totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[Canopus]

18 minutes ago, PB666 said:

True or not True.

Dream Chaser will have a payload fairing.
 Centuar 2nd stage with an P&W RL10A engine
Atlas V with with 2 boosters
The boosters will be AJ60A.
The core will have __ RD 180 engines.

See nothing about Orion

 

Might have been a joke.

[CatastrophicFailure]

36 minutes ago, PB666 said:

So if the vehicle is unhealthy do they like call in a rocket doctor. Does he like stick a greasy latex covered Ford probe up a rocket engines and twist?
What kind of medication would you prescribe to an unhealthy rocket. Anti-depressants, appetite stimulant, or a shin splint?

Wouldn't save them alot of money to do the testing of the first stages at the assembly plant or recycling plant, then wrap the rocket in nice cushy reusable foam and ship it to the launch pad.

Wouldn't save them on the Pad test to have a dumb mass, something the same shape and mass that could be filled with water an then drained.

Seems awful expensive to do live fire tests on a full load of fuel when all you really need to do is fire for a few seconds just to make sure the engine got there safe.

 

They do test them in Texas, then again at the launch site. Remember, the goal here is rapid-reusability, maybe even 24-hour turnaround. Everything we're seeing here is a buildup to that. The new Block 5's shouldn't need any more refurbishing than an inspection, in practice there will probably be a static fire in there because that's simply what SpaceX does, and as Elon says, "fuel is cheap." 

Every time they go through a fueling/fire procedure, they get just a little better at the whole thing, probably with the aim of achieving professional pit-crew-like efficiency. Which will be a great help for smooth, rapid turnaround.

[softweir]

44 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Anti-depressants, appetite stimulant, or a shin splint?

You're forgetting the Bell, Book and Candle to drive out the demons of rocket-no-fly-right-itis!

[Bill Phil]

4 hours ago, PB666 said:

What does that mean?

Nuclear Pulse Propulsion. Earlier, @tater accidently wrote 9000 tons and not kg. "THAT ONE" is Project Orion.

3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

THAT ONE would carry Dyna Soar.
They are both from the same alternative reality.

I don't know if it would carry Dyna-Soar. Orion vehicles would have large crews if launched from the ground, X-20s aren't very useful for that. Unless there's yet another Orion.

[PB666]

57 minutes ago, softweir said:

You're forgetting the Bell, Book and Candle to drive out the demons of rocket-no-fly-right-itis!

you mean you-will-not-go-to-space-today-itis.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

28 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

I don't know if it would carry Dyna-Soar.

It definitely wouldn't carry Dream Chaser. But if it would carry a small spaceplane, that would be a Dyna Soar.
They are living in the same alternative reality.

 

[PB666]

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

They do test them in Texas, then again at the launch site. Remember, the goal here is rapid-reusability, maybe even 24-hour turnaround. Everything we're seeing here is a buildup to that. The new Block 5's shouldn't need any more refurbishing than an inspection, in practice there will probably be a static fire in there because that's simply what SpaceX does, and as Elon says, "fuel is cheap." 

Every time they go through a fueling/fire procedure, they get just a little better at the whole thing, probably with the aim of achieving professional pit-crew-like efficiency. Which will be a great help for smooth, rapid turnaround.

So, wait a second, are they going to have like some sort of like an assembly line with hanging rockets on hooks that roll out and plop on the launch pad.  How are they going to do this . . . .customer pulls up with a payload and a deposit, they put it on a rocket, the rocket then waits to next available launch window fires. . . . .as the smoke clears a new rocket flows of the belt, plops on launch pad, Crane pulls over second stage . . . . . . .

[StrandedonEarth]

44 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Nuclear Pulse Propulsion. Earlier, @tater accidently wrote 9000 tons and not kg. "THAT ONE" is Project Orion.

I don't know if it would carry Dyna-Soar. Orion vehicles would have large crews if launched from the ground, X-20s aren't very useful for that. Unless there's yet another Orion.

Project Orion could carry 4 or 6 Dyna-Soars, as well as its own crew section. If it was ever built in that alternate reality, that is. 

[StrandedonEarth]

28 minutes ago, PB666 said:

you mean you-will-not-go-to-space-today-itis.

Hopefully they will develop a vaccine against RUDS (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly Syndrome. 

