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Skylon

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oh elon that guy and all his "boilring" mate(s) , guy we need a grren ray dinner with and a bear not a beer with ndt .... biped sometimes ....

Edited by WinkAllKerb''
i don't like walker but i like ant's and hant's & hont's
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2 hours ago, tater said:

Regarding satellites, the plan is a constellation of thousands of small sats as I recall (his own company).

They have  substantial backlog of launches as it is, and the current cadence certainly helps them clear it. Raptor on Falcon is an interesting idea that I had frankly dismissed, but given what Shotwell said the other day I am more open to it being a thing.

Seems to me that any such vehicle might be a sort of mini-BFS as a proof of concept, where F9 is the BFR booster. 

I have it on fairly good authority that SpaceX will never consider plumbing a pad for both methalox and kerolox, but I don't see why they wouldn't. A Raptor upper stage on a F9 or FH booster would be badass.

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3 hours ago, tater said:

Seems to me that any such vehicle might be a sort of mini-BFS as a proof of concept, where F9 is the BFR booster. 

That's what I was thinking too, keep testing the engines, before moving to falcon, and ultimately, the BFR, it would also be a pretty stunt, showing that it works, and works well.

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27 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Just got to thinking... if the next launch goes off as planned, they'll be taking over a month off before the first August launch.  Not quite the 40 days I've heard they'll need, but... making some upgrades for FH, maybe?

CRS-12 is set for August 10 as I see it now, though that has slipped from NET 1 Aug.

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4 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

Yep.

  Reveal hidden contents

AIRBUS DEFENCE AND SPACE    VANDENBERG    FALCON 9
ARABSAT (ARABSAT 6A)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    FALCON HEAVY
BANGABANDHU-1    CAPE CANAVERAL    FALCON 9
BIGELOW AEROSPACE    CAPE CANAVERAL    FALCON 9
CONAE (ARGENTINA)    VANDENBERG    FALCON 9
CONAE (ARGENTINA)    VANDENBERG    FALCON 9
ES'HAILSAT    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    FALCON 9
FALCON HEAVY DEMO    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    FALCON HEAVY
GLOBAL IP    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    FALCON 9
GOVSAT-1    CAPE CANAVERAL    FALCON 9
HISDESAT    VANDENBERG    FALCON 9
HISPASAT    CAPE CANAVERAL    FALCON 9
INMARSAT    CAPE CANAVERAL    FALCON HEAVY
IRIDIUM (FLIGHT 3)    VANDENBERG    FALCON 9
IRIDIUM (FLIGHT 4)    VANDENBERG    FALCON 9
IRIDIUM (FLIGHT 5)    VANDENBERG    FALCON 9
IRIDIUM (FLIGHT 6)    VANDENBERG    FALCON 9
IRIDIUM (FLIGHT 7)    VANDENBERG    FALCON 9
IRIDIUM (FLIGHT 8)    VANDENBERG    FALCON 9
KOREASAT    CAPE CANAVERAL    FALCON 9
NASA (SWOT)    VANDENBERG    FALCON 9
NASA (TESS)    CAPE CANAVERAL    FALCON 9
NASA CREW (DEMO 1)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NASA CREW (DEMO 2)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NASA CREW (FLIGHT 1)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NASA CREW (FLIGHT 2)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NASA RESUPPLY TO ISS (FLIGHT 11)    CAPE CANAVERAL    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NASA RESUPPLY TO ISS (FLIGHT 12)    CAPE CANAVERAL    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NASA RESUPPLY TO ISS (FLIGHT 13)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NASA RESUPPLY TO ISS (FLIGHT 14)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NASA RESUPPLY TO ISS (FLIGHT 15)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NASA RESUPPLY TO ISS (FLIGHT 16)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NASA RESUPPLY TO ISS (FLIGHT 17)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NASA RESUPPLY TO ISS (FLIGHT 18)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NASA RESUPPLY TO ISS (FLIGHT 19)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NASA RESUPPLY TO ISS (FLIGHT 20)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NASA RESUPPLY TO ISS (FLIGHT 21)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NASA RESUPPLY TO ISS (FLIGHT 22)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NASA RESUPPLY TO ISS (FLIGHT 23)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NASA RESUPPLY TO ISS (FLIGHT 24)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NASA RESUPPLY TO ISS (FLIGHT 25)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NASA RESUPPLY TO ISS (FLIGHT 26)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    DRAGON & FALCON 9
NORTHROP GRUMMAN    CAPE CANAVERAL    FALCON 9
NSPO (TAIWAN)    VANDENBERG    FALCON 9
OHB SYSTEM AG    VANDENBERG    FALCON 9
RADARSAT    VANDENBERG    FALCON 9
SES (SES-11)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    FALCON 9
SES (SES-14)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    FALCON 9
SPACEFLIGHT SERVICES    VANDENBERG    FALCON 9
TELESAT (TELSTAR 18V)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    FALCON 9
TELESAT (TELSTAR 19V)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    FALCON 9
U.S. AIR FORCE (GPS III-2)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    FALCON 9
U.S. AIR FORCE (STP-2)    FLORIDA LAUNCH SITE    FALCON HEAVY
VIASAT    CAPE CANAVERAL    FALCON HEAVY

