totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[cubinator]

18 minutes ago, Scotius said:

That's a sleek looking piece of equipment. It will fit well with BFRs

Well, that one won't. It's too small.

[Scotius]

Undoubtly. But modern look, color theme that fits both Dragon and BFR? I'm fairly certain it is a prototype (or a first in a series of prototypes) that will lead to something we will one day see attached to the side of a BFR. And it will be glorious

[CatastrophicFailure]

@tater‘s right. They totally need to sheath the FSS to match now. We should start a petition or something. 

[StrandedonEarth]

56 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

That looks......very 21st-century.

So who designed it, Buck Rogers?

 

Edited August 16, 2018 by StrandedonEarth

[tater]

13 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

@tater‘s right. They totally need to sheath the FSS to match now. We should start a petition or something. 

Pretty sure all the SpaceX animations taking place arbitrarily in the future have the FSS covered.

[CatastrophicFailure]

2 minutes ago, tater said:

Pretty sure all the SpaceX animations taking place arbitrarily in the future have the FSS covered.

They also show the Dragon doing powered landings, so... 

[sevenperforce]

It occurred to me that I had not re-run the calculations using Block 5's enhanced capabilities. We saw Block 5 deliver a 7.075-tonne payload to GTO. Assuming this was a nominal transfer orbit with typical inclination, this predicts the following capabilities for Block 5 with droneship recovery:

• Low earth orbit: 22.76 tonnes
• Geostationary transfer orbit: 7.08 tonnes
• Lunar transfer orbit: 6.57 tonnes
• Earth escape orbit: 5.04 tonnes
• Venus transfer orbit: 4.27 tonnes
• Geostationary earth orbit: 3.29 tonnes
• Mars transfer orbit: 2.98 tonnes

Again, that's with droneship recovery.

Edited August 16, 2018 by sevenperforce

[NSEP]

2 hours ago, tater said:

 

First they turn a crew capsule into a sports, car, then they turn the launch acces tower into a lounge, i wonder what is next. Will they berth a Sauna Module to the ISS or something?

I like SpaceX's attempt to put everyone else to shame. I think it worked. 

1 extra good boy point for Elon Musk.

[ment18]

36 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

It occurred to me that I had not re-run the calculations using Block 5's enhanced capabilities. We saw Block 5 deliver a 7.075-tonne payload to GTO. Assuming this was a nominal transfer orbit with typical inclination, this predicts the following capabilities for Block 5 with droneship recovery:

• Low earth orbit: 22.76 tonnes
• Geostationary transfer orbit: 7.08 tonnes
• Lunar transfer orbit: 6.57 tonnes
• Earth escape orbit: 5.04 tonnes
• Venus transfer orbit: 4.27 tonnes
• Geostationary earth orbit: 3.29 tonnes
• Mars transfer orbit: 2.98 tonnes

Again, that's with droneship recovery.

Unfortunately, it was GTO-2277.

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/launches/gto_performance

[sevenperforce]

12 minutes ago, ment18 said:

Unfortunately, it was GTO-2277.

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/launches/gto_performance

Ah, crap. Now I need to go in and manually check the transfer injection burn dV.

[sevenperforce]

26476 km/h at T+26:57
32403 km/h at T+27:39
dV of 1646 m/s

So it only burned 6.87 tonnes of propellant for the injection, meaning it burned 100.63 tonnes before SECO, meaning that MECO took place at LEO-6.44 km/s, way more than my earlier estimate of 5.5 km/s. Max payload to LEO is likely closer to 15.2 tonnes.

Had me excited there.

[Delay]

What are the capabilities of FH?

[tater]

8 minutes ago, Delay said:

What are the capabilities of FH?

Their website lists:

63,800kg to LEO

26,700kg to GTO

16,800 to Mars.

 

[Xd the great]

9 hours ago, tater said:

Their website lists:

63,800kg to LEO

26,700kg to GTO

16,800 to Mars.

 

But do note that these may be inaccurate since spaceX has a history of undermining their rockets flight capacity to try and achieve second stage reuseability.

Also, how is fairing catching going?

[sevenperforce]

5 hours ago, Xd the great said:

But do note that these may be inaccurate since spaceX has a history of undermining their rockets flight capacity to try and achieve second stage reuseability.

These number have not changed since before the Block 5 update. So those are Block 3/4 Falcon Heavy numbers.

5 hours ago, Xd the great said:

Also, how is fairing catching going?

They are practicing.

[DAL59]

Could FH send an orbiter to Pluto?

