Blue Origin thread.

[SpaceFace545]

1 minute ago, tater said:

before they are allowed to send one towards shore.

Are they not allowed to do this? I though they will just land New Glenn on a ship to save fuel.

[tater]

7 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

Are they not allowed to do this? I though they will just land New Glenn on a ship to save fuel.

Actually, they don't plan on RTLS at all for NG. I was thinking only of initial testing.

SpaceX landed at a point at sea, no barge for a while.

Then they put a barge at that spot, and crashed a few times.

Then, having shown the government that while the landings didn't work they always hit within a few m of the aim point, they were allowed to try sending one back to land (RTLS)—and landed.

Then then eventually landed at sea (1-2 flights later?).

My point is that a land landing is likely easier, and what BO has experience with now. Landing at sea will certainly be more challenging, though that is their operational plan for all landings.

If they were more like SpaceX I might expect them to bang out a landing pad on hydraulics, and have it move like the deck of a ship and try landing NS on it to validate their technique (which I think is a hover, slowly landing on the deck, but they need to watch the deck movement as they do so).

 

Edited May 21, 2021 by tater

[SpaceFace545]

6 minutes ago, tater said:

(which I think is a hover, slowly landing on the deck, but they need to watch the deck movement as they do so).

I think that is the landing technique with New Shephard aswell and this allows them to have more control on where they want to go rather than a suicide burn. This could also help with sea landings and just "wait" till the ship is in the right place. Instead of a barge they want to use a ship what seems better (more maneuverable and less susceptible to ocean swells) but having sailors on that ship while New Glenn lands might set off some trigger hairs at OSHA.

[tater]

23 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

I think that is the landing technique with New Shephard aswell and this allows them to have more control on where they want to go rather than a suicide burn. This could also help with sea landings and just "wait" till the ship is in the right place. Instead of a barge they want to use a ship what seems better (more maneuverable and less susceptible to ocean swells) but having sailors on that ship while New Glenn lands might set off some trigger hairs at OSHA.

The trick at sea is that the deck will always be moving—including pitch and roll.

Great if they can pull it off 100%, out of the gate.

[CatastrophicFailure]

45 minutes ago, tater said:

The trick at sea is that the deck will always be moving—including pitch and roll.

Great if they can pull it off 100%, out of the gate.

Isn’t this why they’re aiming for recovering the booster while the ship is underway? () Easier for stabilizers to keep the deck more, well, stable that way. 

[RCgothic]

Yes, BO are literally planning to try and hit a moving target.

[tater]

16 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Isn’t this why they’re aiming for recovering the booster while the ship is underway? () Easier for stabilizers to keep the deck more, well, stable that way. 

Yeah, should help with some aspects of stability, but moving doesn't mean it's dead flat.

On the plus side, like SpaceX they can not launch when the recovery sea states are awful.

 

[SpaceFace545]

Big ships have roll stabilizers but they also have gyroscopic stabilizers and active ballast tanks that can shift the weight around. I don't worry about keeping the ship stable and it should be a lot better than SpaceX's barge.

[SOXBLOX]

56 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

and it should be a lot better than SpaceX's barge.

Because obviously everything SpaceX does is terrible and stupid, and BO will do much better, simply because they are not SpaceX.

But seriously, is there any time when SpaceX's barge failed?

[SpaceFace545]

27 minutes ago, SOXBLOX said:

Because obviously everything SpaceX does is terrible and stupid, and BO will do much better, simply because they are not SpaceX.

But seriously, is there any time when SpaceX's barge failed?

I'm not saying that the barge failed or is bad, a ship is just innately better at keeping stable. It presents a smaller surface area to swells and can turn into the general direction of waves, thus being able to "cut" through them. Whereas a barge is just a flat plane at the whim of the ocean.

[tater]

3 hours ago, SpaceFace545 said:

Big ships have roll stabilizers but they also have gyroscopic stabilizers and active ballast tanks that can shift the weight around. I don't worry about keeping the ship stable and it should be a lot better than SpaceX's barge.

Yeah, moving the ship does have stability advantages. It makes the landing different, hence their hover requirement.

 

2 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

Because obviously everything SpaceX does is terrible and stupid, and BO will do much better, simply because they are not SpaceX.

But seriously, is there any time when SpaceX's barge failed?

He has a legit point. A flat barge with thrusters is not going to be as stable as a large ship underway.

SpaceX knows this, but their rocket allows for a fixed point landing and not one on a moving ship, so they do what they do.

The same base problem can have multiple solutions.

Edited May 22, 2021 by tater

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Regardless - I want BO to succeed so that we not only get more competition into the space 'space' - but also so that the increase in supply will drive an increase in demand 

With more actors getting involved at lower costs, we should see some pretty exciting and unexpected developments in the next decade 

[SpaceFace545]

I wonder how New Glenn will be “strapped” down. Spacex has that octagrabber thing but the ship seems like it would be crewed so maybe they’ll just have some ground crew to tie it down.

[tater]

24 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

I wonder how New Glenn will be “strapped” down. Spacex has that octagrabber thing but the ship seems like it would be crewed so maybe they’ll just have some ground crew to tie it down.

The one issue with the BO ship is can they possibly have crew aboard during landing ops? Early on? OSHA might have a problem with that, lol.

So you have a huge ship, steaming along by computer control, then the booster lands, then you need to send crew aboard to secure it. They likely need something like octograbber to secure it. If the higher freeboard results in more rolling if stopped, it seems like they must stay underway.

The idea that they must nail all this on the first, then every subsequent attempt seems... ambitious. To borrow from Musk, "aspirational."