 

Dayum, that's a backlog and a half. I knew they had plenty of work queued up but I didn't know they had that much. A lot of ISS resupply too - what happened to Orbital?

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12 minutes ago, KSK said:

Dayum, that's a backlog and a half. I knew they had plenty of work queued up but I didn't know they had that much. A lot of ISS resupply too - what happened to Orbital?

The CRS missions are interspersed, so those are spaced into the future. 

CRS-12 is now mid August, then OATK in mid sept, then Progress very close after that in Sept, then CRS-13 in Nov, and the Japanese in Feb along with Progress, then back to SX CRS-14, etc.

If you look at ISS resupplies it's a good reality check for anyone saying that Mars is not hard. 6 people require on the order of 8 resupply flights a year, plus whatever also comes up in the crew ship. On top of that, the majority of astronaut work hours are spent keeping station running. I have read that increasing the number of astronauts to 7 would double the science done (hence 1 astronaut FTE right now is science, the other 5 are maintenance). I roughly added it up for 2016, and it's about 4 tonnes per astronaut per year of cargo.

Edited by tater
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Just now, CatastrophicFailure said:

Right, and Intelsat is July 2, so that's like.... 38 days between? Big gap given the recent cadence. 

Wow, complete brain fart on my part. I was thinking it was already July, lol.

 

 

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30 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Looking to be listing just slightly...

Roughly 1,2° by my calculation, in the plane normal to the camera direction. It could be more towards or away from the camera, but the picture doesn't provide enough info on that.

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4 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

I have it on fairly good authority that SpaceX will never consider plumbing a pad for both methalox and kerolox, but I don't see why they wouldn't. A Raptor upper stage on a F9 or FH booster would be badass.

If I was designing the Raptor, one thing I'd strongly consider is having it boosted by Falcon Heavy side boosters (possibly more than two).  Possibly without a proper lower stage at all.  The upper stage might light on the pad,assuming you didn't want to risk upper atmosphere ignition, or might not (it wouldn't produce significant thrust till much later, but still possibly worth it).

There has to be a wide range of tonnage between FH full re-use and standard Raptor, and you would think it would make sense to cover most of it.  Then again, most of the "really massive stuff to LEO" plans are for Mars transport.  Although I suppose eventually customers will exist wanting massive satellites in LEO.  Or simply want even bigger things to GSO than Falcon Heavy can supply.

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40 minutes ago, wumpus said:

If I was designing the Raptor, one thing I'd strongly consider is having it boosted by Falcon Heavy side boosters (possibly more than two).  Possibly without a proper lower stage at all.  The upper stage might light on the pad,assuming you didn't want to risk upper atmosphere ignition, or might not (it wouldn't produce significant thrust till much later, but still possibly worth it).

There has to be a wide range of tonnage between FH full re-use and standard Raptor, and you would think it would make sense to cover most of it.  Then again, most of the "really massive stuff to LEO" plans are for Mars transport.  Although I suppose eventually customers will exist wanting massive satellites in LEO.  Or simply want even bigger things to GSO than Falcon Heavy can supply.

My personal fantasy would be a parallel-staged two-Raptor-Vac SHLV with 2-4 Falcon Heavy side boosters, with methalox gas thrusters for landing. It could lift an extra-large crew capsule, cargo, or an aux refueling tank, depending on its mission. Think mini-ITS with the nose cut off.

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On 28.6.2017 at 11:38 AM, TheEpicSquared said:

http://spacenews.com/spacexs-final-falcon-9-design-coming-this-year-two-falcon-heavy-launches-next-year/

So a methalox Falcon series could possibly maybe be a thing? Interesting.

They need an smaller rocket than ITS who is overkill for most launches.
However you can not simply swap engines, you would need an larger rocket as methane is less dense for one, raptor would be overkill for upper stage however, it would also make sense to design it for upper stage recovery on standard payloads. 

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