[Xd the great]

34 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

These number have not changed since before the Block 5 update. So those are Block 3/4 Falcon Heavy numbers.

They are practicing.

So theorectically block 5 FH can put about 8% more stuff in space?

I really wanna strap an elon on one of these.

[Spaceception]

21 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Could FH send an orbiter to Pluto?

Technically yeah. Working off the top of my head, I think it can be several times larger than New Horizons. Let me check, and I'll edit this....

 

According to their official page: https://www.spacex.com/falcon-heavy yes, they can. It says 3500 kg (7720 lb) to Pluto, and New Horizons was 478 kg (1054 lb), so FH could technically launch something over 7x heavier to Pluto.

Edited August 17, 2018 by Spaceception

[Xd the great]

10 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Could FH send an orbiter to Pluto?

Theorectically, with a ton of gravity assists and an ion engine, should be yes. But no idiot will do that, as it is currently flying outwards. Wait for 200 years.

[NSEP]

Falcon Heavy can send 64 tons fully expendable. The fully expendable version is unlikely to ever fly however, but they can do that if they wanted to.

Elon Musk said in his IAC 2017 presentation that Falcon Heavy can send 34 tons to LEO reusable, while others speculate it can only send around 26 tons to LEO reusable. Quite disappointing compared to the expendable launch cost, but considering its almost 10x cheaper than Delta 4 Heavy, its not too shabby.

We don't know the mass of the heatshielding re-entry gizmos, so we don't know how the payload mass will go down with second stage reuse.

Edited August 17, 2018 by NSEP

[Spaceception]

12 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

Technically yeah. Working off the top of my head, I think it can be several times larger than New Horizons. Let me check, and I'll edit this....

 

According to their official page: https://www.spacex.com/falcon-heavy yes, they can. It says 3500 kg (7720 lb) to Pluto, and New Horizons was 478 kg (1054 lb), so FH could technically launch something over 7x heavier to Pluto.

OH, and I don't know if that would be reusable mode, or expendable mode. I think it would be towards expendable, but someone more knowledgeable will have to make the calculations

Edited August 17, 2018 by Spaceception

[sevenperforce]

25 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Could FH send an orbiter to Pluto?

Easily.

I mean, as easily as such a thing can be done.

4 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

OH, and I don't know if that would be reusable mode, or expendable mode. I'm leaning towards expendable, but someone more knowledgeable will have to make the calculations

Block 4 FH can deliver 3500 kg on a Pluto flyby at solar periapse, flying fully expendable. Block 5 FH can probably deliver a little more (but not much).

Flying partially reusable or trying to hit Pluto on its way toward solar apoapse would lower the payload significantly.

[NSEP]

20 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Could FH send an orbiter to Pluto?

Yes! The payload to Pluto mass is 3,500kg, wich is quite alot for a space probe. You can probably also send a small lander and rover to Pluto with that kind of payload mass.

[Spaceception]

4 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Block 4 FH can deliver 3500 kg on a Pluto flyby at solar periapse, flying fully expendable. Block 5 FH can probably deliver a little more (but not much).

Flying partially reusable or trying to hit Pluto on its way toward solar apoapse would lower the payload significantly.

1

That's what I thought too, but I wasn't sure, thanks

[sevenperforce]

31 minutes ago, NSEP said:

Yes! The payload to Pluto mass is 3,500kg, wich is quite alot for a space probe. You can probably also send a small lander and rover to Pluto with that kind of payload mass.

A rover might be asking for a bit much.

There are decent transfer windows to Pluto (using a Jovian assist) every 12 years, with three of those in succession being "ideal" every 200 years. There are passable orbital transfers every 30 years using a Saturn assist if you miss the Jovian assist. You can do an inefficient Pluto transfer once every year, if you have dV to burn.

A Falcon Heavy Plutonian orbiter mission would use a fully-expendable Block 5 Falcon Heavy carrying an ion kick stage, with hydrazine monoprop for desaturation and orbital insertion, and solar panels to run the ion kick stage early on and to run the reaction wheels and comms for the rest of the time. You'd need an RTG for redundancy, and you'd use Charon for a slight Oberth kick during the orbital insertion burn. I don't think you'd have enough mass for a lander.

If you want enough mass for a lander, then you'd need to put it up into an eccentric Earth orbit using a reusable Falcon Heavy and then you'd send up a hydrolox Earth departure stage separately on a New Glenn, Atlas V, or Vulcan. That would give you the mass budget for a lander.

Even then a rover would be really, really pushing it.