Blue Origin Thread (merged)

[g00bd0g]

3 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

I doubt it would be perfectly usable after burning up on re-entry. Any bits that survived would splash down into the ocean.

Recovering an upper stage is a much harder problem than the first stage: you will need a seriously beefy (and heavy) reusable heat shield, a very deep-throttlable Merlin D-Vac, and a way to light that huge engine bell facing a hypersonic airstream while staying stable. It makes sense to spend a manageable effort to recover 9 engines, but it doesn't make economical sense to spend a huge effort to recover 1 engine.

OK, obviously I was joking, but if it wasn't that hard to retrieve it sure would make an awesome memento. Maybe a planter or fountain for the garden  

[Temstar]

3 hours ago, Pecan said:

• A few people simulated the barge-landing in KSP but I have yet to see anyone turn their rocket around to come back to KSC

It's not done in KSP for practical launches because if you focus on the first stage and fly it back to KSC it means you're not focusing on the upper stage to actually get the payload into orbit.

[Motokid600]

16 minutes ago, Temstar said:

It's not done in KSP for practical launches because if you focus on the first stage and fly it back to KSC it means you're not focusing on the upper stage to actually get the payload into orbit.

That's what MechJebs for. MJ can fly your stage to orbit with corrective steering while you land the first stage. You need BDArmory with a 300km load range though. Works really good. Switching craft to and from those distances can be buggy though. Things get... Shaky.

[Temstar]

30 minutes ago, Motokid600 said:

That's what MechJebs for. MJ can fly your stage to orbit with corrective steering while you land the first stage. You need BDArmory with a 300km load range though. Works really good. Switching craft to and from those distances can be buggy though. Things get... Shaky.

That's a lot of faffing about to get it to work though. If you want a reusable booster in KSP it would be easier to make it single stage, release the payload and then deorbit the whole rocket to land tail first at KSC.

[Motokid600]

22 minutes ago, Temstar said:

That's a lot of faffing about to get it to work though. If you want a reusable booster in KSP it would be easier to make it single stage, release the payload and then deorbit the whole rocket to land tail first at KSC.

What else would it be? It's a lot of faffing in real life too. But it works. If you wanna truly do it SpaceX style in KSP that's the only way to do it.

[Albert VDS]

7 hours ago, Pecan said:

You, and Nibb31, miss my points:

1. If first stage is sub-orbital and blue origin is sub-orbital then arguments about landing from orbit are moot - what the payload or later stage(s) might do after separation is their own affair.  I do think people have been a bit too sniffy about the first vertical landing, even if SpaceX's vehicle is more useful.
2. The effort of reversal is not so much about TWR but dV.  It's hardly surprising the launch stage doesn't have to use all the engines it used to lift the whole vehicle just to manoeuvre itself, minus most fuel.
3. A few people simulated the barge-landing in KSP but I have yet to see anyone turn their rocket around to come back to KSC

 

What BO did vs what SpaceX did:

[razark]

14 minutes ago, Albert VDS said:

What BO did vs what SpaceX did:

So, they both launched a rocket into space without going into orbit and then recovered it, only Blue Origin also recovered the payload?  Cool.  I'm sure SpaceX will get to that point someday.

 

 

Yes, what SpaceX did was impressive.  However, what BO did was also impressive, and they accomplished it first.  SpaceX managed to accomplish a completely different "first".  If some SpaceX fanboy wants to show us how easy what BO did is, I'm sure we'll be seeing it in the news anytime now.

My problem is that Musk posted some pretty jackassed twits after BO's recovery, completely unprovoked.  Musk is merely reaping what he sowed.

Bezos: Hey, we did something cool.
Musk: Well, we're going to do better!
Musk: We did something similar earlier, but didn't reach the same milestone!
Musk: But, I'm sooooo awesome, I'm going to link to xkcd!
Musk: But X-15 and SpaceShipOne!
Musk: Hey!  Pay attention to me!

