BFR concepts and ideas thread.

[NSEP]

I thought this topic deserved its own thread, since it was overflowing the SpaceX discussion thread a bit.

This thread is solely for the purpose of sharing and discussing ideas for the BFR launch vehicle/spacecraft.

[adsii1970]

What's a BFR?

[NSEP]

12 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

What's a BFR?

Big Falcon Rocket.

Elon Musk's next reusable rocket. 9 meters in diameter and 106(+) meters tall. BFR can send approximately 150t to LEO in its fully reusable configuration. BFR is rapidly reusable, meaning that it can be reused with minor refurbishment, cutting down the cost drastically, Elon Musk says the BFR would cost 5-7 million dollars per launch, but even if the launch cost would go up to, say 150 million dollars, the cost per KG would still be quite low. The BFS, (Big Falcon Spaceship) is the interesting bit, because not only is the BFS a reusable upper stage, it can also land on the Moon, Mars and celestial bodies beyond that.

The BFR could thus serve as a great testing bed for many different spaceflight technologies.

[adsii1970]

7 minutes ago, NSEP said:

Big Falcon Rocket.

Elon Musk's next reusable rocket. 9 meters in diameter and 106(+) meters tall. BFR can send approximately 150t to LEO in its fully reusable configuration. BFR is rapidly reusable, meaning that it can be reused with minor refurbishment, cutting down the cost drastically, Elon Musk says the BFR would cost 5-7 million dollars per launch, but even if the launch cost would go up to, say 150 million dollars, the cost per KG would still be quite low. The BFS, (Big Falcon Spaceship) is the interesting bit, because not only is the BFS a reusable upper stage, it can also land on the Moon, Mars and celestial bodies beyond that.

The BFR could thus serve as a great testing bed for many different spaceflight technologies.

So, in other words BFR could mean "big freaking rocket"

[Spaceception]

1 minute ago, adsii1970 said:

So, in other words BFR could mean "big freaking rocket"

The "official" code name is Big F-ing Rocket, but that's not forum appropriate  

[NSEP]

20 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

The "official" code name is Big F-ing Rocket, but that's not forum appropriate  

Indeed, gotta keep it family friendly here.

Anyways, this is an idea from forum user @Wjolcz

Quote

What if they had the payload in 'cages' of sorts. So you take the payload and it stands in that 'cage' in a warehouse for a couple of days, then when BFS lands you just open its cargo bay, take the empty 'cage' from the previous flight and load in a new one? Wouldn't that solve the issue of payload integration?

I'm not sure what to call the cage thing. I'll search the internet for something like it.

Edit: Ok so I guess I could also call it an evolved payload adapter or something like that. Basically anything that holds the payload and can be attached to the inside of the cargo bay in hours.

 

[Shpaget]

As long as it doesn't become Big Fantasy Rocket.

[Bill Phil]

Also, if it flies, it'll be the first dropship, according to Battletech's definition...

It sounds a lot like the Shuttle's promises. But if it can deliver...

Edited May 2, 2018 by Bill Phil

[sh1pman]

45 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

But if it can deliver...

If it can’t, others will. There’s more than one rocket company led by a billionaire aspiring for space colonization.

[magnemoe]

9 hours ago, Spaceception said:

The "official" code name is Big F-ing Rocket, but that's not forum appropriate  

This is not official but extremely probably, name comes from BFG in the Doom game(s) as Big F-ing Gun

However it will be the Big Falcon Rocket official 

[magnemoe]

9 hours ago, NSEP said:

Indeed, gotta keep it family friendly here.

Anyways, this is an idea from forum user @Wjolcz

What if they had the payload in 'cages' of sorts. So you take the payload and it stands in that 'cage' in a warehouse for a couple of days, then when BFS lands you just open its cargo bay, take the empty 'cage' from the previous flight and load in a new one? Wouldn't that solve the issue of payload integration?

I'm not sure what to call the cage thing. I'll search the internet for something like it.

Edit: Ok so I guess I could also call it an evolved payload adapter or something like that. Basically anything that holds the payload and can be attached to the inside of the cargo bay in hours.

That makes perfect sense, not only does it speed up reload of payload it will also let you reload on pad without clean room environment as you mount payload into container at satellite production site You can easy see different sized containers being stacked for missions. 

[Scotius]

Deep space exploration vessel - a BFR equipped with KRUSTY-derived lightweight nuclear reactor

Then it could become reality.

