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6 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

*squints* Man, that thing looks like a regular rat’s nest up top. :o Wonder how much is just test instrumentation?

That was the first thing I thought when I saw that o_o very complicated looking!

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5 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Also, found this:

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-falcon-fairing-upgrade-foiled-by-ula/

Apparently SpaceX is possibly in the market for that larger fairing it’s always said is needed around here, but may have faced interference from ULA. I can’t help but see this backfiring for ULA, as SpaceX has already demonstrated they’re more than willing to say, “oh yeah?? Well we’ll make our own fairings, with blackjack and—“

Well, you get the idea. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if what we are seeing is the beginning of the end of ULA... when faced with your own demise, well I can’t blame them for not going quietly. I’d expect this stuff to only escalate as their relevance slips away in a changing industry. 

This is what the US is supposedly all about right? Economic Darwinism?

Unless you’re a bank... >_<

Great article by the way, seems like it would be a biased source but I believe it all lol.

 

Edited by Guest
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6 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Also, found this:

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-falcon-fairing-upgrade-foiled-by-ula/

Apparently SpaceX is possibly in the market for that larger fairing it’s always said is needed around here, but may have faced interference from ULA. I can’t help but see this backfiring for ULA, as SpaceX has already demonstrated they’re more than willing to say, “oh yeah?? Well we’ll make our own fairings, with blackjack and—“

Well, you get the idea. 

The relationship between suppliers and aerospace companies is quite complicated, and it is entirely possible that ULA does in fact own the IP that RUAG is using to build 5.4m fairings. This is one of the consequences of outsourcing -- sometimes companies develop manufacturing IP but don't want to do the manufacturing themselves, so they outsource the manufacturing and provide the IP for the use of the vendor. But they still own the IP, and the vendor can't simply use it to build things for other people.

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1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

The relationship between suppliers and aerospace companies is quite complicated, and it is entirely possible that ULA does in fact own the IP that RUAG is using to build 5.4m fairings. This is one of the consequences of outsourcing -- sometimes companies develop manufacturing IP but don't want to do the manufacturing themselves, so they outsource the manufacturing and provide the IP for the use of the vendor. But they still own the IP, and the vendor can't simply use it to build things for other people.

I don't think so, I believe Ariane 5 was flying before the 5m Atlas V was flying. I guess they could have bought it from Arianespace, but I doubt that because Ariane probably uses them more often.

Edited by .50calBMG
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12 minutes ago, .50calBMG said:

I don't think so, I believe Ariane 5 was flying before the 5m Atlas V was flying

Maybe they supplied their own IP too.

Anyway, if appears that the issue is not "5.4 meters" but rather "16.5 meters" (the length of the fairing rather than the diameter).

The Ariane fairing is also substantially different, in that it mates to a 5.4m rocket body.

Edited by mikegarrison
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46 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Tonight's forecast: scattered tweetstorms, otherwise cloudy with a chance of Elon...

 

 

Dangerously chuggy. 

Did some math and confirmed it to be 2*v*sin theta / 2

How heavy is the hopper again? Do they need to do suicide burn hoverslam?

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13 hours ago, Dale Christopher said:

This is what the US is supposedly all about right? Economic Darwinism?

Unless you’re a bank... >_<

Amateurs play economics.

Professionals grease paws.

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22 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

I would be most interested to see anything replaced on a running rocket engine. :blink:

One of the first Falcon 9 flights had an engine failure.  It was shut off and the rocket continued on the rest of the rockets.  The "SCE to AUX" of legend is a similar thing with electric power.

No idea how long a burn would have to be before replacing something in a running rocket would be viable.  But replacing something in an ion engine would unlikely to be as exciting as the thread implies (and the only thing I could imagine "burning" long enough to bother replacing hot).

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4 hours ago, wumpus said:

One of the first Falcon 9 flights had an engine failure.  It was shut off and the rocket continued on the rest of the rockets.  The "SCE to AUX" of legend is a similar thing with electric power.

No idea how long a burn would have to be before replacing something in a running rocket would be viable.  But replacing something in an ion engine would unlikely to be as exciting as the thread implies (and the only thing I could imagine "burning" long enough to bother replacing hot).

I'm imagining an astronaut hanging on the side of the rocket as the ion engine is running, and thinking "would an ion engine have enough gimbal to offset the CoM shift? Would it matter?"

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Wasn't Dawn's engine offset or at an odd angle? I think I remember seeing an official NASA animation with the engine having some sort of hydraulic structure (presumably for adjustment) around it?

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15 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

 

GTO is not that far from TLI in terms of dV, right? It means that a Starship can probably send a fully fueled Orion (~25t) to the Moon, maybe even with some comanifested cargo. Just saying...

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26 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

GTO is not that far from TLI in terms of dV, right? It means that a Starship can probably send a fully fueled Orion (~25t) to the Moon, maybe even with some comanifested cargo. Just saying...

Not to mention it’s refuelable in LEO. It could put a 8-9m diameter payload anywhere in the solar system >_<.

pretty exciting!

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