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Falcon 9 - First stage to be recovered!



 
 
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  #1  
Old December 8th 10, 02:25 PM posted to sci.space.shuttle
Alan Erskine[_3_]
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Default Falcon 9 - First stage to be recovered!

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/002/status.html

Weather permitting.
  #2  
Old December 8th 10, 03:34 PM posted to sci.space.shuttle
Jeff Findley
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Default Falcon 9 - First stage to be recovered!

In article . com,
says...

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/002/status.html

Weather permitting.


From what I've read, they're uging NASA's SRB recovery ships for this.
It really makes sense to recover the first stage. Even if it's not able
to be reused, it can be inspected. Post flight inspection could reveal
problems with the luanch vehicle which would otherwise go unnoticed.

Jeff
--
42
  #3  
Old December 8th 10, 04:05 PM posted to sci.space.shuttle
Alan Erskine[_3_]
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Default Falcon 9 - First stage to be recovered!

On 9/12/2010 1:34 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
In igpond.com,
says...

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/002/status.html

Weather permitting.


From what I've read, they're uging NASA's SRB recovery ships for this.
It really makes sense to recover the first stage. Even if it's not able
to be reused, it can be inspected. Post flight inspection could reveal
problems with the luanch vehicle which would otherwise go unnoticed.

Jeff


Absolutely; I couldn't agree more. I've read that SpaceX does intend to
re-use the first stage.
  #4  
Old December 9th 10, 11:06 AM posted to sci.space.shuttle
Brian Gaff
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Default Falcon 9 - First stage to be recovered!

I thought the whole problem with first stage reuse was the ingress of salt
water into the mechanisms etc. Its a nice idea but might it not cost more
than a new one?
Brian

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"Alan Erskine" wrote in message
ond.com...
On 9/12/2010 1:34 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
In igpond.com,
says...

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/002/status.html

Weather permitting.


From what I've read, they're uging NASA's SRB recovery ships for this.
It really makes sense to recover the first stage. Even if it's not able
to be reused, it can be inspected. Post flight inspection could reveal
problems with the luanch vehicle which would otherwise go unnoticed.

Jeff


Absolutely; I couldn't agree more. I've read that SpaceX does intend to
re-use the first stage.



  #5  
Old December 9th 10, 12:10 PM posted to sci.space.shuttle
Alan Erskine[_3_]
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Posts: 1,026
Default Falcon 9 - First stage to be recovered!

On 9/12/2010 9:06 PM, Brian Gaff wrote:
I thought the whole problem with first stage reuse was the ingress of salt
water into the mechanisms etc. Its a nice idea but might it not cost more
than a new one?
Brian


Perhaps water recovery's only for the prototype flights and land
recovery will be for operational use? Remember Kistler's K1?
  #6  
Old December 9th 10, 08:45 PM posted to sci.space.shuttle
Damon Hill[_4_]
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Default Falcon 9 - First stage to be recovered!

Alan Erskine wrote in news:ZGLLo.4538$gM3.3962
@viwinnwfe01.internal.bigpond.com:

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/002/status.html

Weather permitting.


Reportedly only debris found, and what I think was a prototype
suborbital package with a "black box" data recorder. No details
on the recovery systems, which I presume include parachutes.

--Damon
  #7  
Old December 9th 10, 10:08 PM posted to sci.space.shuttle
Jeff Findley
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Posts: 5,012
Default Falcon 9 - First stage to be recovered!

In article om,
says...

I have to admit to being a sceptic that "cots" would lead to real
services being offered. I saw it as mostly "make work" pork project
likely to be cancelled before any real results were to be seen .


Considering the tiny amount of money NASA is spending on COTS ($500M
from 2006 through 2011 - cite below), I'd hardly call it pork.

http://www.nasa.gov/offices/c3po/about/c3po.html

Yesterday's flight is changing my mind.

Is this a big game changer ? Is Boeing nervous that it will now have to
stop milking the government for tons of money to accomplish space travel
because some new kid on the block can now actually deliver stuff much
cheaper ?


They've only got 1200 employees, and even though SpaceX is vertically
integrated, meaning they build most of the hardware themselves, they've
pulled off a feat which the skeptical thought would not be possible.
They've developed their own launch vehicle and large capsule and have
demonstrated the orbital launch and recovery of that large capsule at a
fraction of the cost predicted by NASA cost models.

BTW, at:

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/002/splashdown/

the first image shows the Dragon wirth its 3 red-white parachutes and at
some distance, there is another object falling with 2 or more white
parachutres. What is that ? Does Dragon end-up re-entry as two
survivable units ?


I'd guess those are the drogue parachutes. Either that or it's the nose
of the capsule, perhaps being recovered for post flight inspection.

Jeff
--
42
  #8  
Old December 9th 10, 10:44 PM posted to sci.space.shuttle
Jeff Findley
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Posts: 5,012
Default Falcon 9 - First stage to be recovered!

In article m,
says...

Jeff Findley wrote:

They've developed their own launch vehicle and large capsule and have
demonstrated the orbital launch and recovery of that large capsule at a
fraction of the cost predicted by NASA cost models.


But aren't NASA's cost models developed with pork in mind, knowing that
not giving specific industries/cities lots of economic activity would be
a political show stopper that would prevent budget approval ?


I'm guessing that a huge part of NASA's cost models take into account
previous (NASA) programs.

or let me ask this differently:

When Boeing builds a commercial satellite launcher, are its costs much
lower and closer to SpaceX's costs and it is only work done for NASA
that is bloated ?


It's hard to say what Boeing's actual costs are, since there is so much
overhead at a large company like that. It really depends on how they do
their internal cost accounting. The cost they charge the customer may,
or may not, reflect the true cost to Boeing.

Since more and more commercial satellites are being launched by Russia
on Soyuz/Proton and Europe's Arianne 5, is this a sign that Boeing is
not competitive because it is so used to bloated contracts for NASA ? Or
is Boeing considered very competitive in commercial space launches ?


We'll have the answer soon enough. We'll just need to compare the cost
of a commercial EELV launch with a comparably sized Falcon 9 commercial
launch. Unfortunately, Falcon 9 is still new, so it's hard to say what
the cost of a launch will be a few years (and a few launches) down the
road.

Part of these costs will depend on the reusability of the Falcon 9 first
stage (which is obviously a work in progress since neither of the two
flown first stages were successfully recovered). That first stage has
90% of the engines on the entire launch vehicle and therefore represents
a sizable cost of the overall launch vehicle hardware.

Jeff
--
42
  #9  
Old December 11th 10, 05:17 PM posted to sci.space.shuttle
Brian Thorn[_2_]
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Posts: 2,266
Default Falcon 9 - First stage to be recovered!

On Thu, 9 Dec 2010 16:08:54 -0500, Jeff Findley
wrote:


I have to admit to being a sceptic that "cots" would lead to real
services being offered. I saw it as mostly "make work" pork project
likely to be cancelled before any real results were to be seen .


Considering the tiny amount of money NASA is spending on COTS ($500M
from 2006 through 2011 - cite below), I'd hardly call it pork.

http://www.nasa.gov/offices/c3po/about/c3po.html


Some sort of disconnect there, because SpaceX has a $1.6 billion
contract with NASA for a minimum of 20,000 kg. of cargo to the Space
Station and Orbital has a $1.9 billion contract.

http://www.universetoday.com/22757/s...pply-contract/

Maybe $500 million was just seed money for development?

They've only got 1200 employees,


It remains to be seen how many more employees they'll need when they
have to start building and launching 10 or more Falcon 9s a year. I
hope the company has a good plan for ramping up from essentially an
R&D organization into a full-scale operational service.

the first image shows the Dragon wirth its 3 red-white parachutes and at
some distance, there is another object falling with 2 or more white
parachutres. What is that ? Does Dragon end-up re-entry as two
survivable units ?


I'd guess those are the drogue parachutes.


Correct.

Either that or it's the nose
of the capsule, perhaps being recovered for post flight inspection.


The nose cone was jettisoned during launch.

Brian
  #10  
Old December 11th 10, 05:42 PM posted to sci.space.shuttle
Brian Thorn[_2_]
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Posts: 2,266
Default Falcon 9 - First stage to be recovered!

On Thu, 09 Dec 2010 16:31:55 -0500, JF Mezei
wrote:


But aren't NASA's cost models developed with pork in mind, knowing that
not giving specific industries/cities lots of economic activity would be
a political show stopper that would prevent budget approval ?


NASA didn't develop or fund EELV (Boeing's Delta IV and
Lockheed-Martin's Atlas 5), the Pentagon did.

or let me ask this differently:

When Boeing builds a commercial satellite launcher, are its costs much
lower and closer to SpaceX's costs and it is only work done for NASA
that is bloated ?


No, as evidenced by Delta IV's complete failure in the commercial
market (Boeing/ULA don't even market it anymore.)

Brian
 




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