Another idea i have is a sort-of transfer stage for BFR. A tanker BFR modified to mate with another BFR in LEO. Then it would use its fuel to push the outgoing vessel almost to escape velocity, decouple and return to Earth for refuelling - while second BFR would complete rest of the burn still saving a lot of the fuel. Heck, even booster stage would do the same, provided it could be refuelled in orbit with tanker BFR's.

[Nibb31]

The "cage" thing used on the Shuttle was called a payload cradle. Their purpose was to add payload-specific attachment points for various SpaceLab configurations, pallets, satellites, and all sorts of cargo. You still need to integrate the payload with the cradle, then the cradle with the launch vehicle.

Payload integration covers a lots of things: physical mating, fueling the payload (usually hydrazine), connecting fluid and power and data umbilicals to the launch vehicle, checking for leaks, testing the interfaces, final testing of the payload, etc...

Sure, you can cut corners, but there are reasons for it to be a long process and the engineers who design these procedures aren't idiots. So is cutting They are already under huge pressure to streamline operations as much as possible.

Cutting hydrazine fueling procedures, leakage checks, or preflight tests would be a recipe for disaster.

Edited May 3, 2018 by Nibb31

[Wjolcz]

38 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

The "cage" thing used on the Shuttle was called a payload cradle. Their purpose was to add payload-specific attachment points for various SpaceLab configurations, pallets, satellites, and all sorts of cargo. You still need to integrate the payload with the pallet, then the pallet with the launch vehicle.

Payload integration covers a lots of things: physical mating, fueling the payload (usually hydrazine), connecting fluid and power and data umbilicals to the launch vehicle, checking for leaks, testing the interfaces, final testing of the payload, etc...

Sure, you can cut corners, but there are reasons for it to be a long process and the engineers who design these procedures aren't idiots. They are already under huge pressure to streamline operations as much as possible.

Is it this thing?

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

The "cage" thing used on the Shuttle was called a payload cradle. Their purpose was to add payload-specific attachment points for various SpaceLab configurations, pallets, satellites, and all sorts of cargo. You still need to integrate the payload with the pallet, then the pallet with the launch vehicle.

Payload integration covers a lots of things: physical mating, fueling the payload (usually hydrazine), connecting fluid and power and data umbilicals to the launch vehicle, checking for leaks, testing the interfaces, final testing of the payload, etc...

Sure, you can cut corners, but there are reasons for it to be a long process and the engineers who design these procedures aren't idiots. They are already under huge pressure to streamline operations as much as possible.

I agree, however the BFR has some special issues, one is that for the cargo bay to be in clean room environment who lots of payloads require you need an inner fairing or container anyway as the upper stage will be dirty after reentry. Falcon 9 fairings arrive to vab in fairing, work will be similar to mating that to upper stage, SpaceX think about integrating fairing on pad so they dont have to lay statelite sideways during transport to pad. 
It would make sense to use multiple containers for multiple satellites 
 

[sevenperforce]

11 hours ago, sh1pman said:

There’s more than one rocket company led by a billionaire aspiring for space colonization.

And that is a beautiful thing.

5 hours ago, Scotius said:

Another idea i have is a sort-of transfer stage for BFR. A tanker BFR modified to mate with another BFR in LEO. Then it would use its fuel to push the outgoing vessel almost to escape velocity, decouple and return to Earth for refuelling - while second BFR would complete rest of the burn still saving a lot of the fuel. Heck, even booster stage would do the same, provided it could be refuelled in orbit with tanker BFR's.

Actually, they can do this without modifications. The tanker and the outgoing vessel are both fully-fueled in orbit, and then they both burn almost to escape velocity, separately. Now in parallel trajectory, they mate and the tanker transfers its residuals to the outgoing vessel before decoupling. The tanker returns with high-energy entry from an eccentric orbit; the outgoing vessel completes the burn.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

BFR (Big Falc'ing Rocket) would land on BFB (Big Falc'ing Barge).
Then pax can go by BFT-1 (Big Falc'ing Tesla) to a BFT-2 station (Boring Falc'ing Train).

BFS (Big Falc'ing Ship) will be shuttling to FLB (Falc'ing Lunar Base).

 

[NSEP]

Does anyone here know the dimensions of the BFR payload bay? Or even better, has a CAD file of the payload bay, if so, i might go on a payload designing frenzy.

[NSEP]

Here is some more info on the BFR, nothing new, just a recap.

 

[mikegarrison]

LOL at you guys reinventing containerized shipping.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_load_device

[kerbiloid]

They should also deliver this one.

Spoiler

 

Btw. Why BF(whatever) and spacesuits in this animation are white?
They would be brown as covered with sticky moon dust. That rover's wheels on the orad will take care about that.
And how are they brooming the landing pad and the road?

