Falcon 9 first stage has successfully landed!

[Rakaydos]

Rocket balloons, or "Rockoons", are indeed a thing. Use more balloons to launch a bigger rocket- which is another thing the airship people are working on.

As for drag problems for the supersonic orbital airship, they're testing verious means of active drag cancelation.

[Nibb31]

When they have a stratospheric balloon capable of lifting 300 tons of propellant, let me know. Hint: they will need unobtainium to build a structure that big, which puts it way up there with the space elevator and the launch loop in the unrealistic megastructures category.

[Nibb31]

New test of the Falcon 9R, highest test yet.

That video is amazing. It looks like the landing leg frame got completely burnt up. If wonder if the actual folding legs burn like that and how that affects the quick turnaround capability. The folding ones would have hydraulics, covers, sensors and hinges that wouldn't really deal well with the heat.

It might explain why we didn't get to see any pictures of the CRS-3 first stage. melted landing legs don't make great PR.

Also lots of little fires in the grass around the pad. It's not clear whether they were caused during takeoff or started by flaming debris from the legs.

[Thiel]

I doubt it's going to be an issue. The legs caught fire during take-off. During a real launch they'd be folded away.

[R0cketC0der]

The reason why we didn't see pictures of the CRS-3 first stage is that they weren't able to recover it due to the weather.

I don't think the landing legs burning will be an issue, it's probably intended behavior. The exact same booster you saw in that video already flew once and the landing legs burnt in both flights. If it was a serious issue they'd try to fix it before testing it a second time.

[sojourner]

That video is amazing. It looks like the landing leg frame got completely burnt up. If wonder if the actual folding legs burn like that and how that affects the quick turnaround capability. The folding ones would have hydraulics, covers, sensors and hinges that wouldn't really deal well with the heat.

It might explain why we didn't get to see any pictures of the CRS-3 first stage. melted landing legs don't make great PR.

Also lots of little fires in the grass around the pad. It's not clear whether they were caused during takeoff or started by flaming debris from the legs.

!. Those are the actual flight legs.

2. In an actual flight profile the legs will see much less exposure to the exhaust as they will deploy only in the last 10 to 20 seconds of flight.

3. CRS-3 first stage was not recovered due to high seas. It sank. no pictures available.

[Yoha]

An edited version of second stage video, making it easier to understand:

(via https://pay.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/24gqet/space_x_landingedit_overlay/) Edited May 3, 2014 by Yoha

[mellojoe]

It might explain why we didn't get to see any pictures of the CRS-3 first stage. melted landing legs don't make great PR.

The reason why we didn't see pictures of the CRS-3 first stage is that they weren't able to recover it due to the weather.

Here:

FYI:

SpaceX released the video of the reusable booster with landing legs touching down in the ocean.

http://www.spacex.com/news/2014/04/29/first-stage-landing-video

They are asking for help, or offering up anyone with the hobby, to try to salvage and/or fix the video. The recording is just very poor, and its hard to make out anything. But somewhere there is a video guru waiting for a project. Hopefully one of you out there can have a little fun and do SpaceX a favor in the process.

It got buried in an earlier post, but we DO have video of CRS-3. See for yourself.

RAW:

REPAIRED:

[R0cketC0der]

Here:

It got buried in an earlier post, but we DO have video of CRS-3. See for yourself.

RAW:

REPAIRED:

I'm aware of that, but I think he meant pictures of a recovered stage.

[Rakaydos]

Strictly as a 1 shot vehical, ballon based first stage...

A 16' baloon has a lift capacity of 2.4 lbs when filled with 100 cubic feet of Helium, and costs 80 bucks

-Since this is a one shot vehical let's use hydrogen instead- cheaper and more effective, but instead or recalculating lifts, we'll just use the extra lift for carbon fiber trussing to link multiple balooons to one rig.

To lift 1 ton of rocket fuel, you would need ... just shy of 1000 baloons. ($80,000, plus carbon fiber trusswork and 100,000 cubic feet of hydrogen)

To list 100 tons of rocket fuel, you would need 100,000 baloons ($8 million, assuming no bulk discount, plus trusswork and 10 million cubic feet of hydrogn.)

Hydrogen is $42 for a cylender that holds 197 cubic feet- since we're overestimating the number of baloons, lets round the hydrogen up to 200 so that it's 1 tank per 2 baloons. That works to 50,000 tanks and $210,000.

Carbon fiber may be the biggest cost- a 20' x20' solid reinforced carbon carbon sheet (probably over kill, but lets highball things) costs $6,250, x100,000 baloons = 625 million, so that's the place to economise. (For starters, it doesnt need to be solid only trusswork, and it doesnt need to be Space shuttle-heat-shield quality, either)

Edited May 3, 2014 by Rakaydos

[StrandedonEarth]

The F9R stayed upright, so structural integrity was not compromised by what was probably paint burning on top of the heat shielding. At a guess i'd say the legs should be good for at least 2-3 landing before needing replacing/refurbishing, since they want to be rapidly reusable. It probably wouldn't take them long to swap out the legs anyways, and the actuators should be unaffected.

[sojourner]

The F9R stayed upright, so structural integrity was not compromised by what was probably paint burning on top of the heat shielding. At a guess i'd say the legs should be good for at least 2-3 landing before needing replacing/refurbishing, since they want to be rapidly reusable. It probably wouldn't take them long to swap out the legs anyways, and the actuators should be unaffected.

The legs are made from carbon fiber and aluminium. As stated in my previous post, they'll see much less abuse from engine exhaust when used for actual reuse flights since they only deploy about 20 seconds before landing. They'll last for a lot longer than 3 uses.

[Streetwind]

When the legs for this particular flight were attached to the rocket, it took them about a workday's worth of time, according to twitter - in a generic hangar hall, with personel that did this maybe a handful of times before, using experimental hardware.

Given a dedicated refurbishing facility and crew, as well as series production hardware, they can probably swap the legs in two or three hours of work. In fact, I'm fairly sure they'll make a point of swapping the legs after every flight. They're fully modular bolt-on devices, and instead of checking them on the rocket, it's easier to replace them with an intact set and then later check them separately. If they're okay, they can be swapped onto the next returning booster.

The Merlin engines will probably be pulled out and new ones slotted in as well. Even if they were designed to be capable of multiple flights (they might turn out to be, but they are not designed for it), you can't achieve a same-day turnaround time for refurbishing a booster stage if you have to check the engines in detail, while they're still mounted. Better swap in an intact set and check the old ones separately.

Edited May 3, 2014 by Streetwind

[R0cketC0der]

I don't see a reason why the Merlin engines shouldn't be reusable. They are definitely able to restart multiple times and they aren't damaged at the point of landing. Grasshopper had eight flights and I don't think they swapped the engine on it.

[sojourner]

When the legs for this particular flight were attached to the rocket, it took them about a workday's worth of time, according to twitter - in a generic hangar hall, with personel that did this maybe a handful of times before, using experimental hardware.

Given a dedicated refurbishing facility and crew, as well as series production hardware, they can probably swap the legs in two or three hours of work. In fact, I'm fairly sure they'll make a point of swapping the legs after every flight. They're fully modular bolt-on devices, and instead of checking them on the rocket, it's easier to replace them with an intact set and then later check them separately. If they're okay, they can be swapped onto the next returning booster.

The Merlin engines will probably be pulled out and new ones slotted in as well. Even if they were designed to be capable of multiple flights (they might turn out to be, but they are not designed for it), you can't achieve a same-day turnaround time for refurbishing a booster stage if you have to check the engines in detail, while they're still mounted. Better swap in an intact set and check the old ones separately.

The engines were explicitly designed for reuse. Swapping them out every flight would be more costly and time consuming than checkout and reuse. The whole idea of the F9 is "gas and go". The more parts you start swapping after each flight the further you get from that goal. If you have to refurbish the stage after every flight then you've just duplicated everything wrong with the space shuttle.