. For one thing, the early re-launches are involving more inspection time and expense than they plan on once it gets into full swing. Second, they have made a newer rev of the F9 to minimize turnaround refurb over the past revisions. Lastly, some of their self funded R&D is going into a fully reusable launch system to drive costs even lower.
First stage (not entire rocket) is being reused. My understanding is that to make it able to land and be reused, it essentially has to be both strengthened and carry but a half of payload it can so it can have fuel remaining and carry necessary additions to the rocket to perform a landing.
That means that if we are being very generous, you need at least three launches from the same rocket, as long as you don't count any other costs related to launch to turn a profit on reusing the first stage. I.e. two launches from it are break even point, meaning three is the minimum required to actually make it worth while. That is being very generous in assuming that this is the main cost. Remember, we're launching only half the payload per launch, while costs related to launch weight remain more or less the same. Except for insurance, which will skyrocket as this is unknown territory and you're handling loads worth eight to nine digits.
Right now, best that was done is two launches from same first stage. So it's a progress towards a goal of potential future profitability. It's nowhere near that yet however and like most things in rocket science, there aren't any guarantees that this is viable.
Well, both only deliver thanks to millions in tax rebates, adding millions more in direct payments for milestones during development, and direct payments for cargo with more limitations than not due to the weak rocket power.
Nobody who has the money to buy a Model S or Model X is buying one because they need the tax rebates. It's a cool car that costs nearly six figures and people are buying it because they like the product and what it represents. If they get a tax rebate so much the better but that's not what makes it sell. Furthermore there is NOTHING wrong with some tax incentives to help develop a new clean technology. The internal combustion engine has had a good run but that run needs to come to a close. They are dirty, noisy, inefficient and limited to oil based fuels. If we need some tax incentives to get EVs up to scale then I have zero problem with that. It will benefit us all in the long run.
As for SpaceX, yes the government is a big customer and helped them get the company going but again, so what? NASA is hardly their only customer and are you seriously going to argue that SpaceX hasn't dramatically lowered the cost to orbit just like they said they would? "Weak rocket power"? WTF does that mean? You sound like one of Trumps twitter rants.