Edited December 23, 2015 by razark

[Rune]

1 hour ago, razark said:

So, they both launched a rocket into space without going into orbit and then recovered it, only Blue Origin also recovered the payload?  Cool.  I'm sure SpaceX will get to that point someday.

Only New Shepard is a mostly useless toy for the rich, and Falcon 9 FT is an very serious EELV-class commercial booster. None of them is a first as a reusable rocket, unless you go nitcpicking... but SpaceX's accomplishment dwarfs BO's by several orders of magnitude.

 

Rune. Note I am not saying Musk did a good PR move when he pointed it out to BO. He should have let fans fight that battle.

Edited December 23, 2015 by Rune

[Nibb31]

Both BO and SpaceX landings are great achievements.

The difference is that SpaceX is flying at Mach 6 when it releases its payload. The upper stage is well on its way to orbit and only needs something like 6000m/s of dV to reach orbit.

BO is flying at basically zero velocity when it reaches its apogee. If the payload was an upper stage, that upper stage would still need to produce the whole 9000 m/s of orbital speed.

And yeah, Musk should be taken away his Twitter license. Most of what he says on there is BS.

Edited December 23, 2015 by Nibb31

[Albert VDS]

6 hours ago, razark said:

So, they both launched a rocket into space without going into orbit and then recovered it, only Blue Origin also recovered the payload?  Cool.  I'm sure SpaceX will get to that point someday.

SpaceX was the first commercial company to recover it's payload and has done so multiple times; all the Dragon missions.

The Falcon 9 is an orbital rocket and it's first stage would never reach orbit, but it has to push the 2nd and payload high enough so that those can reach orbit.
The Falcon 9 needs to endure far large stresses, needs to cancel out all horizontal speed and change it's course toward the landing site.

BE-3:
Delta-V: 1.4 km/s
Thrust: 490 kN 

Falcon 9 first stage:
Delta-V: 5.09 km/s
Thrust: 5,885 kN

I'm not saying the what Blue Origin has done isn't hard, in fact it's hard enough to create a disposable rocket and I applaud their goal of commercializing space(sending up tourists).

Edit: Actually this explains it better:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 23, 2015 by Albert VDS

[YNM]

Am I a bit late to the party ? Just heard of the news (and watched the recordings). Congrats SpaceX, told you to scrub those barges earlier...

Is there anything to say more in depth about the three landing engines ? Is that for more stability ? Surely thrust isn't the problem...

 

 

[Albert VDS]

@YNM: As explained above(in the image), it uses 3 engines to cancel horizontal speed and change course, 2nd decent burn(again with 3 engines) is to slow down and the last burn is with 1 engine to land.

[Rune]

21 minutes ago, Albert VDS said:

Edit: Actually this explains it better:

Yes. Yes it does.

 

Rune. NS is so tiny put next to a F9!

Edited December 23, 2015 by Rune

[saabstory88]

Keep in mind guys, when talking about the Falcon 9 payload, which flight mode you are talking about. The Falcon 9 1.1-FT has three distinct flight modes, which are chosen by SpaceX based on the client mission requirements. 

 

