Blue Origin Thread (merged)

[max_creative]

At least the pieces were bigger this time! Only 4 pieces! (Booster, second stage, dragon, and nosecone.)

WHOO SPACEX!!! I know Elon Musk plays ksp, but does he check the forums? I'm sure he would like the thread. 

And BTW, immediately after the landing you guys literally went through 5 pages in 10 min. That's a lot of posts.

[YumonStudios]

4 hours ago, max_creative said:

Yeah. And now that you guys are talking about reusability and the "OMG YES!!!" Has died down, I found this by @MoonMan22. His channel name is Xander.

 

Cool. Why didn't he just press the recover button tho?

4 hours ago, Waxing_Kibbous said:

10% discount when launching with used parts

Elon says 30% cost reduction. I would say 10%-20%, Elon is usually very optimistic.

[YumonStudios]

Seriously, though, is the fairing reuse worth it? I mean, those things are generally very cheap (a few million). The RCS, shielding and helicopter maintenance would probably be more expensive.

[CatastrophicFailure]

38 minutes ago, YumonStudios said:

Seriously, though, is the fairing reuse worth it? I mean, those things are generally very cheap (a few million). The RCS, shielding and helicopter maintenance would probably be more expensive.

There's a certain "might as well"-ness to the whole fairing recovery thing, since they already do survive re-entry and even splashdown for the most part. No shielding necessary, just a simple, lightweight cold gas RCS tank, maybe off-the-shelf parachute.

 

Also, I finally got home & got a chance to check out all the footage on a decent screen. Well done, SpaceX, well done.

Now hurry up & make it boring. 

[max_creative]

45 minutes ago, YumonStudios said:

Cool. Why didn't he just press the recover button tho?

Because he was trying to make it reusable. Then he just has to move it, put a new payload on, refuel it, and launch again. 

Also I agree. Reusing he fairing isn't worth it.

[YumonStudios]

40 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

There's a certain "might as well"-ness to the whole fairing recovery thing, since they already do survive re-entry and even splashdown for the most part. No shielding necessary, just a simple, lightweight cold gas RCS tank, maybe off-the-shelf parachute.

 

Also, I finally got home & got a chance to check out all the footage on a decent screen. Well done, SpaceX, well done.

Now hurry up & make it boring. 

Even an RCS and parafoil is likely more expensive than just expending them. And you need to maintain and operate a helicopter or two too.

Also, I would be surprised if you didn't need at least some shielding, those things separate pretty darn high, and if you want to get them without being burnt to a crisp on the outside...

[CatastrophicFailure]

13 minutes ago, YumonStudios said:

Even an RCS and parafoil is likely more expensive than just expending them. And you need to maintain and operate a helicopter or two too.

Also, I would be surprised if you didn't need at least some shielding, those things separate pretty darn high, and if you want to get them without being burnt to a crisp on the outside...

They're also extremely lightweight, with a huge mass-to-surface-area ratio, so once they hit air they decelerate very quickly, on the order of dozens of G's, I would assume, before they get a chance to heat up. They cost well over a million each, I think... recovery systems probably on the order of a few thousand, maybe tens of thousands for "rocket rated" stuff. But much of the advantage might simply be in speeding the turnaround between launches. Reusing a fairing is likely quicker than making a new one.

For reference, here's a recovered one. Damage came from water impact. Note the lack of scorch marks on the paint (They're carbon fiber so are naturally black).

[Motokid600]

21 minutes ago, YumonStudios said:

Even an RCS and parafoil is likely more expensive than just expending them. And you need to maintain and operate a helicopter or two too.

Also, I would be surprised if you didn't need at least some shielding, those things separate pretty darn high, and if you want to get them without being burnt to a crisp on the outside...

Iirc Elon Musk said the fairing costs is in the tens of millions. And no, no shielding. They have such large surface area and low mass that they fall like feathers.

Edited April 9, 2016 by Motokid600

[Dfthu]

So what about JCSAT 14 on April 28? Is that going to be a barge or land landing? I hope they reuse this one and make it actually work, that would be even cooler then the landing.

[Jovus]

47 minutes ago, Dfthu said:

So what about JCSAT 14 on April 28? Is that going to be a barge or land landing? I hope they reuse this one and make it actually work, that would be even cooler then the landing.

And then land it again.

[KSK]

Lots of good information coming out at the press conference although I think most of it has been repeated on this thread. I did like Elon's answer to the last question though - I think he's right on both counts.

 

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

They're also extremely lightweight, with a huge mass-to-surface-area ratio, so once they hit air they decelerate very quickly, on the order of dozens of G's, I would assume, before they get a chance to heat up. They cost well over a million each, I think... recovery systems probably on the order of a few thousand, maybe tens of thousands for "rocket rated" stuff. But much of the advantage might simply be in speeding the turnaround between launches. Reusing a fairing is likely quicker than making a new one.

For reference, here's a recovered one. Damage came from water impact. Note the lack of scorch marks on the paint (They're carbon fiber so are naturally black).

Not sure how much they actual need outside of parachute, with parachute they should survive the splashdown too.

