totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[kerbinorbiter]

8 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

It has to be said eventually:

Re-use by one company, presuming for the sake of argument that it reduces costs, just means super-profits for them as they out-perform the competition; the savings go to SpaceX primarily, because they only have to outbid the next-best, non-reusable option. Access to space may get marginally cheaper, but not dramatically so.

Re-use by multiple companies means competition will drive prices closer to costs, with the savings being passed on to customers, because each provider would have to out-bid another with equally low costs. That's how you get the drastically cheaper access to space that excites us.

So, who's next? Are there any feasible means by which SpaceX's advancements could be shared with other launch providers? E.g., do they have patents that will expire? Could the government buy some of their IP and make it public domain? Or will ULA have to re-invent their own reuse from scratch?

i dont think SpaceX has pattents that will expire because of NASA but im not to sure

[Racescort666]

5 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

It has to be said eventually:

Re-use by one company, presuming for the sake of argument that it reduces costs, just means super-profits for them as they out-perform the competition; the savings go to SpaceX primarily, because they only have to outbid the next-best, non-reusable option. Access to space may get marginally cheaper, but not dramatically so.

Re-use by multiple companies means competition will drive prices closer to costs, with the savings being passed on to customers, because each provider would have to out-bid another with equally low costs. That's how you get the drastically cheaper access to space that excites us.

So, who's next? Are there any feasible means by which SpaceX's advancements could be shared with other launch providers? E.g., do they have patents that will expire? Could the government buy some of their IP and make it public domain? Or will ULA have to re-invent their own reuse from scratch?

Well, on that note: Blue Origin have stated explicitly that they plan to reuse rockets. Which they have already done with New Shepard, so they presumably have some experience to begin developing reusable rockets.

ULA on the other hand, does not currently reuse rockets. However, they have said that they might be interested in developing a reusable one. ULA and SpaceX are not really in the same category when it comes to orbital launches. Yes, they both fly some similar payloads but when it comes down to it, ULA is much more reliable. It's likely that ULA will continue to market itself as the most reliable launch provider and continue to charge a premium for their service. After all, the Atlas has a huge service history and has been very reliable.

[Bill Phil]

12 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

It has to be said eventually:

Re-use by one company, presuming for the sake of argument that it reduces costs, just means super-profits for them as they out-perform the competition; the savings go to SpaceX primarily, because they only have to outbid the next-best, non-reusable option. Access to space may get marginally cheaper, but not dramatically so.

Re-use by multiple companies means competition will drive prices closer to costs, with the savings being passed on to customers, because each provider would have to out-bid another with equally low costs. That's how you get the drastically cheaper access to space that excites us.

So, who's next? Are there any feasible means by which SpaceX's advancements could be shared with other launch providers? E.g., do they have patents that will expire? Could the government buy some of their IP and make it public domain? Or will ULA have to re-invent their own reuse from scratch?

BO already re-used a rocket. Multiple times. Sure, it wasn't as big as the F9, but they're starting small and developing reusability rather than starting large and trying to reuse a bigger rocket. Not to mention they might enter the sub-orbital tourism market, as well.

Reuse really won't drive costs down all that much unless volume increases substantially.

Ninja'd.

1 minute ago, Racescort666 said:

Well, on that note: Blue Origin have stated explicitly that they plan to reuse rockets. Which they have already done with New Shepard, so they presumably have some experience to begin developing reusable rockets.

ULA on the other hand, does not currently reuse rockets. However, they have said that they might be interested in developing a reusable one. ULA and SpaceX are not really in the same category when it comes to orbital launches. Yes, they both fly some similar payloads but when it comes down to it, ULA is much more reliable. It's likely that ULA will continue to market itself as the most reliable launch provider and continue to charge a premium for their service. After all, the Atlas has a huge service history and has been very reliable.

ULA's plan is to reuse the engines, as far as I'm aware.

[kerbinorbiter]

yay telemetry 

[Racescort666]

3 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

ULA's plan is to reuse the engines, as far as I'm aware.

I know that ULA wants to make reusable upper stage engines. Or rather, long duration upper stages. They have talked about building space tugs and are working on what's required to do that.

