Launch News SpaceX Falcon 9 F3 COTS2+ Updates

[Mandella]

Whew. Congratulations to SpaceX and NASA! Let this be the first of many, many successes!

As for the celebration thing, I remember reading somewhere (maybe in Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff) about an Air Force officer watching the celebration at Houston when a mission spashed down successfully. He was horrified. To him, the whooping and hollering meant that these guys were actually surprised it worked. After all, the control tower doesn't have a party every time a plane lands....

 

[Codz]

Whew. Congratulations to SpaceX and NASA! Let this be the first of many, many successes!

As for the celebration thing, I remember reading somewhere (maybe in Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff) about an Air Force officer watching the celebration at Houston when a mission spashed down successfully. He was horrified. To him, the whooping and hollering meant that these guys were actually surprised it worked. After all, the control tower doesn't have a party every time a plane lands....

To be fair, launching and recovering a capsule is a little more difficult...:lol:

 

[FADEC]

Whew. Congratulations to SpaceX and NASA! Let this be the first of many, many successes!

As for the celebration thing, I remember reading somewhere (maybe in Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff) about an Air Force officer watching the celebration at Houston when a mission spashed down successfully. He was horrified. To him, the whooping and hollering meant that these guys were actually surprised it worked. After all, the control tower doesn't have a party every time a plane lands....

But you have to admit that a landing plane is something different than a spacecraft that splashes down into the ocean

Especially during the Apollo days. I think it wasn't a surprise that they all celebrated the early successes. Space flight was a very young "business", and especially flying to the Moon and return safely was risky. Lots of things could happen. And some things did happen, like Apollo 1, or Apollo 13, or the first stage engine shut downs etc...

 

[Mandella]

Oh certainly. And now I'm remembering it, I think the Air Force was still chapped off by having the space program jerked out from under them and given to a civilian agency. So more than a bit of sour grapes in that comment...

:lol:

 

[sorindafabico]

How do they manage to make this capsule reusable? I'm not doubting, but she probably needs more than a "repaint".

 

[FADEC]

How do they manage to make this capsule reusable? I'm not doubting, but she probably needs more than a "repaint".

They will have to replace the upper heat shield for sure. And certain other parts as well. Obviously it's not "100%" reusable like the Shuttle was. Or they are going to use a different material in future, like they intend to use the RCS for propulsive landing on Dragon 2.

 

[NovaSilisko]

Pretty sure the PICA-X shield can be used for dozens of times on reentry with only minor degradation.

And, the shuttle was very far from 100% reusable, but that's not something for this topic.

 

[Hlynkacg]

Pretty sure the PICA-X shield can be used for dozens of times on reentry with only minor degradation.

And, the shuttle was very far from 100% reusable, but that's not something for this topic.

Beat me to the punch :ninja:

 

[IronRain]

Not sure if already posted, but a cool photo:

You can see how the chute mechanism works on this photo (the '"crack").

 

[FADEC]

Pretty sure the PICA-X shield can be used for dozens of times on reentry with only minor degradation.

Probably. But certainly not the upper heat shield that covers the entire capsule.

 

[T.Neo]

Just because something looks beat-up doesn't necessarily mean that it is in a poor state- the shuttle TPS tiles, after several missions, also looked pretty worn out, but this was actually by design (if I recall correctly).

All SpaceX might need to do to the top side of the ship is wash off charred material and/or repaint it. But their reuse process for Dragon is a total mystery- when they get around to reusing Dragons (for DragonLab, presumably) it'll be very interesting to see what comes of things.

 

[FADEC]

Well, Dragon's upper heat shield does not only look beat up. In fact it is if you look at it. Only washing off charred material and repaint it won't help. There are huge cracks, although intentional. And lots of holes and scratches. If you look at the latest picture it seems that completely replacing the material makes more sense. Nothing that compares to the TPS of the Shuttle.

But I think this Dragon won't be reused anyway. Just as the last one also is not obviously. Or in other words: it's obviously not yet reusable. Maybe the pressure shell and interior is (electronics, RCS etc.).

 

[Donamy]

I think with the "Model_T" type engineering. They are probaly panels that can be unbolted and new ones put on in their place. The may just require repair.

 

[orb]

Space News: Dragon Headed for Texas after Historic Flight:

WASHINGTON — Space Exploration Technologies Corp.’s (SpaceX) Dragon cargo capsule, which returned May 31 from a nine-day demonstration mission to the international space station (ISS), is on its way to Texas for postflight processing.

