BO posted a Notam for today/tomorrow

[EladDv]

6 minutes ago, Frozen_Heart said:

The min thrust of a single Merlin engine is greater than the weight of an almost empty Falcon 9 first stage. On the way down they can't hover to readjust at all.

of an empty one no, but falcons don't land without fuel, at the last stages they probably have enough mass so the merlin has low enough throttle to hover, it'd take about 1/20 of the launch fuel mass to be enough for the merlin to be able to go low enough to make it hover, and taking into account that musk said that the ratio of left over fuel was 1/7 of the launch fuel mass i'd say they can hover for at least a significant portion of the landing if they want to

[Exoscientist]

12 minutes ago, EladDv said:

of an empty one no, but falcons don't land without fuel, at the last stages they probably have enough mass so the merlin has low enough throttle to hover, it'd take about 1/20 of the launch fuel mass to be enough for the merlin to be able to go low enough to make it hover, and taking into account that musk said that the ratio of left over fuel was 1/7 of the launch fuel mass i'd say they can hover for at least a significant portion of the landing if they want to

 I hadn't hear that about the left over fuel. Do you have a source? Considering that the fuel load of the upgraded F9 is ca. 400 metric tons that would be about 60 metric tons "left over". That must mean the total fuel that must be kept on reserved for the RTLS, not the amount remaining after landing.

 

   Bob Clark

[Exoscientist]

 Got some real SpaceX fans here, as am I. Getting back a booster that sent a payload to orbit is a more significant accomplishment than just doing it for one that sent a payload to suborbital space. But still getting back the booster is a significant accomplishment even for the suborbital case.

 Likewise relaunching a booster that sent a payload to orbit is a more significant accomplishment than doing it for one that just sent a payload to suborbital space. But still doing it for the suborbital case is a significant accomplishment.

 Trumpeting SpaceX's successes doesn't mean you can't trumpet other space companies successes. We need more companies involved in commercial space, certainly not just one.

 

   Bob Clark

[EladDv]

16 minutes ago, Exoscientist said:

 I hadn't hear that about the left over fuel. Do you have a source? Considering that the fuel load of the upgraded F9 is ca. 400 metric tons that would be about 60 metric tons "left over". That must mean the total fuel that must be kept on reserved for the RTLS, not the amount remaining after landing.

 

   Bob Clark

i dont have a source for that, i saw that on the forum, but take into account that the landing reduces payload capacity by 20-40% and you can see figures around the 1/7-1/10 of the fuel left for the landing. right now it's just estimations nothing concrete but a falcon sure dosnt land empty and seeing how the rocket landed on the barge last time you can see the engine firing and the rocket not going upwards for about a second or so (engine response times are much smaller) from that you can deduce that the merlin is capable of making an almost landed falcon hover for at least a few seconds.

7 minutes ago, Exoscientist said:

 Got some real SpaceX fans here, as am I. Getting back a booster that sent a payload to orbit is a more significant accomplishment than just doing it for one that sent a payload to suborbital space. But still getting back the booster is a significant accomplishment even for the suborbital case.

 Likewise relaunching a booster that sent a payload to orbit is a more significant accomplishment than doing it for one that just sent a payload to suborbital space. But still doing it for the suborbital case is a significant accomplishment.

 Trumpeting SpaceX's successes doesn't mean you can't trumpet other space companies successes. We need more companies involved in commercial space, certainly not just one.

 

   Bob Clark

i agree but when people say stuff like "BO beat SpaceX" i correct them, and when they say stuff like  "the falcon 9 cant hover" i try to find whether it can and bring that to their knowledge, i am all for BO to succeed in the space business but comparing new shepherd to the falcon family is like comparing an apple to the moon and we are not newton my friend.

Edited January 23, 2016 by EladDv

[Exoscientist]

2 hours ago, Streetwind said:

This flight is awesome news. It means Blue Origin is on track for perhaps even starting to service customers later this year (though they would be customers for unmanned science payloads, AKA oversized sounding rocket / parabolic flight stuff).

I can't wait until we finally get a space tourism company flying people, too... Blue Origin might yet beat both Virgin Galactic and XCOR to the punch. And the sooner someone starts, the sooner it becomes normal, and the sooner the price drops... which will eventually bring it within my reach. 'Cause I wanna go and fly

 

 Yes. Blue Origin had the advantage over XCOR that its backer had deeper pockets.

 My opinion about Virgin Galactic is that the reason they are taking so long is that they were hampered by deciding to go with hybrids. If they had chosen liquids from the start they would already be flying customers by now.

 

  Bob Clark

[mikegarrison]

54 minutes ago, EladDv said:

when people say stuff like "BO beat SpaceX" i correct them

Yes, a lot of SpaceX fans feel the same way. And yet ... BO *did* land a rocket from space before SpaceX did, and now they *did* relaunch that same rocket back to space and land it again, two things SpaceX has not yet done even though they have talked about doing it for years. So it's certainly a defendable position to argue that "BO beat SpaceX ... again".

IMO, while the SpaceX fans keep whining on about how the Falcon is the first stage of an orbital launcher, what's more significant is that the New Shepard is a flight test prototype and the Falcons are in commercial service. If something had gone wrong with the relaunch of New Shepard, then oh well, that's why they do testing. But if something goes wrong with a Falcon launch, they lose somebody's very valuable payload too. It's TRL-7 vs. TRL-9.

[tater]

Bezos talked about this being their smallest rocket, and soon they'd introduce their smallest orbital rocket... I have a feeling the first time we see it fly will be after the fact.

I wish they had a better graphic designer, I find their branding/logo to be pretty ugly, frankly, and I get the feeling we'll be seeing more and more of it as the years pass.

Interesting times.

[Kryten]

11 minutes ago, tater said:

Bezos talked about this being their smallest rocket, and soon they'd introduce their smallest orbital rocket... I have a feeling the first time we see it fly will be after the fact.

It's flying out of LC-36 at the cape. They might be able to stay hush-hush when they're on a private site in the middle of nowhere in west Texas, but it's not an option when they're on a public range.

[tater]

True. Is there a date set? 

I have to wonder if they might test the first stage in TX, though. Fly a New Shepard flight profile, only with an orbital-sized booster.

It's nice to see launch videos that look like they could be taken out my living room window (course the mountains behind me have snow on them ).

[Kryten]

2 minutes ago, tater said:

True. Is there a date set? 

'By 2020'. We're supposed to get a lot more detail sometime this year.

[tater]

That would explain why it's not on the launch schedule for this year

I could see them doing internal, suborbital testing though. VTVL has always been interesting to me, since I was a kid.

Boeing concept from the 70s:

http://www.pmview.com/spaceodysseytwo/spacelvs/sld043.htm

^^ 228t to LEO.

[Frybert]

Psf, I've been launching, landing and reusing rockets since the 80's. B-O-R-I-N-G.

[tater]

Back in the 70s/80s when I was doing that, many ended up in the trees of CT (perhaps that's why Goddard left New England to come here to NM, lol).

[problemecium]

I'm all for the spirit of one-upsmanship, but yeah - Blue Origin did go "to Space" but not into orbit. Most Kerballers know that a vertical suborbital hop is significantly easier than an orbital insertion and recovery.

[fredinno]

6 hours ago, tater said:

True. Is there a date set? 

I have to wonder if they might test the first stage in TX, though. Fly a New Shepard flight profile, only with an orbital-sized booster.

It's nice to see launch videos that look like they could be taken out my living room window (course the mountains behind me have snow on them ).

I honestly don't get Bezo's decision to go into orbital rockets. That market is becoming crowded, and the situation is getting to push and shove due to SpaceX screwing up "the old order". They would have more success with engines, tanks, components, and orbital tourism.

[Kryten]

He's not trying to enter the current marketplace, he's trying for new markets like space tourism and propellant delivery.

[fredinno]

2 minutes ago, Kryten said:

He's not trying to enter the current marketplace, he's trying for new markets like space tourism and propellant delivery.

If those take off, SpaceX, Russia, and even ULA have a major leg up on that. Soyuz, Dragon, and CST-100 all can do orbital tourism, Cygnus, Progress, etc can resupply orbital stations, and ULA has done A LOT of research on Propellant refueling. If people want their sats to be refuelled, and/or reusable space tugs, ULA honestly has a good chance to get that contract.

 

And that depends on if those markets emerge. Only satellite refueling seems to be getting interest, and that won't supply very many launches, due to the fact that GEO comsats are not mostly fuel. Sometimes it is better to replace.

[Kryten]

Russia and ULA do not have a leg up if reusability proves economic, Blue has done far more work in it than any of them have. The Russians can barely afford to keep existing programmes right now, anyway.

Edited January 23, 2016 by Kryten

[fredinno]

15 minutes ago, Kryten said:

Russia and ULA do not have a leg up if reusability proves economic, Blue has done far more work in it than any of them have. The Russians can barely afford to keep existing programmes right now, anyway.

ULA pursues reuse via engine jettison.

Also, it depends on whether the multiple modifications for reuse (F9 1.0, 1.1, 1.1 FT) and extra complexity is worth it in the near- to medium term. The thing is, if it was that great, don't you think other companies in this launching industry would take reuse more seriously? They're not stupid, and do their own studies to make sure it is worth it from a cost/benfit perspective. I might be wrong, but basing your launcher on a business that may or may not appear is what led to the massive failure that is the Delta IV.

[Rune]

35 minutes ago, fredinno said:

I honestly don't get Bezo's decision to go into orbital rockets. That market is becoming crowded, and the situation is getting to push and shove due to SpaceX screwing up "the old order". They would have more success with engines, tanks, components, and orbital tourism.

Well, there is not much of a suborbital market either. In fact, rather much less of a market right now (as in, none). The way I look at New Shepard is that of a technology demonstration vehicle: it develops all technologies to build a reusable rocket, but scaled back so that you can build it with a lean crew in a prototype fashion. The DC-X comments are smack on, because the development is surprisingly similar (even is the intended end result is not). The suborbital tourism market, at best, will be a way to pay for tech development, for a good while at least IMO.

The way I see it, BO played the same game with a different strategy. SpaceX built the business, then added reusability on top, meaning F9 might never make it as a good reusable launcher, but they have the pockets, and the production capability, to finance a new iteration of the idea designed form the ground up if need be. After all, they do their tests with articles straight from one of the busiest rocket production lines in existence. BO, OTOH, played it safe developing tech with a small hand-crafted prototype, and now can go to full scale with plenty of confidence in their design and a lot of lessons learned in a cheap way (and a decent upper stage engine). Time will tell which strategy works best, but my gut tells me grabbing the customers first is mighty important.

 

Rune. BO has a lot of production scaling still to do.

[Robotengineer]

Video embed. 

"Our vision: millions of people living and working in space." — From the video description. When did BO stop being a sub-orbital tourist company and start trying to be SpaceX? Is this the start of a space race between Bezos and Musk?

[tater]

It's been a space race for a while now...

[fredinno]

2 hours ago, Rune said:

Well, there is not much of a suborbital market either. In fact, rather much less of a market right now (as in, none). The way I look at New Shepard is that of a technology demonstration vehicle: it develops all technologies to build a reusable rocket, but scaled back so that you can build it with a lean crew in a prototype fashion. The DC-X comments are smack on, because the development is surprisingly similar (even is the intended end result is not). The suborbital tourism market, at best, will be a way to pay for tech development, for a good while at least IMO.

The way I see it, BO played the same game with a different strategy. SpaceX built the business, then added reusability on top, meaning F9 might never make it as a good reusable launcher, but they have the pockets, and the production capability, to finance a new iteration of the idea designed form the ground up if need be. After all, they do their tests with articles straight from one of the busiest rocket production lines in existence. BO, OTOH, played it safe developing tech with a small hand-crafted prototype, and now can go to full scale with plenty of confidence in their design and a lot of lessons learned in a cheap way (and a decent upper stage engine). Time will tell which strategy works best, but my gut tells me grabbing the customers first is mighty important.

 

Rune. BO has a lot of production scaling still to do.

Virgin Galactic has a lot of people willing to get on their spacecraft for suborbital tourism, many of whom have bought tickets. Also, there are sounding rockets used for suborbital cargo- something that has existed since the space race began.

The difference with orbital space is that the market is already flooded with suppliers- all of whom are competing with each other. The amount of commercial space market has not exactly increased that much- even the smallsats/cubesats that are growing the fastest (which are not the ones Blue is looking to compete on) face competition from Vega, Minotaur-C, SPARK, Soyuz 2-1v, and new commercial launchers like Firefly Alpha and Electron. Blue Origin can't really bank on a market for that stuff suddenly emerging- the same goes for OrbitalATK, which is now trying to also enter the EELV market with a solid fueled rocket. Nobody has yet come up with a market for orbital space tourism- the cost is prohibitive for the rich to get.

 

Orbital repair, orbital space tugs, refueling, etc are all great things that advance the space economy, but will not really increase the launch rate. Every satellite that does not have to be replaced due to repairs is one less satellite launch.

[Shpaget]

The only complain about BO I have is their unwillingness to live stream or even announce their upcoming missions. I could, and probably am wrong, but somehow I get the feeling it is so so they can decide to not publish the fact they attempted a launch/landing/whatever, just in case something blows up.

I like transparency.

That being said, well done BO!

Edited January 24, 2016 by Shpaget

[tater]

I'd like to know ahead because I could actually drive down there, lol.