[Racescort666]

4 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Project Orion could carry 4 or 6 Dyna-Soars, as well as its own crew section. If it was ever built in that alternate reality, that is. 

The first Battlestar. 

[CatastrophicFailure]

17 minutes ago, PB666 said:

So, wait a second, are they going to have like some sort of like an assembly line

That is, (more or less ) the goal: airline-like routine, safety, and efficiency. Demonstrating 24-hour turnaround doesn’t mean they’ll do so very often, only that they can. The USAF has been all about “rapid deployability” lately, a one day turnaround is pretty good bragging rights for SpaceX on that count, even if it’s rarely used. And of course, 24 hours or less is supposed to be the norm for ITS...

[Bill Phil]

1 hour ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Project Orion could carry 4 or 6 Dyna-Soars, as well as its own crew section. If it was ever built in that alternate reality, that is. 

Dyna Soar was only 4.5 tonnes and had just barely enough room for one crewman. It was designed for a different purpose than Dream Chaser. Maybe a scaled up vehicle could be used, but the X-20 was too small.

[StrandedonEarth]

1 hour ago, Bill Phil said:

Dyna Soar was only 4.5 tonnes and had just barely enough room for one crewman. It was designed for a different purpose than Dream Chaser. Maybe a scaled up vehicle could be used, but the X-20 was too small.

Which brings us back to...

2 hours ago, Racescort666 said:

The first Battlestar. 

Single-seater spacecraft, huh? Sounds like a Colonial Viper to me

[PB666]

2 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

That is, (more or less ) the goal: airline-like routine, safety, and efficiency. Demonstrating 24-hour turnaround doesn’t mean they’ll do so very often, only that they can. The USAF has been all about “rapid deployability” lately, a one day turnaround is pretty good bragging rights for SpaceX on that count, even if it’s rarely used. And of course, 24 hours or less is supposed to be the norm for ITS...

Here are the problems.

1. You land on OCISLU and you have to tow the core back to the facility. This is something like 200 to 300 nm down wind, either you take the barge back to port or you transfer it to a much more suitable vessel, like a light cruiser (20 knts of speed) and give the cool-down the hook up and the haul, 24 hours (minimum).
2. Next you then have to crane the core onto a carry that will hook it up to the line (6 to 12 hours)
3. Then you have to have a thorough inspection . . . . . .
4. Then you would need to plant the rocket onto the pad. (6 to 12 hours)

- Save time and money, just crane over a jig that can hold the same amount of added weight as the rocket but fits on top of stage 1, fill it with water, and release. You can make the jig out of carbon fiber so that it is easy to crane. Shape it like a half a donut with a inside rim to seat on the top of the rocket. when the test is done pump the water back into the tank.
-The water could be stored in a water tower and drained to a tanke mounted slightly below the tower and use solar power to pump water back into the tower. 
- Save money, just put a small amount of fuel in the engines and live fire them for 20 seconds.

5. Attach the second stage. (a day)
6. live fire test the engines again with small amount of fuel.
7. final fuel.

I think ambitiously we are talking about at least a working week.

 

 

[tater]

5 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Here are the problems.

1. You land on OCISLU and you have to tow the core back to the facility. This is something like 200 to 300 nm down wind, either you take the barge back to port or you transfer it to a much more suitable vessel, like a light cruiser (20 knts of speed) and give the cool-down the hook up and the haul, 24 hours (minimum).
2. Next you then have to crane the core onto a carry that will hook it up to the line (6 to 12 hours)
3. Then you have to have a thorough inspection . . . . . .
4. Then you would need to plant the rocket onto the pad. (6 to 12 hours)

- Save time and money, just crane over a jig that can hold the same amount of added weight as the rocket but fits on top of stage 1, fill it with water, and release. You can make the jig out of carbon fiber so that it is easy to crane. Shape it like a half a donut with a inside rim to seat on the top of the rocket. when the test is done pump the water back into the tank.
-The water could be stored in a water tower and drained to a tanke mounted slightly below the tower and use solar power to pump water back into the tower. 
- Save money, just put a small amount of fuel in the engines and live fire them for 20 seconds.

5. Attach the second stage. (a day)
6. live fire test the engines again with small amount of fuel.
7. final fuel.

I think ambitiously we are talking about at least a working week.

24 hours is about labor, not operations.

It has nothing at all to do with turning an actual booster around and reusing it in 24 hours for F9, though that might be aspirationally possible for an RTLS flight.

Inspection is the stripes on Sooty, looking at the welds. The rest is data analysis.

[CatastrophicFailure]

@PB666 You’re forgetting all the modifications to the upcoming Block 5 specifically to expedite reuse (among which is MOAR BOOSTERS POWER to reduce the need for barge landings).

@tater may have a point too about man-hours, tho that’s not the impression I got when it was announced. IIRC is was along the lines of “we want to demonstrate 24-hour turnaround in 2018.” I think it’ll be doable with the Block 5 and no static fire, but of limited utility for now. If the “inspection IS mostly data analysis, thats only going to get better and better (and faster) with each flight. 

[tater]

A 24 hour turn around is the turn around. For stage 1. Mating S2, etc is aside from that.

Operationally it doesn't matter. As long as they have more block 5 boosters in the hanger than they can launch in a single day, they could presumably launch in the time it takes to mate a S2 and go.

 

[softweir]

21 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Here are the problems.

*** snip ***

Good points, very relevant to GTO and other high dV launches where the booster can't make a RtLS!

Having said that, while one booster was away on a high-dV launch, another could manage two or three low-dV launches - if two-day or even one-day turnaround times become achievable. My impression has been that SpaceX do far more LEO launches than high ones, and I doubt that will change suddenly, so the high-dV launches will be something of a rarity, and less of a block on turnaround times.

[tater]

Full, rapid turn around is a BFR/BFS thing, not a Falcon thing. BFS needs rapid turn around for refilling ops. F9 will simply never need anything like that level of turn around, it's about economics, not operational turn around, since they already have more boosters than they know what to do with, and with block 5, this "problem" will increase. How many launches a day are people taking the 24 hours literally assuming SpaceX will be doing?

Edited January 3, 2018 by tater

[CatastrophicFailure]

18 minutes ago, tater said:

Full, rapid turn around is a BFR/BFS thing, not a Falcon thing. BFS needs rapid turn around for refilling ops. F9 will simply never need anything like that level of turn around, it's about economics, not operational turn around, since they already have more boosters than they know what to do with, and with block 5, this "problem" will increase. How many launches a day are people taking the 24 hours literally assuming SpaceX will be doing?

I don't see it as any kind of regular thing, if they pull it off. More like a demonstration of "hey, we really can do this!" If they can do it with the Falcon, they can do it with the BFR, and learn a whole lot about doing it in the process.

[Nightside]

On 12/30/2017 at 9:25 AM, sh1pman said:

Looks like there will be 4 SpaceX launches in January. Two on the same day even, if nothing is delayed.

Hey @sh1pman, I think my question got lost in the excitement about the Heavy, but it looks like your chart shows a legless Block 5 launch in February. Where did you find this chart (or did you make it)? 

The graphics appear to differentiate between landing and non landing launches, so it seems kind of strange that the Block 5 is shown without legs.

[sh1pman]

9 minutes ago, Nightside said:

Hey @sh1pman, I think my question got lost in the excitement about the Heavy, but it looks like your chart shows a legless Block 5 launch in February. Where did you find this chart (or did you make it)? 

The graphics appear to differentiate between landing and non landing launches, so it seems kind of strange that the Block 5 is shown without legs.

Friend sent it to me on Facebook. No idea why it’s shown without legs, I didn’t even notice it.

[tater]

That Hispasat is 6092 kg. To GTO.

That's expendable territory.

[PB666]

1 hour ago, tater said:

24 hours is about labor, not operations.

It has nothing at all to do with turning an actual booster around and reusing it in 24 hours for F9, though that might be aspirationally possible for an RTLS flight.

Inspection is the stripes on Sooty, looking at the welds. The rest is data analysis.

They don't land at 39A they land up to 2 miles away, they have to be craned on a truck, carried to the assembly facility, craned off the truck onto the facility. That takes time also.

[tater]

18 minutes ago, PB666 said:

They don't land at 39A they land up to 2 miles away, they have to be craned on a truck, carried to the assembly facility, craned off the truck onto the facility. That takes time also.

Yes, but the 24 hours is not about actually reusing the same booster for a new launch within 24 hours. While I would not put it past them to do that at some point just to say they did, there is no operational reality where that is required. Next year they might have 3 launches. That's a little more than one every 2 weeks.