The inspection will take place at SpaceX’s rocket-testing facility in McGregor. With its historic flight complete — Dragon is the first privately operated spacecraft to deliver cargo to ISS — SpaceX must prove that the capsule, and the 620 kilograms of cargo it brought back to Earth, were not damaged during the return from orbit.

The ship carrying Dragon is due to dock in a port near Los Angeles on June 6, SpaceX spokeswoman Kirstin Grantham said. The trip could take longer depending upon weather. Once Dragon makes landfall, some of the cargo it is carrying will be delivered to NASA right away, and some will be trucked to Texas along with the spacecraft.

“The only thing

to go is the recovery of the cargo,” said Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office. Lindenmoyer joined SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk for a post-splashdown media briefing from SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. “That’ll complete the formal objectives that we had for the mission.”

Lindenmoyer said SpaceX will make an initial postflight report to NASA the week of June 6, with a final report to follow “several weeks later.”

{...}​

​

​

 

[orb]

 

[SpaceNut]

This will be regarded as a seminal moment in spaceflight, for it will point the way to how low cost spaceflight can be realized world-wide, the commercial approach.

Bob Clark

Couldn't agree more Bob, back in the diaper days of airplanes people thought, yeah, you can make relatively small planes that carry few people and cargo, but "big" planes can never happen. Those who believed it was possible were told they were nuts if they ever thought it would become reality, and that it just wasn't possible. Well, it was, and cheap access to space IS possible, and Musk continues to prove it time after time. His goal is re-usability, which would drop the price down to the point where the average Joe could take a ride into space, just like he can get on a plane and fly across the country at 38,000 ft and be there in a few hours.

 

[RGClark]

I don't care what is the equation between private and government financing that allows SpaceX to cut development costs by 90% over usual government financed space projects. It's the way to go for the future affordable development of spaceflight.

I discuss this on my blog:

On the lasting importance of the SpaceX accomplishment.
http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2012/06/on-lasting-importance-of-spacex.html


Bob Clark

 

[T.Neo]

There are huge cracks, although intentional. And lots of holes and scratches.

The holes I see are, like the 'cracks', intentional. And my previous comment applies to the scratches; if the charred layer is thin and rubs off of the surface easily, they may not be that much of a cause for concern.

Maybe the pressure shell and interior is (electronics, RCS etc.).

If the body of the vehicle, its avionics and its propulsion can be reused, then one could arguably say that the vehicle is 'reusable'.

There are other issues too, though- I wonder how well the CBM port fared?

 

[SpaceNut]

So, any word on the total, actual cost of that launch? How close are they to actually being cheaper than the status quo?

SpaceX is pretty straight forward regarding their costs... They have a fixed pricing model:

per http://www.spacex.com/falcon9.php
In facilitating SpaceX services, the Falcon 9 launch vehicle will offer the lowest cost per pound/kilogram to orbit, despite providing breakthrough improvements in reliability.

SpaceX offers open and fixed pricing for its launch services. Modest discounts are available for contractually committed, multi-launch purchases. A half bay flight of Falcon 9 is available to accommodate customers with payloads (e.g., satellites or other spacecraft)
in between Falcon 1 and 9. Please contact us on details for this accommodation.

Price $54M*

Bear in mind, this is Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy pricing, with these, you can launch your own payload. I suppose pricing to include (the use of) a dragon capsule could be worked out, and for not too much more, since Dragon is already a reusable craft.

*Paid in full standard launch prices for 2012. Please contact us for details at [email protected]

They also already have pricing for Falcon Heavy too...


PAYLOAD PRICE
Up to 6.4 ton to GTO $83M*
Greater than 6.4 ton to GTO $128M*

*Paid in full standard launch prices for 2012. Please contact us for details at [email protected]


Regardless, these prices are way down from any other company providing similar services, and it will force the other seasoned companies to adopt a similar business model so they can compete, which will only make for more companies making cheaper and cheaper access to space. Musk has the right idea pushing for a completely (or near completely) reusable system as such:

 

[FADEC]

these prices are way down from any other company providing similar services, and it will force the other seasoned companies to adopt a similar business model so they can compete, which will only make for more companies making cheaper and cheaper access to space.

20th Century:

21st Century:

(I think both are equal visionaries, but just from different eras)