Edited May 4, 2018 by kerbiloid

[wumpus]

On 5/3/2018 at 3:26 AM, Nibb31 said:

The "cage" thing used on the Shuttle was called a payload cradle. Their purpose was to add payload-specific attachment points for various SpaceLab configurations, pallets, satellites, and all sorts of cargo. You still need to integrate the payload with the cradle, then the cradle with the launch vehicle.

Payload integration covers a lots of things: physical mating, fueling the payload (usually hydrazine), connecting fluid and power and data umbilicals to the launch vehicle, checking for leaks, testing the interfaces, final testing of the payload, etc...

Sure, you can cut corners, but there are reasons for it to be a long process and the engineers who design these procedures aren't idiots. So is cutting They are already under huge pressure to streamline operations as much as possible.

Cutting hydrazine fueling procedures, leakage checks, or preflight tests would be a recipe for disaster.

I'd hope that modern reusable rockets could at least improve payload integration beyond shuttle procedures.  Customer side isn't going to change, and will only get cheaper with cheaper spacecraft that are considered more expendable (still require considerable testing to avoid damaging the booster).  Spacex (or whoever else is launching the thing) will still need to integrate the payload cradle.  Hopefully payload cradle integration will be sufficiently routine to become cheaper.

Integrating the payload into the payload cradle tends to be a one-off thing, and thus expensive.  Maybe for something like starlink they will be able to reduce costs after the first 20 or so birds are up.

One thing that might drastically change these costs is "green hypergolics".  Personally, while I think Proton levels of hypergolics are a disaster (as well as dropping spent hypergolic tanks on villages), the problems with hypergolics in payloads is one of cost and safety, and "green" isn't an issue.  Just seeing something better than "three fours" on the old safety diamond would be an improvement for hypergolics, and should greatly improve payload integration (can you even check CoM when you know you aren't going to load fuel until everything else is done?).

Once you have reusable rockets, you still have plenty of launch costs and payload integration costs.  According to the infallible wiki, the DC-X crew that makes up the core of Blue Origin performed miracles in reducing launch costs.  But as far as I know, DC-X never had to deal with payload integration.

Finally, I think this whole thing makes plenty of assumptions that have been handed down from years of Military Industrial Complex procedures and custom everything.  One thing Spacex needs (along with BFR) is some kind of standardized payload: I'll at least give them the start of an acronym: SOPWITH (Standard Orbiting Platform With Integrated Technology).  Making the thing big and heavy isn't so much a problem (it will only make it uneconomical on anything but BFR and Falcon Heavy), but easily designed, built, and integrated.  Put in whatever is in all satellites (full power and cooling systems, possibly with overkill on the computing side [should be reasonably cheap to built highly redundant systems), and have it ready to hang on whatever sensors and antennae are needed (one model might include a "standard dish").

If you've vastly reduced lifting costs, the idea is to make everything else a lifting cost.  You probably can't even make integrating  your SOPWITH into the rocket too cheap (although I'd assume the payload cradle is built into the chassis), but it should be wildly better than a one-off bird.

[NSEP]

I just thought of this. With the low cost of the BFR, someone could just say 'screw it' and launch an EM drive into space to see if it works not, or launch a camera cubesat to the Moon to see if the the Moon landings were faked or not, just to end those flamewars. Even if the EM-drive doesn't work and the Moon landings are real, like expected, you still made an amazing breakthrough in flamewars.

Edited May 6, 2018 by NSEP

[sevenperforce]

11 minutes ago, NSEP said:

I just thought of this. With the low cost of the BFR, someone could just say 'screw it' and launch an EM drive into space to see if it works not, or launch a camera cubesat to the Moon to see if the the Moon landings were faked or not, just to end those flamewars. Even if the EM-drive doesn't work and the Moon landings are real, like expected, you still made an amazing breakthrough in flamewars.

Your optimism is refreshing but, I fear, misplaced.

Moon landing deniers would just say that the camera cubesat footage is faked.

Em-drive proponents would insist that some minute detail of the test was improper and THAT'S why it didn't work.

 

[NSEP]

46 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Moon landing deniers would just say that the camera cubesat footage is faked.

Then we let the Moon Landing deniers do it themselves. Give them 500,000 dollars to build the cubesat, and 1 million if they succeed on photographing the Moon. And 500,000 dollars extra if they don't see anything on the surface.

There also needs to be a person checking if they aren't photoshopping the images, if they are, then let them pay 2 million back.

Edited May 6, 2018 by NSEP