The Yellow Dart Posted April 12, 2016 Share Posted April 12, 2016 Just made a post on Imgur, similar to the video I posted earlier, but with gifs and more descriptions. It is probably a bit too pro-SpaceX for a lot of people here, but I mainly made it for people who don't know much about the subject. Anyways, you can check it out here if you are interested (and feel free to upvote) and absolutely correct me on any errors you find too: http://imgur.com/gallery/m9CYe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motokid600 Posted April 12, 2016 Share Posted April 12, 2016 36 minutes ago, The Yellow Dart said: Just made a post on Imgur, similar to the video I posted earlier, but with gifs and more descriptions. It is probably a bit too pro-SpaceX for a lot of people here, but I mainly made it for people who don't know much about the subject. Anyways, you can check it out here if you are interested (and feel free to upvote) and absolutely correct me on any errors you find too: http://imgur.com/gallery/m9CYe I enjoyed that. I'm astounded that was only three years ago. Can you even imagine what another three will bring? Who am I kidding, of course you can! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Rocket Scientist Posted April 12, 2016 Share Posted April 12, 2016 On 4/11/2016 at 1:26 PM, tater said: In the press conference I posted, Musk says that the first landing (RTLS) is going outside HQ, they just got permission from the FAA because it's taller than anything else around the airport there (hence having to ask). He said the one that just landed will probably fly in May. Woo! I think I'll be able to go and see it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Yellow Dart Posted April 12, 2016 Share Posted April 12, 2016 (edited) 38 minutes ago, Motokid600 said: I enjoyed that. I'm astounded that was only three years ago. I know, while I was writing it, I kept checking the dates to make sure, because it seemed like it was longer ago. I would write "Such n such blah blah 2015" --wait. That can't be right. Oh yup, 2015! Weird! Edited April 12, 2016 by The Yellow Dart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mazon Del Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 One thing I read today is that they are looking into methods of recovering the fairings as apparently those actually cost upwards of a couple million on their own, which is kind of impressive to me. I'd always thought of them as just relatively precise latices of aluminum and basically sheet metal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sojourner Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 (edited) The fairings are aluminum and carbon fiber. They cost an estimated 2 to 6 million each (for the whole fairing, not just per half). definitely worth looking into reuse and shouldn't be too difficult. After all they reach terminal velocity pretty quick due to their large surface area to mass ratio. Most of the damage is from hitting the water. Also, from what I've read the fairings are also a bottleneck in production. They're so large that they only have limited equipment to produce them, so reuse would speed things along. Edited April 13, 2016 by sojourner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strollen Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 13 hours ago, The Yellow Dart said: I made a compilation of every SpaceX rocket landing and landing attempt that was recorded on video, from Grasshopper to last Friday. It ended up being kinda long but oh well. Maybe I'll make another one with just Falcon 9 landings. Hey thanks for doing this. I'm sharing it on Facebook. It is not the most exciting video, but it is probably the best illustration of Thomas Edison's quote "Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.", I've seen. Although, my attempts to land on the Mun are fairly close :-). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenperforce Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 (edited) So I don't know how many of you have been watching the live feed of the Falcon 9 stage 1 recovery at Port Canaveral, but I have been following it pretty closely. It seems like a really long process, probably because this is the first time pulling it off the barge and they are taking their time to carefully document everything as they go. When they brought it in, the stage was clamped down to a series of concrete blocks at the base, with the landing legs held in place by welded shoes. They brought in a crane, attached it to the interstage, removed the shoes and base clamps, and brought the entire booster off the ship and onto the dock. They buffed the weld spots off of the ship pretty quickly. Once the booster was attached to the crane, the legs no longer bore any of the weight. The crane lowered it onto four platforms and 8 workers manually pushed the base into alignment so that launch clamps could be fixed to it. The legs have remained deployed. They kept the crane fixed to the top, presumably to avoid sway. There was a lot of inspection of the legs and the general outer body. They attached an electrical line at one point, and they have a large hose running up one side to the top of the booster. I do not know what it is for; they might be draining some additional or residual fluids, or they may plan to use that line to repressurise the landing legs. They brought a truck carrying white gas tanks up to the base a little earlier today. Last I saw, they were catching guy wires to the top of the booster. I am not sure why. I doubt they will detach the crane attachment, simply because I think they will need it to lower