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Skylon

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8 hours ago, AVaughan said:

TBH, I'm more concerned with the landing on Earth.  If something goes wrong with the transition from re-entry to vertical landing, then it's potentially going to be fatal for any crew members.  Ejection might be feasibly, for some of the flight envelope,  but making the control/crew cabin detachable, with integrated launch abort thrusters and parachutes for landing can get you both launch escape functionality, and similar landing escape functionality.  (Again only intended for use on Earth, I agree that it isn't going to help at Mars, and I'm not talking about a capsule big enough for 100 people, just 12 or so crew, and only on the first few manned BFRs).  

BFR has a huge payload capacity to and from Mars.  Using afew of tons of that payload capacity for a detachable crew capsule, in the case of a problem during earth ascent/landing might be worthwhile.   One thing we learnt (or at least should have learnt) from Columbia and Challenger, is that vehicle and mission designers should consider the possibility of an unanticipated and potentially catastrophic failure, and as much as is feasible design the vehicle/mission so that the crew still has the best chance of survival as is feasible.   (Yeah, you could transfer crew in LEO after the ascent.  If you get things right, aero-capturing into Earth orbit and transfering crew in Earth orbit might also be possible at mission end, but if you anything goes wrong during that aero-capture, then what's the plan B ?).  

 

Great idea, the ejection seats are good. For the failed aerocapture, i suggest a bunch of engine burns. Should be sufficient to place the bfr in an orbit around earth. Then we can refuel the ship and land.

Actually, the space shuttle did not have a detachable capsule was due to someone worrying that it might fire accidentally in space. Dude.

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27 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

For the failed aerocapture, i suggest a bunch of engine burns. Should be sufficient to place the bfr in an orbit around earth

When performing aerocapture, BFS doesn’t have the fuel to do any burns other than landing, couple hundred m/s dv max.

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1 hour ago, sh1pman said:

When performing aerocapture, BFS doesn’t have the fuel to do any burns other than landing, couple hundred m/s dv max.

assuming the aerocapture failed... bfr is drifting off into space. Some of the KE is lost through aerocapture, and perhaps a lunar gravity assist could help.

But if bfr is not drifting out into space, it must be in a orbit or preparing to land somewhere.

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Assuming aerocapture fails, either enough speed has been braked to establish an atmosphere intercepting orbit in which case you'll get a second attempt (although the trajectory may be very harsh on a second attempt or have too long a period), or you're still on an escape course flying off into interplanetary space again.

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42 minutes ago, tater said:

Is a goal of Block 5 that any can be used as FH side boosters?

That was already a thing with Block 4 I thought? That would be cool if they could just slap the nose on down at the launch site. If it’s that simple, I wonder if they’re still considering flying boosters back from the drone ship?

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2 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

That was already a thing with Block 4 I thought? That would be cool if they could just slap the nose on down at the launch site. If it’s that simple, I wonder if they’re still considering flying boosters back from the drone ship?

Yes, reusing boosters is always a goal, no matter for falcon 9 or FH.

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21 hours ago, sh1pman said:

Are there any numbers for all-block-5 FH lift capability? The ones on their site haven’t changed since block 4 demo flight, so I assume they’re now outdated.

I'm pretty sure they are accurate.  SpaceX wasnt ever advertising a block 4 falcon heavy, the demo was a weird mix of 3 and 4 anyway.

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So we have a launch Saturday night at the Cape, and that's it for September.

Oct there is:

Oct. 7
Falcon 9 • SAOCOM 1A
Launch time: TBD
Launch site: SLC-4E, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California
 
October ?
Falcon 9 • Iridium Next 66-75
Launch time: TBD
Launch site: SLC-4E, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California
 
"4th Quarter" there is:
 
4th Quarter
Falcon 9 • Es’hail 2
Launch window: TBD
Launch site: Cape Canaveral, Florida
 
November:
 
November ?
Falcon 9 • Spaceflight SSO-A
Launch time: TBD
Launch site: SLC-4E, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California
 
November ?
Falcon 9 • Crew Dragon Demo 1
Launch window: TBD
Launch site: LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
 
Nov. 29
Falcon 9 • SpaceX CRS 16
Launch window: TBD
Launch site: Cape Canaveral, Florida
 
Quote

 

NET Nov. 30
Falcon Heavy • STP-2
Launch window: TBD
Launch site: LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida

 

^^^ NSF has this as NET March 2019. The above is from Spaceflightnow

 
November ?
Falcon 9 • Radarsat Constellation Mission
Launch time: TBD
Launch site: SLC-4E, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California
 
December:
 
December ?
Falcon 9 • GPS 3-01
Launch window: TBD
Launch site: Cape Canaveral, Florida
 
Quote

 

Late 2018 (?)
Falcon Heavy • Arabsat 6A
Launch window: TBD
Launch site: LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida

 

^^^NSF has this as Q1 2019.

 

:o

Edited by tater
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