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Blue Origin Thread (merged)


Aethon

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52 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Oh, that's cool! Tweets auto-embed!

Aw. :( The booster landing is what I look forward to the most. 

However, SES-9 was 5.2 tons, and they tried a droneship landing... I didn't know that 300 kilos would make such a difference :P 

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1 minute ago, TheEpicSquared said:

Aw. :( The booster landing is what I look forward to the most. 

However, SES-9 was 5.2 tons, and they tried a droneship landing... I didn't know that 300 kilos would make such a difference :P 

Well, there's also the modifications to the Falcon 9 to take into consideration. I don't know if this is accurate, but I heard somewhere they had to add another helium tank to make up for the slower loading cycle. Again, I'm not sure if that is true or not.

 

I look forward to the landing the most, too. But, hey, we might get to see some *dramatic* re-entry footage ending with a crash into the ocean!

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I HIGHLY doubt that they needed to add another He tank. All they need to do is start loading earlier to load in at a slower rate for the He. Which isnt an issue as they start loading the RP1 well before the LOX.

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7 hours ago, Mitchz95 said:

Anyone want to place bets that this will be the last expendable SpaceX launch, ever? :D

(Well, deliberately expendable...)

Well, over on Reddit this discussion has already happened. There are several missions on SpaceX's manifest that are heavy enough to be considered expendable, unfortunately.

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3 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Well, over on Reddit this discussion has already happened. There are several missions on SpaceX's manifest that are heavy enough to be considered expendable, unfortunately.

SpaceX said that the Falcon 9 Block 5 will carry those future missions and should be able to land.

52 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

I would imagine they hope to start flying expendable missions on used boosters soon

I believe they'll try to re-use them again...

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Yep, though oddly enough, it's not a rocket issue. It's simply that the pad, scheduled for completion by the end of November 2016, still isn't ready. :(

Too bad that Iridium hasn't delivered all their satellites yet. They could get a launch or two from Vandenberg ahead of time while everyone's waiting for the Cape :P

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On 1/23/2017 at 0:18 AM, Mitchz95 said:

Anyone want to place bets that this will be the last expendable SpaceX launch, ever? :D

(Well, deliberately expendable...)

I still expect a Falcon Heavy with expendable center section will be a favorite for heavy loads.  That center section needs to be going plenty fast when it stages, making the back burn a problem.  The differences between expendable side boosters and landing them shouldn't be so extreme (also landing the sides should be the easiest landings, landing the center the hardest.

Also you have to remember that an expendable Falcon 9 should be considerably more reliable than Falcon Heavy.  Any launch heavy enough to be expendable is likely to be launching such an expensive spacecraft that the cost of the insurance to go to recoverable Heavy won't cover the savings.

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On 23/01/2017 at 5:18 AM, Mitchz95 said:

Anyone want to place bets that this will be the last expendable SpaceX launch, ever? :D

(Well, deliberately expendable...)

I don't think so. For a commercial service, an expendable flight of a booster you've already developed is a known cost and risk so I would expect that you just quote a price to make your normal profit margin. Whether anyone takes you up on the offer would depend on what other commercial launch capabilities are available at the time; looking at the Falcon Heavy's payload goals, there may not be any other launcher that can do the job.

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24 minutes ago, CSE said:

I don't think so. For a commercial service, an expendable flight of a booster you've already developed is a known cost and risk so I would expect that you just quote a price to make your normal profit margin. Whether anyone takes you up on the offer would depend on what other commercial launch capabilities are available at the time; looking at the Falcon Heavy's payload goals, there may not be any other launcher that can do the job.

You could do an falcon heavy with recovery rather than an expendable. 
On the other hand if you have an well used first stage they might use it expendable rather than to do an expensive service on it. 

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It's a good point that recovering the centre core of a Falcon Heavy is going to be harder than recovering a Falcon 9.

The second stage isn't changing but the payload is getting bigger, meaning stage 2 has less DV so Stage 1 has to be going faster at separation, faster even than Falcon 9 on GTO.

This problem gets worse with crossfeed, which I saw someone on Reddit mention is still being studied. (Pinch of salt duely taken).

But perhaps on Falcon Heavy there can be more fuel saved to leave greater allowance for the entry burn or even return to launch site! It's difficult to guess what their plans are.

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10 hours ago, RCgothic said:

It's a good point that recovering the centre core of a Falcon Heavy is going to be harder than recovering a Falcon 9.

The second stage isn't changing but the payload is getting bigger, meaning stage 2 has less DV so Stage 1 has to be going faster at separation, faster even than Falcon 9 on GTO.

This problem gets worse with crossfeed, which I saw someone on Reddit mention is still being studied. (Pinch of salt duely taken).

But perhaps on Falcon Heavy there can be more fuel saved to leave greater allowance for the entry burn or even return to launch site! It's difficult to guess what their plans are.

I remember reading that center core RTLS has only marginal gains over a reusable F9,but that barge recovery might be reasonable if they allow for a longer entry burn.

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They need to go deeper.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/01/25/elon-musk-is-going-to-tunnel-from-his-desk-to-lax-or-so-hes-tweeted/

Underground rocket facility?
Landing onto an elevator and getting down?
Hyperloop-based underground launch estacade?
Undermars colony prototype?

Edited by kerbiloid
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