[kerbinorbiter]

thats the engine, not the satilites

[TheEpicSquared]

Mission success!  

[CatastrophicFailure]

I'm out of likes for the day, so here's, um...

a tardigrade. 

They can live in space. 

[kerbinorbiter]

@Snark ^

TOTALY USELESS POST JUST TO LET @Snark KNOW

Edited June 25, 2017 by kerbinorbiter

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Steel said:

I agree with the sentiment of your post entirely

My one question is thus: Have SpaceX actually made any notable advances that need to be shared in order for other companies to be able to reuse rockets? So they've done a lot of research on hypersonic engine restarts, station keeping barges and computer code to guide a rocket into a controlled landing; but it's not like any of the stuff that's actually enabled them to do what they do is top-secret patented technology. ULA and the like (the big boys) haven't got reusability because, until SpaceX actually demonstrated its possibility, there was no demand and so they didn't design for it. It's just a matter of time before other companies (my money would be on Blue Origin) start coming out with reusable launchers, and then slowly the big boys will grab onto the idea too. 

They probably have plenty of patents, but nothing who stop other from copy them. Powered landings and extended legs dates back too the first moon landing probes. Same with restartable engines. Grind fins has been used for bombs just as long. 

More so blue origin uses pretty much the same system without any complaints. As another Us company 

Yes both are partial idealistic in wanting to increase access to space. Not like Apple/Samsung who uses lawsuits as suppressive fire.

This launch killed my computer. PSU died while watching stream 

[Technical Ben]

2 hours ago, kerbinorbiter said:

that map looks weird

What mod is it?

[Spaceception]

18 minutes ago, Technical Ben said:

What mod is it?

Realism overhaul probably.

Also

 

Edited June 25, 2017 by Spaceception

[Bill Phil]

2 hours ago, Racescort666 said:

I know that ULA wants to make reusable upper stage engines. Or rather, long duration upper stages. They have talked about building space tugs and are working on what's required to do that.

I was referring to the BE4 first stage engines for Vulcan. ACES is more of an upper stage and space tug combined.

Edited June 25, 2017 by Bill Phil

[StrandedonEarth]

I was reading this spaceflightnow story  about the new grid fins, and this quote caught my attention:

Quote

Asked if the heavier fins need more hydraulic fluid to move, Musk responded: “They will, but the hydraulic system is closed loop, so no fluid lost. They do need more power and energy, but rocket has plenty of that.”

I remember that the first attempted recovery of an F9 stage failed because it ran out of fluid in the open-loop hydraulic system, and their solution was to add more fluid for the next flights. Good to see they now have a more robust closed-loop system. Makes turnaround quicker as well.

[CatastrophicFailure]

19 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

I was reading this spaceflightnow story  about the new grid fins, and this quote caught my attention:

I remember that the first attempted recovery of an F9 stage failed because it ran out of fluid in the open-loop hydraulic system, and their solution was to add more fluid for the next flights. Good to see they now have a more robust closed-loop system. Makes turnaround quicker as well.

The deployment looked a lot smoother as well. Before they sorta popped half-open then snapped into place. This looked slow and controlled.

Also, still out of likes, so here's a... thing. 

[StrandedonEarth]

Just now, CatastrophicFailure said:

Also, still out of likes, so here's a... thing. 

It's called a Thrint, and that friendly little guy is Kzanol. (World of Ptaavs, - Larry Niven)

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

6 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

[...]

So, who's next? Are there any feasible means by which SpaceX's advancements could be shared with other launch providers? E.g., do they have patents that will expire? Could the government buy some of their IP and make it public domain? Or will ULA have to re-invent their own reuse from scratch?

SpaceX doesn't patent anything they do. 

http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-patents-2012-11

[StupidAndy]

here's...something related to the topic, we're talking about...

[sevenperforce]

I thought it was particularly neat that on this particular landing, they used a boostback not to RTLS, but to target a different ASDS location because they had to change the ASDS placement due to weather.

That's incredible.

[CatastrophicFailure]

35 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

I thought it was particularly neat that on this particular landing, they used a boostback not to RTLS, but to target a different ASDS location because they had to change the ASDS placement due to weather.

That's incredible.

Well, they can't do RTLS @ Vandenburg cuz there's no landing pad. But yeah, it's pretty cool that they can make such a significant change to the planned profile "on the fly" like that. 

[sevenperforce]

25 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Well, they can't do RTLS @ Vandenburg cuz there's no landing pad. But yeah, it's pretty cool that they can make such a significant change to the planned profile "on the fly" like that. 

Right, that's what I meant.

The Vandy landing pad is under construction and will be ready quite soon. Then again, the Block 3 booster + Block 4 US combo doesn't have margin for an RTLS with Iridium constellation launches anyway.

[CatastrophicFailure]

19 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Right, that's what I meant.

The Vandy landing pad is under construction and will be ready quite soon. Then again, the Block 3 booster + Block 4 US combo doesn't have margin for an RTLS with Iridium constellation launches anyway.

Oh, yay, I can like again.  Where'd you learn that? I thought it could RTLS from any LEO flight. 

[KSK]

9 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

So, who's next? Are there any feasible means by which SpaceX's advancements could be shared with other launch providers? E.g., do they have patents that will expire? Could the government buy some of their IP and make it public domain? Or will ULA have to re-invent their own reuse from scratch?

Huh - just goes to show you should always double check these things. I too thought that SpaceX chose not to patent their stuff on the basis that patents are published and they didn't see any point in letting their competitors see exactly what they were up to. However, they do have one:

US 7503511, granted in 2009 for 'A pintle injector tip with active cooling.' Inventor (you'll be astonishd to hear) one Thomas J Mueller.

Mind, that's from a very quick and dirty patent search for anything owned by a company with 'Space' and 'Exploration' in its name. Conceivably, SpaceX IP might be hived off into a holding company that we know nothing about. More speculatively, since I'm not so familiar with US patent legislation, SpaceX might be limited as to what they can patent for ITAR and/or national security reasons.

Regarding the government buying up SpaceX IP and making it public domain. Even if there was any IP to buy, I'm not sure if or why they would. I don't think any SpaceX technologies were developed under an academic grant of any kind, so Bayh-Dole presumably won't be a factor. I'm unsure what provisions there are for compulsory licensing in US patent law but given that SpaceX do have at least one, very large, competitor, I can't immediately see any justification for a compulsory license anyway.  I'm not sure how the contracts with NASA were set up in respect of IP but I'd be surprised if NASA get to own any IP developed under those contracts. I'm arguing (weakly) by analogy here but @HebaruSan's comment could just as well have applied to ULA back in the day but I haven't heard of any ULA owned IP being forcibly shared with other launch providers. Although whether anyone would hear about that apart from the launch providers, is a good question.

In reality though, I suspect a lot of SpaceX's succes comes from company culture and deliberate design decisions prioritising commonality of components and cost, rather than absolute bleeding edge performance. Not the kind of stuff that you could realistically patent anyway but stuff that's also rather hard to copy, especially if you're a large established company with your own way of doing things.

So I'm thinking that ULA will indeed have to re-invent their reuse from scratch. I'm sure they can do it if they put their mind to it - I can't imagine that SpaceX have a monopoly on innovation and talented engineers - it's just that they've had rather more incentive. Well ULA have plenty of incentive now.

 

[KSK]

12 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

I'm out of likes for the day, so here's, um...

a tardigrade. 

They can live in space. 

Sooo - is a tardigrade burn one that was too late to have the desired effect?

[sevenperforce]

5 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Oh, yay, I can like again.  Where'd you learn that? I thought it could RTLS from any LEO flight. 

Falcon 9 definitely can't pull RTLS for any LEO flight. If you'll recall, the very first booster to be reflown was from a CRS mission, and it landed on OCISLY. I don't know the exact number, but I think it's somewhere around 7 tonnes to LEO; anything below that can reserve enough propellant for RTLS; anything above that needs an ASDS. An Iridium constellation launch weighs in at 9.6 tonnes. Also, the Iridium sats go a bit higher than most LEO payloads, and the polar inclination doesn't help.