RocketLab Discussion Thread

[SunlitZelkova]

3 hours ago, tater said:

Neuron

I know this is a typo, but it would be neat if Beck or Bezos tried to challenge Musk on other fronts.

Edison Electric Car Company, Neuron Corporation, Grey Road, Pink Brain, etc.

[tater]

 

[magnemoe]

On 5/3/2022 at 1:46 AM, tater said:

 

 

If they can reuse after an splashdown why bother with the helicopter at all? 
Don't think salt water does nice stuff to electrical stuff including the engine pumps, batteries and so on. 

[sevenperforce]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

If they can reuse after an splashdown why bother with the helicopter at all? 
Don't think salt water does nice stuff to electrical stuff including the engine pumps, batteries and so on. 

Yeah this is puzzling to me. Kind of like with SpaceX spending a bunch of energy trying to catch the fairings in a net and then realizing it was fine to just land them in the water and fish them out. If a quick bath in the drink won't hurt Electron then why go through the trouble of doing the helicopter?

I suppose that with proper housings/containment, it would be easier to make electric-pump-driven engines seawater proof than gas generator or staged combustion engines. 

[magnemoe]

4 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Yeah this is puzzling to me. Kind of like with SpaceX spending a bunch of energy trying to catch the fairings in a net and then realizing it was fine to just land them in the water and fish them out. If a quick bath in the drink won't hurt Electron then why go through the trouble of doing the helicopter?

I suppose that with proper housings/containment, it would be easier to make electric-pump-driven engines seawater proof than gas generator or staged combustion engines. 

Agree, now the fairings are way simpler than an rocket. Its an shell with release mechanism, the sound dampening tiles, yes its some electronic for tracking and also for orienting with cold gas thrusters before reaching dense part of atmosphere and releasing the parachute. Should be pretty easy to make the electronic waterproof enough. The acoustic tiles might need to be replaced anyway and the expensive part is the shell. 

Sensors will be an issue on any engine, also the engines will get multiple meters down before the rocket tips over. It would require an redesign I say. 

[CatastrophicFailure]

2 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

Yeah this is puzzling to me. Kind of like with SpaceX spending a bunch of energy trying to catch the fairings in a net and then realizing it was fine to just land them in the water and fish them out. If a quick bath in the drink won't hurt Electron then why go through the trouble of doing the helicopter?

I suppose that with proper housings/containment, it would be easier to make electric-pump-driven engines seawater proof than gas generator or staged combustion engines. 

Bear in mind, RL’s motivation here isn’t cost savings so much as increased launch cadence (eventually). I would assume fishing the booster out of the sea works, just not very well, vis a vis turnaround time. These first few are going to be gone over with a fine tooth comb anyway, there’s no time savings to be had there, so it doesn’t matter if they need more work to fix seawater intrusion, but to get it down to a short turnaround routine, dryer is better. They also have much smaller margins with such a small booster, so excessive waterproofing might run up against a diminishing returns point with regards to performance very quickly. 

[mikegarrison]

My guess is that they experienced an undesirable flight characteristic with the helicopter after the catch, dumped the booster for safety, and then issued a quick PR spin that "a short dunking is no problem".

As for SpaceX realizing it was "just fine" to let the fairings land in the water, I would guess that's still not their optimal outcome. But if they can't *rely* on a catch, then they have to assume a dunking anyway, so they might as well save the effort and money involved in trying to make the catch. Instead, they probably chose spend their money hardening any systems that were causing them issues from the water landing.

Rocketlab might find themselves going the same way, I guess. Or maybe they will resolve the issues with the mid-air catch.

19 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Bear in mind, RL’s motivation here isn’t cost savings so much as increased launch cadence (eventually).

Time is money, I suppose. But you know what else is money? Money is money.

A for-profit company's motivation is always profit, one way or another, and so I suspect it very much *is* cost savings they are going after, whatever they may spin it as. You can always increase speed of production if you are willing to spend money to do so, which means that even if they do want "increased launch cadence", they are still looking for the cheapest way to achieve that. They must have at least a strong suspicion that it will be cheaper for them to recover boosters and get them ready for reuse than it would be to provide new boosters at the rate they need in order to meet their desired launch cadence.

[wumpus]

On 5/5/2022 at 12:24 PM, mikegarrison said:

Rocketlab might find themselves going the same way, I guess. Or maybe they will resolve the issues with the mid-air catch.

I wouldn't count out the catching problem yet.  I'd be surprised if there was much more to it than "the pilot let go when the flight dynamics didn't match the mission plan".  Although I suspect an update to the flight dynami model, and further testing with the new, improved flight dynamic.  Of course, if the actual load of the rocket is too much for the helicopter (possibly noticed in non-catching testing), don't expect another catch attempt.

I think the real elephant in the room is the Neutron.  Presumably the future of Rocket Lab, and there is no way that thing is going to be caught coming down.

[tater]

Speaking of Rocket Lab USA:

 

(NASA CAPSTONE)

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/small_spacecraft/capstone/

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

[StrandedonEarth]

The bird is up, up, and away!

https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/06/28/rocket-lab-capstone-launch-mission-status-center/

Quote

06/28/2022 04:17

 

Rocket Lab confirms the first two burns by the Lunar Photon tug's HyperCurie engine were completed successfully. More apogee raising burns are scheduled at intervals of approximately 24 hours over the next five days, and a final burn is planned about six days from now to send the CAPSTONE toward the moon.

 

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

 

[tater]

 

[Beccab]

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

poop

...

For a sat this small, would it have a pre-programmed entry/circularization burn for the satellite (presumes it remains functional & the problem is merely comms) -- or would it have to be initiated from Earth?

(Guess what I'm asking - is this thing going to get flung off by the moon in a 'random' direction?)

Edited July 5, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[tater]

 

[SunlitZelkova]

7 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

poop

...

For a sat this small, would it have a pre-programmed entry/circularization burn for the satellite (presumes it remains functional & the problem is merely comms) -- or would it have to be initiated from Earth?

(Guess what I'm asking - is this thing going to get flung off by the moon in a 'random' direction?)

Your question appears to have been answered by the tweet above this post, but I still want to reply. I would think not. If there was an issue with the booster, they would want to take control and try to accommodate whatever error occurred, but without having to do a race to stop the automated sat from doing its burn.

Preprogramming it would mean the booster would have to be near 100% accurate and have zero chance of failure.

[CatastrophicFailure]

 

[insert_name]

Rocket lab thinks that the photon kick stage could fulfill some CAPSTONE mission objectives on it's own 

https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/300630370/contact-lost-with-capstone-satellite-but-rocket-lab-spacecraft-could-replace-it

[Scotius]

Looks like someone forgot to put couple of OX-STAT panels on the satellite. Too bad, emergency supply of electricity wouldn't be amiss now.

[StrandedonEarth]

2 hours ago, Scotius said:

Looks like someone forgot to put couple of OX-STAT panels on the satellite

“Set SCE to OX”? 

given that CAPSTONE is only 55lbs, a pair of OXSTATS may have cut too deep into the mass budget…

[tater]

I updated this in the Artemis thread. Contact reestablished.

[tater]