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  On 11/15/2018 at 8:59 PM, IncongruousGoat said:

Pretty darn close, yeah. It makes the whole "land the BFB on the launch clamps" thing seem not quite so impossible.

I guess if you spend several years landing dozens of rockets, you get pretty good at it.

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Is there any chance they're going to try it with a F9 first?

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  On 11/15/2018 at 9:02 PM, Spaceception said:

Is there any chance they're going to try it with a F9 first?

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No, for several reasons. First, the F9 launch clamps are actual clamps that hold the rocket from the side over the flame trench - it's not mechanically possible to land on them, and even if it were the strongback would get in the way. Second, however, the BFR's descent guidance is supposed to be more sophisticated than that of F9. It's likely that it'll have extra control authority that the F9 lacks, to allow it to land on the launch clamps.

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  On 11/15/2018 at 9:05 PM, IncongruousGoat said:

No, for several reasons. First, the F9 launch clamps are actual clamps that hold the rocket from the side over the flame trench - it's not mechanically possible to land on them, and even if it were the strongback would get in the way. Second, however, the BFR's descent guidance is supposed to be more sophisticated than that of F9. It's likely that it'll have extra control authority that the F9 lacks, to allow it to land on the launch clamps.

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Damn, okay. Here's hoping to more pad landings then.

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Huh. First SpaceX launch in the month of November, ever. That's interesting. Also (unless I'm forgetting something) that might makes this the first year in which SpaceX had at least one launch in every month, assuming the launch schedule holds.

Wonder how long it'll be till we get to one launch in each week...

Edited by IncongruousGoat
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  On 11/15/2018 at 9:20 PM, IncongruousGoat said:

Wonder how long it'll be till we get to one launch in each week...

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I think we'll need them flying their own Starlink missions for anything like that. They've cleared their backlog, so launch cadence is supposed to decrease a little (other than any internal launches they add for themselves).

Since Musk mentioned the BFS reentry testbed project launching in June, 2019, I assume that they will use Starlink as the payload. The changes in S2 might be nominal, but I'd imagine any change might spook paying customers until it is demonstrated as safe.

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  On 11/15/2018 at 9:24 PM, tater said:

I think we'll need them flying their own Starlink missions for anything like that. They've cleared their backlog, so launch cadence is supposed to decrease a little (other than any internal launches they add for themselves).

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You're much more optimistic than I am. I don't think Falcon 9 will ever get to those kinds of cadences, even with Starlink.

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  On 11/15/2018 at 9:31 PM, IncongruousGoat said:

You're much more optimistic than I am. I don't think Falcon 9 will ever get to those kinds of cadences, even with Starlink.

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I wasn't really clear. I said we'd need them to be doing that---I don't actually think they will, honestly. I think they'll start flying some Starlinks next year, however.

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