• Fully expendable: Given acceleration and burn time data, the vehicle can likely launch somewhere in the region of 20,000kg to LEO. We will likely not see this mode used on the F9 ever again for two reasons. 1. There are no customers which require this flight profile. The DOD/NRO is the only customer which buys flights in this lift category. SpaceX has opted to make the Falcon Heavy the vehicle which they are offering to this customer, not the F9. 2. Customers have to bring their own multiple deployment adapters. Because the launch cost is so inexpensive, it is more economical for the customer to buy two flights, rather than pay a third party integrator for a stack. SpaceX does not offer this as a standard service, and in their documentation, they spell out that you must bring your own. Further to this point, they charge you extra for flights over the 13,500kg capacity, as a custom, strengthened, payload adapter is needed.
• ASDS: A barge landing. The two barge landings we have seen so far were likely not the profile that they will use after reusability is a standard and known item. They were positioned in such a way as to test the boost back feature of the F9 booster, which isn't something you would actually want to use if you were doing this "for real". The most efficient trajectory would see no boost-back burn occur, and the barge be positioned at the end of the ballistic arc that the booster takes post separation. We will likely see this profile used in both high capacity GTO missions, as well as every Falcon Heavy flight for the center core booster. The middle of the flight path drone ship positioning seen on previous landing attempts is likely a test mode only.
• RTLS: This will be used for most LEO, and some low capacity GTO missions, as the boost-back burn uses about 6% of the vehicles fuel. This is the mode we witnessed on 12/21. This may be the standard procedure for CRS flights, as we have already seen that they can accomplish the mission with a boost-back as part of the flight profile. I would expect that we will only see this profile about 50% of the time +/- 10%. As they eat up more of the GTO market, expect to see less of these on the standard F9.

As far as the Falcon Heavy is concerned. expect to see a drone ship on station for every flight, without exception. Despite their PR departments animation, having a center core RTLS would negate a lot of the benefit of even having a "Heavy" version of the launch vehicle. Even if barge landings prove difficult, it is still a savings to get back more than half of the value of the rocket in the two side boosters, which will almost certainly RTLS on all but the most demanding missions. 

That is all...

Edited December 23, 2015 by saabstory88
I suck at grammer

[Lukaszenko]

17 hours ago, Pecan said:

If first stage is sub-orbital and blue origin is sub-orbital then arguments about landing from orbit are moot - what the payload or later stage(s) might do after separation is their own affair.  I do think people have been a bit too sniffy about the first vertical landing, even if SpaceX's vehicle is more useful.

Calling it moot is not seeing the forest for the trees. First stage of Falcon 9 might be suborbital, but it is part of a complete system, one that delivers substantial payloads into ORBIT. It is quite useless by itself except for a joyride, which is exactly what Blue Origin is designed for. Calling Falcon 9 suborbital and comparing it to Blue Origin is therefore akin to comparing an AK-47 assault rifle to a rock. Both are just about as effective by themselves. But, when you add that second part (the cartridge, in the AK-47's case), you get a total which is orders of magnitude greater than the sum of its parts.

 

That aside, while suborbital is impressive, the difference between skipping rope and going "suborbital" is rather arbitrary, and they both put you back where you started. "Suborbital" is just....more. The difference between suborbital and orbital however is, quite literally, astronomical. Ignoring the enormous amounts of energy and exponential increase in difficulty, going into a stable orbit doesn’t just put you in a circle around the Earth. It crosses a threshold that opens the door to everything and everywhere. As the famous quote states, “Once you're in low Earth orbit you're halfway to anywhere”.

 

Edited December 23, 2015 by Lukaszenko

[Pecan]

16 hours ago, KerBlammo said:

After reading this I decided to give it a try myself.  Success on first attempt.

Excellent!  Well done.
 

16 hours ago, SargeRho said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTaQ6-nNB-Q

You were saying? First result on google.

And you, all I got was the usual hop to a barge or - the way I do things - 1st stage recovery after it has orbited, or circumnavigated, depending on how you look at it.  (NB: no neccessarily a 'full' SSTO, since it doesn't have to get its Pe above 69km, just high enough to come down at KSC).

And to all those racing to say Blue Origin didn't do the same as Falcon 9 - I didn't say they did.  I don't think anyone said they did.  They 'just' did the first vertical landing from space.

[Rune]

50 minutes ago, Pecan said:

And to all those racing to say Blue Origin didn't do the same as Falcon 9 - I didn't say they did.  I don't think anyone said they did.  They 'just' did the first vertical landing from space.