the booster to a horizontal position. I am guessing that we will see the landing legs retracted pretty soon. Edited April 13, 2016 by sevenperforce typo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Yellow Dart Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 10 hours ago, strollen said: Hey thanks for doing this. I'm sharing it on Facebook. It is not the most exciting video, but it is probably the best illustration of Thomas Edison's quote "Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.", I've seen. Although, my attempts to land on the Mun are fairly close :-). Thanks, well actually after making it, I found another compilation that was made the same day (the date says 1 day before but I published mine just after midnight) as mine that had the same idea but was much shorter and to the point and had music, and is just all around better (I don't know anything about video editing), though it cut out most of the test flights, so probably share that one if you want people you know to actually watch it. And if you didn't catch the SpaceX Imgur post I posted earlier, it made to the front page last night! It is at 62,000 views and 3,800 points! http://imgur.com/gallery/m9CYe Here is the other vid: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngelLestat Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 @The Yellow Dart Congrats, you did a really good work with your imgur compilation. I was wondering, not sure what kind of material is used for the barge surface floor, but if it use metal, then it can be possible to add a magnetic surface in the tip of the leg, this will prevent to tumble early on and it would not need to be secure later. The magnetic force can be weak at 2 cm distance, but incredibly strong on contact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linuxgurugamer Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 Just now, AngelLestat said: @The Yellow Dart Congrats, you did a really good work with your imgur compilation. I was wondering, not sure what kind of material is used for the barge surface floor, but if it use metal, then it can be possible to add a magnetic surface in the tip of the leg, this will prevent to tumble early on and it would not need to be secure later. The magnetic force can be weak at 2 cm distance, but incredibly strong on contact. This wouldn't work. The amount of force needed would be astronomical because, among other things, the amount of surface contact the rocket has with the barge surface is relatively small. And you can't control magnetism that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Yellow Dart Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 2 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said: This wouldn't work. The amount of force needed would be astronomical because, among other things, the amount of surface contact the rocket has with the barge surface is relatively small. And you can't control magnetism that way. While I don't think it will be necessary in most cases, one of the magnets in the video below placed in the foot of every landing leg I think could would add several hundred pounds of downforce on the rocket, and being at the tips of the legs would give it leverage over tipping that would multiply that downforce, should a wave or high wind try to topple it. The deck is steel, but I would worry more about how to lift the rocket off the barge without damaging the legs still attached to the deck. And we haven't seen any trouble yet with tipping due to wave. All the tipping so far has been due to damage/malfunctions. So I don't think it would be necessary. 13 minutes ago, AngelLestat said: @The Yellow Dart Congrats, you did a really good work with your imgur compilation. Thanks! Working to fix some errors on it right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linuxgurugamer Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 If I recall, the surface is not metal, that would be too slippery. And once you start putting space between the magnet and the metal underneath the surface, the magnet becomes much less effective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Yellow Dart Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 (edited) 13 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said: If I recall, the surface is not metal, that would be too slippery. And once you start putting space between the magnet and the metal underneath the surface, the magnet becomes much less effective. It is metal, because the shoes that is placed over the legs are "welded down". You can't weld without metal, and you could definitely solve the space issue, that would just be an engineering problem. It wouldn't be too difficult, have the magnet mounted so that it pushes back when contact is made, and lets the actual leg hold the weight of the rocket. But friday's landing was in high winds and fairly high waves and it succeeded and made it back to port, so I don't think it is even necessary. Edited April 13, 2016 by The Yellow Dart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linuxgurugamer Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 They can be welded down in many ways, ie: digging through the surface material to get to the metal for welding. I don't know, would like to know what they have done Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ten Key Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 2 hours ago, tater said: That rocket is roughly the same height as the Statue of Liberty. That's mind blowing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenperforce Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 