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Blue Origin Thread (merged)


Aethon

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11 hours ago, Skylon said:

Can anyone think of a good way to get a flat-earther on the first flight?

 

Waste of money. You could drag one of those fools to the Moon itself and rub their nose in the gunpowder-scented regloith and they would still reject it as an elaborate ruse. 

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25 minutes ago, Terwin said:

As the second stage gets into LEO, why would it not complete most of an orbit and land back at it's launch point with just a reentry burn?

Because of the rotation of the earth. Would only work for an equatorial orbit.

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Just now, CatastrophicFailure said:

Waste of money. You could drag one of those fools to the Moon itself and rub their nose in the gunpowder-scented regloith and they would still reject it as an elaborate ruse. 

'CGI in windows'- first flat-earther in space

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39 minutes ago, Terwin said:

As the second stage gets into LEO, why would it not complete most of an orbit and land back at it's launch point with just a reentry burn?

It seems that not needing a boost-back would greatly reduce the amount of fuel that needs to be reserved.

Presumably spending an extra hour or so in space should not be much of a hard-ship compared to reentry...

The second stage, or the core booster for Falcon Heavy?

The core booster for Falcon Heavy will have nowhere near enough velocity to AOA. But it will almost always land on a droneship, I think.

The second stage, on the other hand, would definitely not be doing a boostback.

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8 minutes ago, Kryten said:

Because of the rotation of the earth. Would only work for an equatorial orbit.

The ISS orbit repeats roughly every 3 days, would that be too long for the second stage before the reentry burn?

A skin-mounted solar panel or tiny fuel cell may well be needed for a 'land when it gets close again' approach, but that still seems less weight than any sort of burn-back.

 

Although I suppose buying some land near Macapa may be a more efficient option, assuming it is politically viable.

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43 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

The S2 could land wherever it can fly over a droneship, so it wouldn't need to loiter until its path went over the LZ. Land it right off the coast of LA if they want/can. 

Edit: ninja'd by @CatastrophicFailure

Thinking about this is giving me a headache, but doesn't a stage launched from Cape into an hour long orbit overfly places about 15 degrees west of Cape an hour later? Places like, umm, Boca Chica?

Edited by monophonic
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52 minutes ago, Terwin said:

The ISS orbit repeats roughly every 3 days, would that be too long for the second stage before the reentry burn?

A skin-mounted solar panel or tiny fuel cell may well be needed for a 'land when it gets close again' approach, but that still seems less weight than any sort of burn-back.

 

Although I suppose buying some land near Macapa may be a more efficient option, assuming it is politically viable.

IIRC, this kind of longer-duration on-orbit life for the second stage is exactly what they're working on ATM. 

What about landing once around back in Texas (McGregor or Brownsville)? Or have I got my rotation reversed?

The Space Shuttle could go around once and land at KSC, but it had 1000 miles of crossrange ability. How much of a plane change would be needed for that after 90 min?

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1 minute ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

IIRC, this kind of longer-duration on-orbit life for the second stage is exactly what they're working on ATM. 

What about landing once around back in Texas (McGregor or Brownsville)? Or have I got my rotation reversed?

The Space Shuttle could go around once and land at KSC, but it had 1000 miles of crossrange ability. How much of a plane change would be needed for that after 90 min?

If my headache is correct, very little for Boca Chica or Brownsville.

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1 hour ago, monophonic said:

If my headache is correct, very little for Boca Chica or Brownsville.

Those places would make a lot of sense. The major advantage to landing off the California coast, especially during the experimental phase, is that all the risky stuff takes place over water. Although I suppose they could find some nice unpopulated stretches in the American southwest. 

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22 hours ago, Terwin said:

As the second stage gets into LEO, why would it not complete most of an orbit and land back at it's launch point with just a reentry burn?

It seems that not needing a boost-back would greatly reduce the amount of fuel that needs to be reserved.

Presumably spending an extra hour or so in space should not be much of a hard-ship compared to reentry...

Who said it would do a boostback?  The assumption has always been to go one orbit and land at a convenient location.

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2 hours ago, DVDRW said:

So why 2 weeks delay?

next Inmarsat-5 F4 is again expendable. Wondering will they use already flown booster?

Not a chance. 2 weeks delay was because the NRO had a problem with the payload. Or not, but the SpaceX fanboys don't want to blame SpaceX, because then Elon wouldn't be perfect.

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22 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Haven't seen it mentioned yet, but according to This, the launch will be another RTLS. :cool:

They're gonna cut the live feed shortly after liftoff, because Secrets! and This, we do not speak of!, so the landing should be full screen in all its hoverslammy glory.

Given that they could just only broadcast images of the engines (Which is all they normally do anyway) (and that plenty of people in visual range of 10+ miles above Cape Canaveral will video it anyway), and that anyone who really wants to know where it's going could find out anyway - why cut the live feed?  It feels a lot like secrets for secrets sake.

Also, careful analysis of the trajectory it flies away on and then returns on would also tell where it has gone (since plane changing is so dV intensive, and it's not like it will go up somehow not via LEO), so....

Edited by 1101
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11 minutes ago, 1101 said:

Also, careful analysis of the trajectory it flies away on and then returns on would also tell where it has gone (since plane changing is so dV intensive, and it's not like it will go up somehow not via LEO), so....

Because We are the government and WeSaySo™.

And you're right,  based on the no-zone for boating traffic et al, it will be launching northeast, most likely into a molinya-style orbit to relay comms in realtime from low altitude spy sats. Or so the article says. 

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8 minutes ago, Ten Key said:

Am I the only one imagining what's going to happen if one of these people can't get back into their seat in time? 

Been wondering that myself, since it sounds like they're not gonna launch with a safety staff member onboard (which would be an AWESOME job!). Like @MaverickSawyer said, there'll probably be all sorts of warnings as well as very explicit ones during the day of training. And stacks of paperwork in lawyerese. 

But you just KNOW that sooner or later, sooner or later, there's gonna be that guy

pretty sure I met him today. Multiple times. SMH.

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