Falcon 1 Maiden Launch Delayed Until Dec

Looks like Falcon 1 won't launch until at least early December.
With Christmas/New Year coming up, and more delays, and I wouldn't
be suprised to see it delayed until 2006.

According to Musk, "Nozzle Erosion", and the need to "complete
performance testing" are the reasons for this latest delay. See:

http://www.flightinternational.com/A...h+delayed.html


Iain

What causes nozzle erosion?

If its sea salt, then I suspect the longer Falcon 1 sits on a pad in
the Pacific, the more erosion troubles they'll have.

Fingers crossed for a successful December launch then.

Alex Terrell wrote:
What causes nozzle erosion?

If its sea salt, then I suspect the longer Falcon 1 sits on a pad in
the Pacific, the more erosion troubles they'll have.

Its an ablative chamber, so probably they are worried about erosion of
the throat during firing. Some erosion is normal with ablative nozzles,
but if it gets too much your engine can underperform or even explode.

I don't think that sea salt is an issue for the nozzle, since it is
made from corrosion-resistant carbon fiber composites. But other parts
of the vehicle might indeed suffer a bit from long exposure to salt
water.

Probably the Falcon 1 sits in a "party tent" like the one they have in
vandenberg, so it should be at least somewhat protected from the
elements.

Fingers crossed for a successful December launch then.

Same here. I hope they manage to launch it this year. A successful
launch would be a nice christmas present for the alt.space community.

wrote:
Looks like Falcon 1 won't launch until at least early December.
With Christmas/New Year coming up, and more delays, and I wouldn't
be suprised to see it delayed until 2006.

According to Musk, "Nozzle Erosion", and the need to "complete
performance testing" are the reasons for this latest delay. See:

http://www.flightinternational.com/A...h+delayed.html


Its not very encouraging if the first flight of a reusable craft gets
delayed for concerns over nozzle erosion.


Iain

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

Its not very encouraging if the first flight of a reusable craft gets
delayed for concerns over nozzle erosion.

The nozzle of the Merlin engine is expendable and ablatively cooled.
According to elon musk, there is no economic case fore reusing the
engine nozzle since it is a very cheap part compared to other engine
parts. I think he once said that there are valves in the Merlin engine
that cost more than the whole ablative nozzle.

Another thing is that the engine nozzle is the part that hits the water
first during recovery, so it would be quite hard to make it reusable
even if it were regeneratively cooled.

Rüdiger Klaehn wrote:
Its not very encouraging if the first flight of a reusable craft gets
delayed for concerns over nozzle erosion.

The nozzle of the Merlin engine is expendable and ablatively cooled.
According to elon musk, there is no economic case fore reusing the
engine nozzle since it is a very cheap part compared to other engine
parts. I think he once said that there are valves in the Merlin engine
that cost more than the whole ablative nozzle.

Another thing is that the engine nozzle is the part that hits the water
first during recovery, so it would be quite hard to make it reusable
even if it were regeneratively cooled.

If ever someone wants to bring back engines from orbit (as opposed to
1st stage engines) I suppose it might be cheaper to ditch the nozzle.
Without the nozzle, the SSMEs might be recoverable in some sort of a
pod.

Alex Terrell wrote:
Rüdiger Klaehn wrote:
Its not very encouraging if the first flight of a reusable craft gets
delayed for concerns over nozzle erosion.

The nozzle of the Merlin engine is expendable and ablatively cooled.
According to elon musk, there is no economic case fore reusing the
engine nozzle since it is a very cheap part compared to other engine
parts. I think he once said that there are valves in the Merlin engine
that cost more than the whole ablative nozzle.

Another thing is that the engine nozzle is the part that hits the water
first during recovery, so it would be quite hard to make it reusable
even if it were regeneratively cooled.

If ever someone wants to bring back engines from orbit (as opposed to
1st stage engines) I suppose it might be cheaper to ditch the nozzle.
Without the nozzle, the SSMEs might be recoverable in some sort of a
pod.

Of course, then the problem is, how do you ditch a nozzle in orbit? You
can't exactly attach a Lightband to the chamber/ nozzle interface--it
would blow at engine operating temperatures. Any kind of easy
disconnect would probably have the same issue. It's an interesting
problem.

BTW, SpaceX just added a new pic to their updates on their website, a
nighttime picture of the Falcon I on Kwaj. two interesting
details--one, there's no flame trench. In fact, it looks like there's
not even a concrete pad below the rocket, except for in the direction
of the launcher base.
Two, SpaceX either painted this rocket white or it's got a significant
amount of frost on it from cryo loading.

tom

wrote:
Looks like Falcon 1 won't launch until at least early December.
With Christmas/New Year coming up, and more delays, and I wouldn't
be suprised to see it delayed until 2006.

According to Musk, "Nozzle Erosion", and the need to "complete
performance testing" are the reasons for this latest delay. See:

http://www.flightinternational.com/A...h+delayed.html


Iain

If this pattern of delays holds up with Falcon 9, regardless of how its
lawsuit about EELV turns out, SpaceX won't have any EELV-heavy payloads
to launch before 2011 anyway! After all, if Falcon 9 is currently
scheduled to begin stage engine testing in late 2006 and to launch in
mid 2007. The next Falcon 9 wouldn't launch until 2008 for Bigelow, and
neither of those are even the 3-core S-5 and S-9 variants.

Add in the delays commesurate with Falcon 1, you should expect the
first (single core) Falcon 9 to roar off the pad sometime in late 2009,
with the first 'heavy' variant not even launching until 2011 or so.

DOD payloads, unless they're small test articles form Darpa or NRL,
tend to be Heavy. Just how many heavy payloads does Musk think DOD is
going to launch between 2009 and 2011 anyway? Musk must be seeing the
commercial / tourism market as much more inelastic than Space Tourism
groups would have you believe.

Tom

"Alex Terrell" wrote in message
oups.com...

If ever someone wants to bring back engines from
orbit (as opposed to 1st stage engines) I suppose it
might be cheaper to ditch the nozzle. Without the
nozzle, the SSMEs might be recoverable in some sort
of a pod.

How many SSMEs would fit in the shuttle cargo bay?

The sensible approach to me seems to be to develop a small general
purpose reusable orbiter and use the significant spare down mass
capability to return the engines from larger 'expendable' vehicles.
Presumably orbital disassembly is similar in nature to orbital assembly.

Pete.

Tom Cuddihy wrote:

[snip]
Of course, then the problem is, how do you ditch a nozzle in orbit? You
can't exactly attach a Lightband to the chamber/ nozzle interface--it
would blow at engine operating temperatures. Any kind of easy
disconnect would probably have the same issue. It's an interesting
problem.

On a regeneratively cooled nozzle, the outside does not get particulary
warm. And on an ablative nozzle like on merlin, the interface between
injector plate and nozzle is usually some kind of flange. You would
just need a mechanism to open this flange, and some way to give the
nozzle a small kick.

If you are feeling adventurous, you might want to first open the
flange, and then set off a small "hard start" using residual
propellants to get the nozzle loose.

BTW, SpaceX just added a new pic to their updates on their website, a
nighttime picture of the Falcon I on Kwaj. two interesting
details--one, there's no flame trench. In fact, it looks like there's
not even a concrete pad below the rocket, except for in the direction
of the launcher base.

Yes, I noticed that on the environmental impact document. They just
have a tiny, pyramid-shaped blast deflector. Probably they use a flame
trench in vandenberg so that they can do long duration hold-down
firings (and of course because it was already there).

Two, SpaceX either painted this rocket white or it's got a significant
amount of frost on it from cryo loading.

I am sure it is the latter.