Being sad I set the alarm for 0130 today to watch SpaceX / Elon Musk's latest rocketry (launch and then recovery) efforts.
They nailed it. Very impressive.
Webcast "meat" starts about 20 minutes in here:
First stage landing video here:
....if I was 30 years younger I think I'd be applying for a job with these guys.
Did they decide that landing on the barge made it harder?
I don't think they received FAA permission until very recently....
+1.
Guardian article quotes Musk as saying this will significantly reduce launch costs, but I don't think I have ever seen figures for the proportion of the cost which is associated with a new first stage every launch. Those rocket engines cannot be cheap. OTOH they probably need a bit of refurbishment too.
One of the advantages expressed for the Soyuz while Tim Peake's takeoff was being prepared was that they just made a new one for every launch, so they didn't have to spend time and money refurbishing used parts, in the way that the Saturn rockets did. Which made sense, and at least you know that you have all new parts under you.
Yes, but the experience gained from close examination of a used rocket must be invaluable when it comes to designing the next, improved, version. For instance, which parts were overspecified and which were underspecified.
I assume you mean Shuttle, not Saturn. Saturn was entirely expendable.
It could be said that the Russians are just following the old Soviet approach. But that's hard to judge without knowing what it costs to build an engine, what limits its lifetime, what refurbishment is needed, and what that refurbishment costs.
The ion engines on the Dawn probe have been running for years and stopped/restarted many times. But there, there's only a tiny thrust and probably very low stress on the engine. However, in deep space, and if you've got plenty of time, who cares.
Apparently they charge about $60M for a commercial launch. Already far less (per kilo) than anybody else.
SpaceX is already disrupting the market.
If they can reduce costs 10 or 20% with reuse it will be hard for anybody to touch them.
Thinking about it there's nothing new.
Thunderbirds 1 and 3 could do this stuff in the 1960's.
I thought that the Beeb said 'Saturn', but I can't be bothered to try and confirm that. I agree that the Shuttle launch system would be correct.
But then the BBC said this morning that the Space-X landed back on its original launchpad yesterday, which would have been a real trick, so they have form in this.
Read it again, there is a comma which changes the meaning completely, although I would have expressed the sentence differently.
I meant it the way Tim read it. I think.
Well I'm not sure I can be bothered to analyse that paragraph to bits :-)
Can we agree that no part of the Saturn system was re-used, in contrast to the Shuttle, whose boosters (of O-ring fame) were recovered, refurbished, and re-used.
Not always, some of the military launches used more powerful single piece boosters that were scrap after a launch. They were used to put heavier payloads into orbit.
And of course the main rocket engines.
As you were then ;-)
When I was thirty years younger, I thought about applying for a job with them. Turned it down - too many strings attached.
In the video just prior to MECO, someone in the crowd can be heard say "Throttle up"
Landing in Jeff Tracy's swimming pool IIRC
Yeah, but that was kids dreams.
These guys grew up and made it happen.
(This was said at the time of Apollo, and I hope this doesn't die the same way. We need room to grow as a species)
Andy
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.