 

[lextacy]

If you look closely at the 4K heli footage you can see that the 1st stage barley landed..........it actually bounced and did a strafe of about 8-10 inches and landed again. THANK GOD !!! 

 

 

hi, im an astrophysicists from the Haden Planetarium at the National Museum of History. This is Star Talk

Edited April 9, 2016 by lextacy

[Cuky]

10 hours ago, Kobymaru said:

So it seems that this time, the weather was really good so they could follow the rocket with the ground camera way up high.

Before the stage separation, they switched the cameras to the internal view about here, but  I was wondering if there is the footage of the stage separation from the outside? Or maybe even the boostback burn or something?

It can be seen in NASA coverage, you can even see 1st stage maneuvering behind. From 3:10 to 3:30 in this video you can see stage separation and exhaust from RCS system on 1st stage, later you can see 1st stage coasting while 2nd stage is getting further and further away

 

[sgt_flyer]

@YumonStudios

Fairings are extremely hightech and expensive - Bruno Tory, ULA's CEO, when he was on the phone with Dasvaldez during one of his streams, explained that fairings need to be able to absorb the vibration from air friction on top of the rest (lightweight, heat resistant and solid) without something to absorb the vibrations in the nosecone, Mr Tory said that the sound resulting from those vibrations would be enough to kill a man !

for a start about the price, here's an article about a fairing order from Arianespace (Ruag makes fairings for Ariane 5 and Delta-IV) - they ordered 18 fairings for 112 millions - ending up with 6.2 million per fairing  

http://spacenews.com/41132ruag-books-order-for-18-ariane-5-fairings/

even if spaceX fairings cost less than ariane's, it's still a meaningful part of the price of launch vehicle  

Edited April 9, 2016 by sgt_flyer

[PB666]

11 hours ago, max_creative said:

Yeah. And now that you guys are talking about reusability and the "OMG YES!!!" Has died down, I found this by @MoonMan22. His channel name is Xander.

 

So who exactly is going to build a, what's the name? "we still love you", landing barge for the game?

its "Of course, I still love you", there should be some kind of rule about naming boats.
 

Edited April 9, 2016 by PB666

[YNM]

Great job there, SpaceX ! Guess at last they can reuse all the lower stage they use no matter where, when or what...

They certainly put more than enough love for those boosters right ? I mean, "of course I still love you" and it behaves well ?

[PB666]

30 minutes ago, YNM said:

Great job there, SpaceX ! Guess at last they can reuse all the lower stage they use no matter where, when or what...

They certainly put more than enough love for those boosters right ? I mean, "of course I still love you" and it behaves well ?

http://imgur.com/mc2GOIK

 

[Dafni]

[tater]

It was interesting to watch the onboard camera view, then go back and watch the chase plane view. It slides after it lands, slightly.

Look at the nasa video around 5:50 at the presumably 1st stage mission control. They have the camera on the drone ship on the big screen, but you can see the "paddles" deployed on stage 1 as well (after boost back).

Edited April 9, 2016 by tater

[KerbonautInTraining]

This isn't from yesterday's flight but have you guys seen this?

 

[sevenperforce]

12 hours ago, YumonStudios said:

Next up: Kerbal landing rockets phase 2: HIGH SPEED BARGE LANDINGS

Phase 3: Fairing reuse.

Phase 4: 2nd stage engine reuse.

Phase 5?: 2nd stage reuse.

Go SpaceX!

I don't think they have any plans for developing second-stage reuse...at least, not for the Merlin engine class. I foresee them testing the Raptor engine as a BLEO Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy upper stage, but it's anybody's guess whether they'll explore direct reuse on that stage. 

12 hours ago, YumonStudios said:

Red Dragon was already killed on arrival, no one wanted it, not even SpaceX.

Red Dragon was replaced with Dragon V2. The V2 platform is supposed to be customizable enough to serve as a lander for basically any destination in the solar system. 

[sevenperforce]

10 hours ago, Dfthu said:

So what about JCSAT 14 on April 28? Is that going to be a barge or land landing? I hope they reuse this one and make it actually work, that would be even cooler then the landing.

It will be a high-speed, low-margin barge landing attempt coming out of a GTO trajectory. And it will use a new booster; this one isn't slated for reuse until May at the earliest...June more likely. 

SES has expressed interest in purchasing the first launch on a reused booster. But SpaceX would probably want to use it on a lower-velocity mission so they can RTLS. First-attempt repeat reuse will be quite nice.

Elon seemed pretty blunt about the recert process: wash it off, do ten test fires to make sure aerodynamic stresses didn't damage anything, then refuel and refly. All from the launch site. Not much more than what Blue Origin did. 

[Damien_The_Unbeliever]

16 hours ago, Mitchz95 said:

At this point I think this thread really needs to be pinned.

Why? Do you think it's struggling to stay at the top of the forum without pinning? IMO, Pinning should be used to highlight threads that might otherwise be missed.

[KerbonautInTraining]

11 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

For reference, here's a recovered one. Damage came from water impact. Note the lack of scorch marks on the paint (They're carbon fiber so are naturally black).

[snip]

I absolutely love it how they have SpaceX branded straps.