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SpaceX Successfully Launches Satellite With New Upgraded 'Block 5' Falcon 9 Rocket (theverge.com)
Thelasko shares a report from The Verge: This afternoon, SpaceX landed the most powerful version yet of its Falcon 9 rocket, after launching the vehicle from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The so-named Block 5 upgrade took off from the company's launchpad at Kennedy Space Center, sending a communications satellite into orbit for Bangladesh and then touched down on one of the company's drone ships in the Atlantic. It was the 25th successful rocket landing for SpaceX, and the 14th on one of the company's drone ships.
It also marks the first launch of the Block 5, the vehicle that will carry humans to space for NASA. The Block 5 is meant to be SpaceX's most reusable rocket yet, with many upgrades put in place that negate the need for extensive refurbishment between flights. In fact, the first Block 5 rockets will eventually be able to fly up to 10 times without the need for any maintenance after landings, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said during a pre-launch press conference. Ideally, once one of these rocket lands, SpaceX will turn it horizontal, attach a new upper stage and nose cone on top, turn it vertical on the launchpad, fill it with propellant, and then launch it again. Musk noted that the vehicles would need some kind of moderate maintenance after the 10-flight mark, but it's possible that each rocket could fly up to 100 times in total.
It also marks the first launch of the Block 5, the vehicle that will carry humans to space for NASA. The Block 5 is meant to be SpaceX's most reusable rocket yet, with many upgrades put in place that negate the need for extensive refurbishment between flights. In fact, the first Block 5 rockets will eventually be able to fly up to 10 times without the need for any maintenance after landings, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said during a pre-launch press conference. Ideally, once one of these rocket lands, SpaceX will turn it horizontal, attach a new upper stage and nose cone on top, turn it vertical on the launchpad, fill it with propellant, and then launch it again. Musk noted that the vehicles would need some kind of moderate maintenance after the 10-flight mark, but it's possible that each rocket could fly up to 100 times in total.
If this rocket performs as expected, it really is the game-changer that SpaceX is designed it to be. They're already out-competing everyone on launch costs. If they can really do a 24 hr turnaround on the same rocket? Holy. Shit.
That part is almost insignificant, the question is how many times it'll fly or if ten is another Elon estimate of what it might possibly do sometime in the remote future, I mean he's been throwing around numbers like 10, 100 even 1000 reuses in his Mars plans but so far nothing has been re-flown more than once. Now the most aggressive schedule would be to say we're putting the pedal to the metal and sending it out there as quickly and often as possible, but I doubt it'll happen quite that way because there's customer payloads at risk every time it goes up.
Then again, if Musk has Starlink ready to go maybe he'll say this is now an in-house risk and we're making this a quasi-experimental 3rd-10th launch that won't kill our reputation as a launch provider. It certainly wouldn't get any more "eat your own dog food" than that. The satellites should be in mass production anyway so as long as the rocket clears the launch site it's probably not that big a blow if it turns into a fireworks show on the 6th launch. He could just do another space is hard, we're pushing the boundaries, failure is permitted here and I think most would buy it. And if it doesn't blow up, well all the better.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Six more good flights for the manned-flight rating! Go SpaceX! This company exemplifies how to make America great again!
For everyone else watching at home, if they can really reduce launch costs to a few million bucks a launch, it will enable a whole lot of things that currently can't be done.
For instance:
So even leaving out the more out-there humans-in-space stuff, there is a great deal to be excited by if SpaceX can really launch this cheap.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)