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Sixth Falcon 9 landing
A Sixth Success! SpaceX Again Lands Rocket on a Ship at Sea By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer. August 14, 2016 02:00am ET http://www.space.com/33742-spacex-sa...t-landing.html :-) Jeff -- All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone. These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends, employer, or any organization that I am a member of. |
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Sixth Falcon 9 landing
On 8/14/2016 8:05 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
A Sixth Success! SpaceX Again Lands Rocket on a Ship at Sea This is not only another success, but another data point on the path to routine booster re-usability. SpaceX calls these landings "Challenging" yet their recent string of successful recoveries seems increasingly unlikely to be a statistical fluke. It appears that SpaceX can bank on a future recovery success rate that will be significantly better than 50%. That said, I'm willing to stick my neck out enough to guess that, given the narrow margins involved, they are unlikely to approach a 100% recovery success rate anytime soon. But how will recovery impact SpaceX future operations? After all, waiting for good weather in the recovery area isn't compatible with SpaceX's goal of a greatly increased launch tempo. I will be interested to see how they deal with the certainty of future recovery area uncooperative weather. Will they be willing to delay launches, possibly for weeks, solely because recovery is temporarily impossible? When high winds or waves in the recovery area weather make recovery unlikely, will they deliberately land boosters in the ocean rather than suffer virtually certain damage to their recovery barge? |
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Sixth Falcon 9 landing
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Sixth Falcon 9 landing
On 16-08-14 19:57 , Jeff Findley wrote:
In article , says... You need good weather for launch, which includes relatively calm wind speeds from the ground on up, so this is largely a non-issue. The exception would be when the mission calls for a barge landing and ocean conditions are rough, despite good weather for launch. How likely is that? I'm not a weather expert, but my guess would be not likely. I seem to remember that one of the early attempts at a barge landing was aborted for just that reason, and the stage was "landed" on the water instead. -- Niklas Holsti Tidorum Ltd niklas holsti tidorum fi . @ . |
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Sixth Falcon 9 landing
On 8/14/2016 12:57 PM, Jeff Findley wrote:
The exception would be when the mission calls for a barge landing and ocean conditions are rough, despite good weather for launch. How likely is that? So you are saying that the weather conditions 400 miles out in the Atlantic will normally be the same as the coastal conditions at the launch area? Really? If you don't know about the storms that wander around in the Atlantic I suggest that you watch the Atlantic marine weather reports for the next few days. You're not a meteorologist are you? I'm not a weather expert, but my guess would be not likely. As another poster has already pointed out, it has already happened. In fact, I believe that recovery area weather has been a factor in a failed or abandoned recovery attempt at least twice so far. |
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Sixth Falcon 9 landing
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Sixth Falcon 9 landing
On Wednesday, August 17, 2016 at 12:55:20 AM UTC+12, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article , says... On 8/14/2016 12:57 PM, Jeff Findley wrote: The exception would be when the mission calls for a barge landing and ocean conditions are rough, despite good weather for launch. How likely is that? So you are saying that the weather conditions 400 miles out in the Atlantic will normally be the same as the coastal conditions at the launch area? Really? If you don't know about the storms that wander around in the Atlantic I suggest that you watch the Atlantic marine weather reports for the next few days. You're not a meteorologist are you? I'm not a weather expert, but my guess would be not likely. As another poster has already pointed out, it has already happened. In fact, I believe that recovery area weather has been a factor in a failed or abandoned recovery attempt at least twice so far. True, but out of all of the recovery attempts so far, that's not a horrible record. But, if this does prove to be a huge issue, when Falcon Heavy proves itself to be reliable, Falcon 9 payloads could be shifted to it. If a Falcon Heavy were used for a Falcon 9 size payload, there would be plenty of fuel reserve to fly back to Cape Canaveral for a landing of both the boosters and the center lower stage. So in that case landing weather would always be the same as launch weather. The devil is in the details which method will be cheaper in the long run for the largest of the current Falcon 9 payloads. Jeff -- All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone. These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends, employer, or any organization that I am a member of. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...sk-s-low-costs SpaceX has a backlog of 70 flights and is giving Boeing a run for its money.. Here's an interesting section from Julie's article; "The alliance opted not to bid in part because entries were judged on price rather than track records. Another provision focused on cost disclosures. The criteria hadn’t been included in previous contracts and “put us at a competitive disadvantage,” Bruno said." "Neither ULA and SpaceX make financial details public. Under Bruno, ULA has cut in half the time it takes to build and launch the Atlas V. Along with renegotiated supplier contracts, the changes reduced launch costs by about one-third from a $184 million baseline. Bruno aims to bring those costs below $100 million by 2019." "That’s still way above the $61 million base price that SpaceX lists on its website for a launch. Musk is ramping up the pricing pressure even further by focusing on lowering operating costs, which AlixPartners estimates are already about 50 percent below those of its rivals." Vulcan Rocket "United Launch Alliance is preparing a new rocket, known as the Vulcan, to stay in the game. The first flight is planned by 2019." "A version of the craft slated to debut by 2023 will offer a twist on the reusability concepts pioneered by Musk. Its upper stage, which maneuvers payloads to their final destination in space, will be able to remain in orbit for seven or eight days, far longer than the current hours-long voyages. It also would be fully reusable." "“Eventually, it will change the way we go to space entirely,” Bruno said. He envisions space travelers journeying to a way station in low Earth orbit, where the craft will “swoop down and take you where you need to go.”" * * * Now, this idea of a fully reusable uppper stage, builds on Boeing's experience with the X-37B, and echoes my proposals in 1996 to NASA, the DOT, and the Clinton White House, for a fully reusable nuclear stage in orbit that operated much the same way. At that time, I proposed the use of older SSME engines cycled out from Shuttle use, in combination with RL-10 engines, to make a TSTO-RLV that was fully reusable and landed at sea. There the first stage was refilled to a fraction of its launch propellant, and boosted back to the launch centre within minutes. Meanhile the second stage made it to orbit, released a payload, and returned. I also proposed a nuclear bus on orbit that took hydrogen fuel brought up by the booster and took payloads anywhere you wanted in cislunar space! https://goo.gl/rTOVMI This programme would have cost $6 billion and resulted in radical reduction in launch costs. The orbiting nuclear thermal rocket would also allow a very low cost mission to the outer planets, including Pluto, which included capture and continued operation on those planets. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/going...y-william-mook * * * Here are the prices and capabilities advertised by SpaceX today; http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities Here is what astronautix says about the Falcon 9, which was taken out of service at the end of 2014 after five years of operation; LEO Payload: 10,450 kg (23,030 lb) to a 200 km orbit at 28.00 degrees. Payload: 4,540 kg (10,000 lb) to a GTO, 28 deg. Status: Active. First Launch: 2010-06-04. Last Launch: 2014-08-05. Number: 11 . Payload: 10,450 kg (23,030 lb). Thrust: 5,560.00 kN (1,249,930 lbf). Gross mass: 333,400 kg (735,000 lb). Height: 55.00 m (180.00 ft). Diameter: 3.60 m (11.80 ft). Span: 3.60 m (11.80 ft). Apogee: 200 km (120 mi). Development Cost $: 378.000 million. Launch Price $: 36.750 million in 2008 dollars in 2008 dollars. Boost Propulsion: Lox/Kerosene. Cruise Thrust: 66.600 kN (14,972 lbf). Cruise Thrust: 6,800 kgf. Cruise engine: Kestrel. Initial Operational Capability: 2009. Using LOX and LNG propellant costs $160 per ton. Kerosene is $700 per ton. The cost here is $55,000 in propellant at the lower price, and $300,000 at the higher price, to put up 10 metric tons. With 120 flights per ship and $36 million construction cost, the cost of capital is $300,000 as well.. A fair profit can be made at $1,000,000 to put up 10 metric tons into LEO. http://www.spacelaunchreport.com In 2000-2001 time frame a launch occurred every 4 days at a cost of $100 million+ Had a reliable reusable rocket with the capacity to put objects up to 8 tonnes anywhere in cislunar space been available for $51 million - it is reasonable that one flight every two weeks could be sustained and generate a margin of $1,250 million per year! The profits could be used to develop a global wireless hotspot, as has been discussed recently by Mark Zuckerberg https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10101322049893211 WIth concrete steps taken by China to provide a secure wireless hotspot for the world; https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/china...?trk=prof-post Dominance in this market earns a revenue stream that if properly leveraged can back a currency, the same way the US uses OPEC oil purchased with US dollars to underpin the value of its currency. $1.77 trillion per year spent on telecom is on this scale. The next off-world infrastructure is power satellites, as I mentioned 30 years ago as well! |
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