A benefit of the F9 leg arrangement is that octograbber can get under it and still be quite large. This is simply not possible for NG with the smaller gap between legs.

Perhaps the narrower stance can result in a grabber that grabs the skirt above the legs from the side?

[Spaceman.Spiff]

5 minutes ago, tater said:

The one issue with the BO ship is can they possibly have crew aboard during landing ops? Early on? OSHA might have a problem with that, lol.

So you have a huge ship, steaming along by computer control, then the booster lands, then you need to send crew aboard to secure it. They likely need something like octograbber to secure it. If the higher freeboard results in more rolling if stopped, it seems like they must stay underway.

The idea that they must nail all this on the first, then every subsequent attempt seems... ambitious. To borrow from Musk, "aspirational."

A benefit of the F9 leg arrangement is that octograbber can get under it and still be quite large. This is simply not possible for NG with the smaller gap between legs.

Perhaps the narrower stance can result in a grabber that grabs the skirt above the legs from the side?

Maybe having multiple smaller grabbers?

[tater]

17 minutes ago, Spaceman.Spiff said:

Maybe having multiple smaller grabbers?

True, multiple small ones that are long and skinny, then they "dock" in the center somehow to make a star pattern with a wide footprint?

[CatastrophicFailure]

32 minutes ago, tater said:

The one issue with the BO ship is can they possibly have crew aboard during landing ops? Early on? OSHA might have a problem with that, lol.

I think they can. This is a converted cargo ship, after all, with basically no cargo. An empty post-flight booster weighs relatively little. So they should have plenty of mass budget for a crew bunker on the far end from where the landing will take place, maybe with a couple of oil rig-style lifeboats. Whether this would get past regulators, at least initially, is a whole other matter. 

[tater]

7 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

I think they can. This is a converted cargo ship, after all, with basically no cargo. An empty post-flight booster weighs relatively little. So they should have plenty of mass budget for a crew bunker on the far end from where the landing will take place, maybe with a couple of oil rig-style lifeboats. Whether this would get past regulators, at least initially, is a whole other matter. 

Under nominal conditions that result in a failure (engine out during hover, for example), the impact would not be that bad. I suppose they can have FTS RUD the thing if it was heading for a suicide burn type trajectory. Nominal would be hover to the side, then move over deck?

[CatastrophicFailure]

6 minutes ago, tater said:

Under nominal conditions that result in a failure (engine out during hover, for example), the impact would not be that bad. I suppose they can have FTS RUD the thing if it was heading for a suicide burn type trajectory. Nominal would be hover to the side, then move over deck?

I would think so. That ability to hover is a huge bonus, even abort into the sea away from the ship if something’s not right. I’m no engineer, but I would think when weight is essentially “no issue,” building a NG-proof bunker and hardening the ship overall is easier than robodroid hold downs. As you said, even a direct hit by nearly-empty booster wouldn’t be “that bad.”

[tater]

12 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

I would think so. That ability to hover is a huge bonus, even abort into the sea away from the ship if something’s not right. I’m no engineer, but I would think when weight is essentially “no issue,” building a NG-proof bunker and hardening the ship overall is easier than robodroid hold downs. As you said, even a direct hit by nearly-empty booster wouldn’t be “that bad.”

Suicide burns are clearly a different level of failure mode. "NG-punching" the ship at high velocity would be bad, but that's not really on the table.

It would be nice if this was a discussion with actual video of them landing... wonder what year that will be?

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Apologies in advance - but BO has actually been off my radar.  What do they have flying?  All I know is they have a big booster in development that got pushed back to the end of next year - and that they're watered off at SX 

[tater]

7 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Apologies in advance - but BO has actually been off my radar.  What do they have flying?  All I know is they have a big booster in development that got pushed back to the end of next year - and that they're watered off at SX 

They've been building a factory to produce NG (booster, stage 2, and fairing) near their launch site in FL. They've been getting the pad ready. They've been working on their landing ship.

They have some "pathfinders" built.

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

15 minutes ago, tater said:

would be nice if this was a discussion with actual video of them landing... wonder what year that will be?

Prolly a few months after SLS lands a core stage. 

8 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Apologies in advance - but BO has actually been off my radar.  What do they have flying?  All I know is they have a big booster in development that got pushed back to the end of next year - and that they're watered off at SX 

They have the New Shepherd suborbital tourist rocket/capsule, which will carry actual people any day now (just you wait!). And the New Glenn heavy lifter... of which all we’ve seen is a single fairing half and maybe a piece of a mock-up outside. For all we know, the whole thing could be sitting in the factory ready to go, but y’know, very step-by-step, much graditam... 

[RealKerbal3x]

3 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Prolly a few months after SLS lands a core stage. 

Well, technically they'll start doing that from the first launch, just not in one piece 

[SpaceFace545]

45 minutes ago, tater said:

Under nominal conditions that result in a failure (engine out during hover, for example), the impact would not be that bad. I suppose they can have FTS RUD the thing if it was heading for a suicide burn type trajectory. Nominal would be hover to the side, then move over deck?

I have seen multiple animations where New Glenn does exactly that, brakes to the side of the ship and then hover over the landing area. With securing the booster post landing maybe the landing pad can have special clamps or something. Then it can hover to its correct location.

5 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

They have the New Shepherd suborbital tourist rocket/capsule

Honestly New Shephard is a pretty good tourist rocket and better than virgin galactic’s “thingy” in terms of crew safety. It actually has an abort and isn’t strapped to an SRB ( I know it’s a hybrid rocket but still) like virgin galactic’s rocket plane is.