Hehe, tricky definitions strike again. The first "vertical landing from space", I think, would go to some Martian probe doing a powered landing, methinks (I.E: the Vikings on the 80's). It is really hard to find a definition of "first" for BO's flight. The best one I can think of is "first successful flight of New Shepard".

 

Rune. After all, when I jump on my feet, I am technically doing a suborbital hop... and an unpowered landing at that, and totally "reusable".

Edited December 23, 2015 by Rune

[Albert VDS]

An updated version of the New Sheppard vs Falcon 9 launch profile made by zlsa, this time with proper trajectory and numbers:

[Kerbol Macrosystems]

3 hours ago, Pecan said:

And you, all I got was the usual hop to a barge or - the way I do things - 1st stage recovery after it has orbited, or circumnavigated, depending on how you look at it.

I can't get onto Curse at work, but I believe there's a mod called "Recoverable Boosters" that let's you pilot items individually.  You do this by basically making a save point at seperation, then flying your main stage to orbit, and saving again.  You then do a revert to stage sep, control your booster to landing and recover it.  You then merge the saves to have a recovered booster and orbital craft.  

[razark]

Sheesh.

Did Blue Origin launch a rocket?  Yes.
Did SpaceX launch a rocket?  Yes.
Did BO's rocket reach space?  Yes.
Did SpaceX's rocket reach space?  Yes.
Did BO recover their booster via powered descent and controlled landing?  Yes.
Did SpaceX recover their booster via powered descent and controlled landing?  Yes.
Did the recovered portion of BO's rocket reach orbit?  No.
Did the recovered portion of SpaceX's rocket reach orbit?  No.

Did Blue Origin perform the feats before SpaceX?  Yes

Did SpaceX perform a more impressive feat?  Yes

Was Elon Musk being a jackass when he tweeted about BO's landing?  YES

 

The line of argument downplaying what Blue Origin did in comparison to what SpaceX did is kind of like saying "Well, Apollo 11 wasn't so big a deal.  I mean, it was first, but Apollo 15 did it while carrying a rover and Apollo 17 did it with a scientist onboard."

So, anyway.  Yay!  Rich people played with their space toys.

[AngelLestat]

eww  stop with the spacex vs blue origin.  What blue origin was nice.. but just that, is not any different of what virgin galactic accomplish years before.

Therein lies the real difference.  Spacex can revolution access to space.. and when I talk about access to space I mean "real space".  Reach space (the hard definition) is get enough speed to keep something there for many years.  That speed is not even compare with the one that virgin galactics or blue origin achieve; and these companies efforts, has nothing to do with the things that we all here treasure,  "real space".

So was Elon Musk  being evil with his comments? No..  he just wanted to point the real difference..

[Glaran K'erman]

29 minutes ago, razark said:

The line of argument downplaying what Blue Origin did in comparison to what SpaceX did is kind of like saying "Well, Apollo 11 wasn't so big a deal.  I mean, it was first, but Apollo 15 did it while carrying a rover and Apollo 17 did it with a scientist onboard."

That is not a good comparison. Why SpaceX is being lauded for the more impressive feat is because it was an actual operational mission. A better analogy would be comparing a rival company testing a prototype in a controlled experiment versus the first company to successfully demonstrate the technology in the first operational mission. That's the argument. 

[razark]

Face it, fanboys.  Musk got beat to a milestone he wanted, and he, in a completely uncalledfor manner, got krakeny about it online.

 

That doesn't change the fact he went on to do something else even greater.

Edited December 23, 2015 by razark

[SargeRho]

No, what Blue Origin did is rather unimpressive, and nothing an F9R couldn't do a year ago already, or the DC-XA 15 years ago. SpaceX' latest landing was faster, further, and with a much bigger vehicle than the DC-XA or the New Shepherd.

Edited December 23, 2015 by SargeRho

[sal_vager]

Guys, this isn't a SpaceX v Blue Origin thread, such a thread is in poor taste anyway, so please leave the bashing at the door.