2 minutes ago, Ten Key said: That rocket is roughly the same height as the Statue of Liberty. That's mind blowing. It is. Pictures just don't do it justice. This is not a telephone pole, folks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PB666 Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 1 minute ago, sevenperforce said: It is. Pictures just don't do it justice. This is not a telephone pole, folks. Yes, because, like, telephone poles are much better at landing on barges out in the Atlantic, . The rocket is emptied of most of its contents, the engines are the most dense part of the craft, it has landing stuts to move the tipover point further away from the center. Its a little bit better than a telephone pole at staying upright. using magnets would only be valid if the landing struts have iron in them, otherwise you would have to add magnet. I like the maget idea, the problem is that you would have to have a programmable array of electromagnets embedded in the barges deck, which might weaken the deck to the forces of landing. Electromagnets might fail in a storm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenperforce Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 6 minutes ago, PB666 said: Yes, because, like, telephone poles are much better at landing on barges out in the Atlantic, . The rocket is emptied of most of its contents, the engines are the most dense part of the craft, it has landing stuts to move the tipover point further away from the center. Its a little bit better than a telephone pole at staying upright. Talking about size, not aerodynamics or COM. If I didn't know better, I would think the landing video was a telephone-pole-sized rocket landing on a basketball-court-sized barge...not a 737-sized rocket landing on a football-field-sized carrier. I've asked people how large the booster looks and they say "a couple stories high" and I tell them it is twice as long as a semi-truck, landing on a football field, and their jaws drop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HebaruSan Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 2 minutes ago, sevenperforce said: If I didn't know better, I would think the landing video was a telephone-pole-sized rocket landing on a basketball-court-sized barge...not a 737-sized rocket landing on a football-field-sized carrier. I've asked people how large the booster looks and they say "a couple stories high" and I tell them it is twice as long as a semi-truck, landing on a football field, and their jaws drop. Yeah, here's a MARMAC 304 from the manufacturer's web site, same kind of ship as Of Course I Still Love You, with a worker for scale. These things are big hunks of steel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motokid600 Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 (edited) Oh my... https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/spacex/ I hope we get this video soon... And where is the full onboard ride? SpaceX please... Oh and the coolest thing about this imo is in pictures after landing you can see the barge visibly leaning. And I swear it looks like the landing suspension is totally compensating for the angle. Edited April 13, 2016 by Motokid600 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngelLestat Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 About the magnetic leg, I did some calculation using this site: https://www.kjmagnetics.com/calculator.asp 10cm diameter with 3 cm thick neodymium magnet = 400kg pull on contact, only 50kg at 1cm Of course the leg tip are bigger than that, so it would be easy to achieve 1T of force in each leg adding only 5kg by leg. But there is a big drawback, they lose their magnetic strength at higher temperatures of 150 C, this mean that reentry heat would be a problem. About barge surface being magnetic and leg iron, it would be too expensive. I imagine this to solve bounces or horizontal slip as we see in the video, but it may be worst if does not allow the slip (if the other two legs are steel in the air), because it can turn over. So yeah, it does not seem to be worth it. But well, I still think they need to remplace the barge with something else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PB666 Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 1 minute ago, sevenperforce said: Talking about size, not aerodynamics or COM. If I didn't know better, I would think the landing video was a telephone-pole-sized rocket landing on a basketball-court-sized barge...not a 737-sized rocket landing on a football-field-sized carrier. I've asked people how large the booster looks and they say "a couple stories high" and I tell them it is twice as long as a semi-truck, landing on a football field, and their jaws drop. Barges are big, go sit along the intercoastal at freeport you'll see quite a few monoliths pass. I've seen double wides @ double and triple longs. Some barges have tugboat at the back and a robotic pilot at the front, so having a four engine football field size barge with four pilot boat engines on it is not rocket science unique. When i saw OCISLU it looked like just a low drafting barge with some accessories on the ends. . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motokid600 Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 Magnets aren't necessary. Maybe a barge that's 25% larger, but even that might not be needed. Because above all the Falcon 9 suspension seems to have a self-leveling system. You can see it in those photos above. I would only be worried in some seriously sketchy weather. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts