SpaceX Tuesday...

[rxe]

Beati Dogu said:

Of course the ‘one shot to get it right’ approach still has merit, as the recent Mars lander has shown. But it’s also eye wateringly expensive and only really something government level deficit spending can allow.

I think "one shot to get it right" is valid when you're doing something absolutely at the edge of human capability. Musk isn't really doing cutting edge science here, he's applying cutting edge engineering to well known science. Launching 16 storey buildings is old hat: NASA did that in the 1960s. Each one was absurdly expensive, and the achievement was getting it off the ground at all, not reducing the cost of operation.

SpaceX know damn well how to get the Moon (and Mars). Their experimentation is more about doing it cheaply than anything else. So the best thing for them to do is to knock out cheap rockets and test them, if they break, there's another in the shed. This gives them the advantage of having loads of resource up there - doesn't really matter if one bit breaks down, there's another able to take over.

[annodomini2]

rxe said:

Beati Dogu said:

...

I think "one shot to get it right" is valid when you're doing something absolutely at the edge of human capability. doing stuff where public opinion matters

See above

[MartG]

[Beati Dogu]

The law of unintended consequences strikes again. They introduced helium pressurisation to solve one problem and likely ended up causing another. Still, that’s what flight tests are for. It’ll be interesting to hear how they solve it.

They’ve also been individually testing each of the legs this time as well, to make sure they’ll drop and lock out this time. 3 of the 6 legs were flapping uselessly on the last flight.

It touched down too fast for them anyway - 10 meters per second according to Elon - about 22 mph. Part of the skirt took the impact and even if it hadn’t subsequently blow up, it doubt it was ever likely to fly again.

[Beati Dogu]

The last Starlink-17 Falcon 9 booster is back in port today after its 8th flight. They had some problems with the landing ship’s tow chain breaking on the way back.

Another Starlink Falcon-9 is due to launch tonight at 2.58 am UK time. This will be the booster’s 6th flight. The booster is B1058, which still sports the NASA logo after it launched Bob & Doug to the ISS last May.

If successful that’ll be 1,203 Starlink sats they’ve launched, although not all are still up there of course.

[MartG]

Delayed to Thursday

"SpaceX has called off tonight's launch attempt to take "some additional time for pre-launch checks," the company tweeted. The new target launch time for the Falcon 9 rocket is 3:13 a.m. EST (0813 GMT) Thursday.

The shift of more than five hours in the launch time suggests SpaceX will target a different orbital plane in the Starlink network than initially planned for tonight's launch attempt."

[annodomini2]

Beati Dogu said:

The law of unintended consequences strikes again. They introduced helium pressurisation to solve one problem and likely ended up causing another. Still, that’s what flight tests are for. It’ll be interesting to hear how they solve it.

They’ve also been individually testing each of the legs this time as well, to make sure they’ll drop and lock out this time. 3 of the 6 legs were flapping uselessly on the last flight.

It touched down too fast for them anyway - 10 meters per second according to Elon - about 22 mph. Part of the skirt took the impact and even if it hadn’t subsequently blow up, it doubt it was ever likely to fly again.

[GTO-3R]

Eharding was this your tweet on the SpaceX feed this morning?

[MartG]

Starlink L20 went off OK

[Smiljan]

MartG said:

Starlink L20 went off OK

Certainly did, 76 times they've nailed the landing now. This job is like the forth bridge though, those starlinks have a life of approx 5 years+ so by the time they've got the required amount up there, they'll start losing some and they'll have to send more.

There were plans to recover the 2nd stage too but I hadn't noticed they've completely ditched that idea now as it's too expensive. I guess they just burn up eventually. I wonder if any big chunks ever make it to land or sea though?

[annodomini2]

Smiljan said:

...

There were plans to recover the 2nd stage too but I hadn't noticed they've completely ditched that idea now as it's too expensive. I guess they just burn up eventually. I wonder if any big chunks ever make it to land or sea though?

They replaced it with Starship

Which will be fully reusable when ready

[Beati Dogu]

For low Earth orbital launches like this, they'll deliberately bring the second stage down, usually over the southern Pacific Ocean. The most common aim point (not just for SpaceX) is the so called Point Nemo, the remotest area in the oceans there is. Most of the upper stage will disintegrate & burn up on reentry. Larger or more resilient parts like the engine and pressure vessels may survive for an ocean splashdown.

For higher orbital launches, it's not always possible to bring the upper stage back and they'll go into orbit themselves.

[Smiljan]

annodomini2 said:

They replaced it with Starship

Which will be fully reusable when ready

Will they stop using Falcon 9 when Starship is ready?

[Smiljan]

Beati Dogu said:

For low Earth orbital launches like this, they'll deliberately bring the second stage down, usually over the southern Pacific Ocean. The most common aim point (not just for SpaceX) is the so called Point Nemo, the remotest area in the oceans there is. Most of the upper stage will disintegrate & burn up on reentry. Larger or more resilient parts like the engine and pressure vessels may survive for an ocean splashdown.

For higher orbital launches, it's not always possible to bring the upper stage back and they'll go into orbit themselves.

Thanks, I’ve got an ESA podcast to listen to at some point about the numerous launches and how they manage debris returning to earth.

Reading some of the online stuff it depends on how much fuel they have spare as to whether a controlled de-orbit into the ocean happens or whether it’s just left to decay and gradually be burnt up in the atmosphere.

[xeny]

Smiljan said:

Will they stop using Falcon 9 when Starship is ready?

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship:

wikipedia said:

SpaceX intends to eventually replace its existing Falcon 9 and SpaceX Dragon 2 fleet with Starship

there are numerous citations present at the link.

[Smiljan]

Thanks

[RizzoTheRat]

Presumably they sell Falcon 9 flights some way in to the future, as people build thier payload specific to the launch vehicle, so I suspect it will be a fair while before Falcon 9 gets phased out.

[CraigyMc]

RizzoTheRat said:

Presumably they sell Falcon 9 flights some way in to the future, as people build thier payload specific to the launch vehicle, so I suspect it will be a fair while before Falcon 9 gets phased out.

At the time of writing, this page shows the furthest out launch for F5 in 2025.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and...

[xeny]

CraigyMc said:

At the time of writing, this page shows the furthest out launch for F5 in 2025.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and...

If (and I acknowledge it is a big if) they get enough of the bugs out of Starship, I wonder about the life expectancy of the various gateway related missions.

[RizzoTheRat]

That list also includes an ISS "lifeboat" as part of the commercial crew programme. I'd have thought there'll always be a requirement for some kind of simple return vehicle rather than one as complex as Starship.