sgt_flyer Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 (edited) i'm wondering if they'll simply add electric heaters to melt the ice (though, need bigger batteries), or just use the heat from the central engine's gas generator exhaust to come and deice the locking mechanisms. Edited January 18, 2016 by sgt_flyer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motokid600 Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 They should also consider deploying the legs a few seconds earlier. Few extra seconds may have been enough to crush the ice and latch in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 2 minutes ago, Motokid600 said: They should also consider deploying the legs a few seconds earlier. Few extra seconds may have been enough to crush the ice and latch in. Taking a huge guess here, but i don't think they can. It's moving so fast even a few seconds before I think the deployed legs would mess with the aerodynamics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sgt_flyer Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 tssk and now they announced icing is the possible cause of the problem, i can't help but think about this scene in Iron Man 1, when stark asks stane how did he solve the icing problem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sojourner Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 I can't help but think of another rocket that had icing problems during a January launch, about 30 years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motokid600 Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 1 hour ago, sojourner said: I can't help but think of another rocket that had icing problems during a January launch, about 30 years ago. I can't help but think how unrelated and off topic that is. If it is Challenger you are referring too. If not my apologies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sojourner Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 Not anymore off topic than the post that preceded it. But hey, if you can't see the correlation to an earlier reusable rocket that was destroyed due to an unforeseen icing complication, I'm not sure what to tell you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motokid600 Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 (edited) 16 minutes ago, sojourner said: Not anymore off topic than the post that preceded it. But hey, if you can't see the correlation to an earlier reusable rocket that was destroyed due to an unforeseen icing complication, I'm not sure what to tell you. Atleast his post involved ice. Theres no correlation. Challenger failed due to cold temperature comprising an o-ring. Physical ice had nothing to do with it. Even if it did... c'mon. Edited January 19, 2016 by Motokid600 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
softweir Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 Your point that icing up is easily predictable is entirely correct. ANybody who drives a car in certain climates can tell you that! However, any comparison of a human tragedy on the scale of the Challenger disaster with "oops, our rocket fell over!" is always going to raise eyebrows. It will be seen by others to be in bad taste. There are so many other, less emotive examples available that picking on Challenger might be showing a lack of imagination. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mazon Del Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 "How'd you solve the icing problem?" -Elon Musk to Jeff Bezos, seconds before Bezos' next craft tips over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insert_name Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sojourner Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 (edited) 1 hour ago, Motokid600 said: Atleast his post involved ice. Theres no correlation. Challenger failed due to cold temperature comprising an o-ring. Physical ice had nothing to do with it. Even if it did... c'mon. Oh, right. to be precise, they were both caused by cold temperatures, but hey, pretty sure you got the gist of it the first time around. And how is it "picking on Challenger" to note that there were some small similarities in the situations? Heck, I think it actually presses home the tragedy of it. Here we are 30 years later still able to make mistakes that highlight the difficulty of what is being attempted. It reminds us that people can lose their lives if we let our attentions slip or come to think of these things as "routine". Better to be reminded of that than some clever line from a movie. Edited January 19, 2016 by sojourner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frybert Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 1 hour ago, sojourner said: Not anymore off topic than the post that preceded it. But hey, if you can't see the correlation to an earlier reusable rocket that was destroyed due to an unforeseen icing complication, I'm not sure what to tell you. (Really sorry, I hate when topics not about the shuttle turn into discussions about the shuttle, its problems, ect.) Two corrections: Icing wasn't the complication. There wasn't really anything unforeseen about it (except maybe the company that built that rocket didn't foresee NASA insisting on launching even though they had been informed it might most likely would blow up). (Ok got that off my chest, won't contribute any further to this line of thought in this thread.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngelLestat Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 next falcon9 launch? or mission? month estimative? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sojourner Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 Early February. SES-9. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rdivine Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 2 hours ago, sojourner said: Early February. SES-9. Would they be attempting to land the first stage again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Streetwind Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 I believe they have applied for an FAA license to do so, yes. Barge landing again, because SES-9 is heavy and goes to geostationary orbit. Without the Full Thrust upgrade, the F9 would have to fly fully expendable, but now they can at least have a downrange landing. The one after that, CRS-8, is likely going to land back at the Cape again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lukaszenko Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 16 hours ago, AngelLestat said: You really think that a constant change of 10 degree in your landing pad is fine?https://youtu.be/ivdKRJzl6y0?t=29m40s I don't know. But I'm saying that, judging from the landing video, this was not a (or the) problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monophonic Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 16 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said: See, now this does not sound like any sort of inherent design flaw or mechanical defect, just operating outside of designed conditions. Rocket launches in fog are pretty rare. Landing a rocket that was launched in the fog, this would be the first. Modifying weather constrains and/or adding a deicing system should be fairly simple. Would simply spraying the legs with deicing solution while on the pad work? Glycol-based solutions are routinely used in the aero side of the industry to good effect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnemoe Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 5 minutes ago, monophonic said: Would simply spraying the legs with deicing solution while on the pad work? Glycol-based solutions are routinely used in the aero side of the industry to good effect. Something who stop the ice from catching yes, other way is an seal who keep ice from forming. if this is an hole the latch fits in perhaps with an locking mechanism in the hole for an plug. in this case an cover who eiter break or is pushed aside will solve it. This is not something who has been done before, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wumpus Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 1 hour ago, monophonic said: Would simply spraying the legs with deicing solution while on the pad work? Glycol-based solutions are routinely used in the aero side of the industry to good effect. Some notes: Icing has to do with altitude. While I'm not certain where the barge was, the flight launched in Vandenburg CA (a bit north of Santa Barbara) and was heading south. I'm guessing it was at least off the coast of Los Angeles if not further south of that. The recovered rocket is covered with scorch marks. The rocket is falling directly into the retro-rocket flames and at some point they cover the rocket. You have to wonder how the ice managed to form. Any de-icing solution would either be blown off on the way up or burned off on the way down. Spraying the legs on the way down seems an over-engineering nightmare. I'm curious what they mean by "latched". I'm an EE, so really don't know how landing legs are designed, but my instinct would be to have the things "failsafe" by limiting travel to full extension. I'd also expect the things to latch (at full extension) coming down, but what I saw wasn't the leg not opening all the way, but extending past enough to support the rocket. My guess is that this is what will be done next time (and it will weigh more. Which means they might not be able to do it until Falcon Heavy launches and they can retire Falcon9-expendable). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insert_name Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 7 minutes ago, wumpus said: Some notes: Icing has to do with altitude. While I'm not certain where the barge was, the flight launched in Vandenburg CA (a bit north of Santa Barbara) and was heading south. I'm guessing it was at least off the coast of Los Angeles if not further south of that. The recovered rocket is covered with scorch marks. The rocket is falling directly into the retro-rocket flames and at some point they cover the rocket. You have to wonder how the ice managed to form. Any de-icing solution would either be blown off on the way up or burned off on the way down. Spraying the legs on the way down seems an over-engineering nightmare. I'm curious what they mean by "latched". I'm an EE, so really don't know how landing legs are designed, but my instinct would be to have the things "failsafe" by limiting travel to full extension. I'd also expect the things to latch (at full extension) coming down, but what I saw wasn't the leg not opening all the way, but extending past enough to support the rocket. My guess is that this is what will be done next time (and it will weigh more. Which means they might not be able to do it until Falcon Heavy launches and they can retire Falcon9-expendable). you realize that the falcon 9 has liquid oxygen near the landing leg, there was a 200 ft cloud celing, and given the el nino, it was probably really humid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 @insert_name is right, @wumpus. From what it sounds, the ice formed while the rocket was sitting on the pad in visible moisture (fog) while full of cryogenic liquids a couple hundred degrees below freezing. If you'll think back to the recovered F9 last month, much of the rocket was not covered by soot probably because of ice still clinging to it. We're not talking a full-on, ionized plasma reentry here, either. Once the rocket gets a few km up there's very little heat transfer in the short time before landing to melt any ice build up. The fog at the launch site just exacerbated an expected condition into a real problem, one that's been faced in the air travel industry for decades but no one had ever thought to apply to rockets, since this is all so new. If the landing gear is anything like an aircraft landing gear, there's a latch it has to snap into on deployment to lock it into position. Ice can be quite strong under compression so depending on the design, either it might not take that much ice to foul the mechanism, or there was simply that much ice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motokid600 Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 Thing is though launching in fog like that is a rarity. But I guess chances are those conditions will be seen again in the future. Best prepare for it. Is a nice sunny day too much to ask for with a rocket launch? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegarrison Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 Yes, a nice sunny day is too much to ask for. Things to remember: 1) The point of the mission is to safely launch the payload. Landing the rocket is only a bonus. 2) Launch windows are very tight. In order to hit the right orbital inclination, you must launch when you hit the window or else wait for the next window. 3) It's winter. The weather may be worse the next window. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts