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SpaceX Loses the Center Core of Its Falcon Heavy Rocket Due To Choppy Seas (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: SpaceX successfully landed the center core of its Falcon Heavy rocket on a drone ship last week, but the vehicle accidentally fell into the ocean while in transit to the Florida coast. The company blamed the loss on choppy seas. "Over the weekend, due to rough sea conditions, SpaceX's recovery team was unable to secure the center core booster for its return trip to Port Canaveral," SpaceX said in a statement to The Verge. "As conditions worsened with eight to ten foot swells, the booster began to shift and ultimately was unable to remain upright. While we had hoped to bring the booster back intact, the safety of our team always takes precedence. We do not expect future missions to be impacted."
SpaceX does have ways to secure the rockets it lands in the ocean, including a robot known as the "octagrabber" that latches on to the base of the boosters. But because the center core connects to two side boosters, it has a different design than a normal Falcon 9 booster. So the octagrabber cannot hold on to it in the same way. The center core is a modified Falcon 9 booster -- one of three that make up the Falcon Heavy rocket -- which flew last week during the second flight of the Falcon Heavy. "Following takeoff, all three cores of the rocket successfully landed back on Earth: the two outer cores touched down on dual concrete landing pads at the Cape while the center core touched down on the company's drone ship named Of Course I Still Love You in the Atlantic," reports The Verge.
SpaceX does have ways to secure the rockets it lands in the ocean, including a robot known as the "octagrabber" that latches on to the base of the boosters. But because the center core connects to two side boosters, it has a different design than a normal Falcon 9 booster. So the octagrabber cannot hold on to it in the same way. The center core is a modified Falcon 9 booster -- one of three that make up the Falcon Heavy rocket -- which flew last week during the second flight of the Falcon Heavy. "Following takeoff, all three cores of the rocket successfully landed back on Earth: the two outer cores touched down on dual concrete landing pads at the Cape while the center core touched down on the company's drone ship named Of Course I Still Love You in the Atlantic," reports The Verge.
"You're gonna need a bigger boat"
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You do remember that the ocean contains vastly more rocket parts from Saturn V, Atlas, Delta, and Titan boosters, right? Picking on the one company that actually tries to keep their trash out of the ocean is pathetic.
Losing one reusable rocket is still cheaper than using three non-reusable rockets.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Perhaps they should come up with a way to lay the booster down on its side, once it's successfully landed on the drone ship?
Doesn't work. The rockets are not designed to handle heavy horizontal stress. They can handle pretty extreme vertical stress but to make them survive being on their sides that reliably would require a lot more reinforcements which means the rockets would have a lot more mass.
The crane to do that would have to be massive. They already have a solution though, it's a giant Roomba that goes under the center of the rocket and clamps on like a giant weight like this, the problem is it's not yet compatible with the Falcon Heavy center. If the weather had been better they could have welded it to the deck, that's what they did before but maybe the conditions were too rough for that. Either way once they adapt the clamps this won't happen again.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
A bunch of armchair aeronautical scientists telling SpaceX how to fix their problem.
> "Doesn't work. The rockets are not designed to handle heavy horizontal stress."
Nope.
They are assembled horizontally and set upright on the pad. When they get to port they crane them off the boat and lay them horizontally onto a truck. Grabbing it and laying it down is just a matter of engineering.
Grabbing it and laying it down is just a matter of engineering.
But there's no need. The center of mass is very low due to empty fuel/oxygen tanks, and heavy engines at the bottom, and the booster is already very stable standing upright. The only thing that needs to be done is grab the legs with an improved octograbber, so it doesn't start sliding around.
You do remember that the ocean contains vastly more rocket parts from Saturn V, Atlas, Delta, and Titan boosters, right? Picking on the one company that actually tries to keep their trash out of the ocean is pathetic.
No let's pick on this company. How dare they try and prevent equipment from landing in the ocean where it provides wonderful artificial reefs which have been shown time and time again to benefit ocean life in what is otherwise a wasteland.