Interestingly, this launch wasn't within the original capabilities of the falcon 9 and was originally scheduled for a falcon heavy launch. The lengthening of the rocket, using densified propellants, and more changes meant that they could instead use a falcon 9 even though they couldn't recover it. It's a cool reminder of just how much the falcon 9 has changed.
According to wikipedia the Falcon 9 has increased GTO payloads from 4,500 kg to 8,000 kg from the 1.0 version to the Full Thrust version. And payload to LEO from 10,450 kg to 22,800 kg.
These improvements have been passed on to the Falcon Heavy, and it's expect to put 64,000 kg into LEO, just shy of the SLS's 70,000 kg.
Is the SLS system even worth it anymore? They are using repurposed 1970's shuttle era technology at massively inflated costs. To be fair, no one could have possibly foreseen the quantum leap in rocket technology SpaceX has made over the past 8 years since the SLS was designed. But it's beginning to seem more and more like a government welfare program for Boeing rather than an effective launch system.
SpaceX innovation has come from grit and many changes to manufacturing optimization. I wouldn't call it a quantum leap since the engine designs are effectively the same as 50 years ago. Not saying Merlin isn't impressive (it's amazing) but chemical rocket technology really hasn't changed at a fundamental level.
Creating methane on a non-Earth body and using that to launch spacecraft would be a different story. ;)
Correct. SpaceX engines are very old, unsophisticated designs — SpaceX prefers to spend more time on the rest of the rocket.
If you want to see the most advanced rocket engine on the planet, look at Arianespace's Vulcain instead. But it can't be used for vertical landings in the current version.
Given that I don't know anything about rocket engine technology; the CPU is essentially the same as it was 40 years ago. Yet the technology is used in radically different ways using much more optimal manufacturing technologies. It's still a bunch of transistors on silicon.
The SLS was never worth it. It is a program so absurdly expensive that its hard to even come to grips with the numbers.
However, in defense of the SLS 70000kg is the minimum requirement, the rocket will lift more like 80000kg.
Even now it would be cheaper to cancel it. For just the the SLS budget of the next 2 years SpaceX could easily build them the BFR. They could have three different super-heavy boosters from three different companies for the price of the SLS.
> To be fair, no one could have possibly foreseen the quantum leap in rocket technology SpaceX has made over the past 8 years since the SLS was designed.
It was foreseen. They wanted to gather proposals both from inside and outside of NASA because NASA had already realized that it might be much cheaper. They had evaluate how much SpaceX had spend on development and concluded that they would have spent about 10X more.
Non of these investigation were pushed and the SLS 'proposal' was selected. Interestingly another group inside NASA (the only other proposal) want to go back to the F-1 engine.
> But it's beginning to seem more and more like a government welfare program for Boeing rather than an effective launch system.
It was always that. Since its inception everybody called it the Senate Launch System. NASA actually did not want to build it, the Senate forced them and specifically required them to use specific tech. Its nothing but a 20+ Billion pork program.
It's hard to imagine they'll build bigger versions that the 70,000 kg one. They are way behind schedule on the first version, and still don't have a compelling mission commitment.
There is no doubt they could send some pretty large payloads to Mars with the SLS, esp. the later block designs. The question is whether congress is going to commit to the tens of billions to build those designs and actually launch manned missions to other planets or the moon with them.
There are many reasons for the delay, one of which is Elon Time™, but the previously mentioned improvements to F9 and being able to launch many payloads with it instead is also among them.
As to when it will fly, I expect by the end of the year. They have finally begun static firing actual rocket cores recently, including the heavily redesigned (and another reason for delays) center core.
“Falcon Heavy is one of those things that at first it sounded easy,” Musk said. “We’ll just take two first stages and use them as strap-on boosters. And like, actually no, this is crazy hard, and required a redesign of the center core, and a ton of additional hardware. It was actually shockingly difficult to go from a single core to a triple-core vehicle.”
It has literally been built and tested. The hardware is ready and just waiting for the launch pads.
The major reason why Falcon Heavy was delayed for so long is that they were able to make major improvements on the F9. It would not have made much sense to work on a more complicated rocket when there was so much potential in F9.
Falcon Heavy was developed for a pittance compared to the SLS. Even if its delayed another 3 years the SLS would not make a lick of sense.
SpaceX has managed to get such a big boost to the F9's performance, they can already do much of what they originally intended to do with Falcon Heavy. Is it really going to be cheaper to loft sats with a reusable FH when a disposable F9 will do the trick? I'm skeptical.
Boeing and ULA became complacent without competition. The same would likely happen to SpaceX if Boeing didn't have a heavy launch vehicle to rival the Falcon Heavy.
Like most things associated with manned space exploration, the tangential benefits of keeping Boeing and USA in operation far outweigh the direct cost and direct benefit.
Funding hugely expensive non-reusable technology, based on 70s Shuttle components, from traditional cost-plus contractors is not the way to put pressure on SpaceX. That will come from Blue Origin, and almost certainly the Russians and Chinese. It's unlikely they will sit by and leave reusability a US/SpaceX exclusive capability.
I wouldn't bet on Russia and China still has a lot of catching up to do. If we're talking about putting stuff in orbit cheaply I wouldn't rule out India but there are also a host of companies with small rockets that show some promise.
And ULA has a good story about their work on in-space reuse of rockets even if they aren't going to be reusing boosters any time soon.
I'm actually quite bullish about Boeing, Lockheed and the other big space contractors even if SpaceX and BO (ho, ho) do eat their lunch on boosters. If access to space costs peanuts, companies and governments are going to want to put a heck of a lot more stuff up there. That means someone is going to have to build it all.
Even if SpaceX themselves have no interest in going to The Moon, they're not going to say no to a contract to put a Lockheed/ Boeing/ etc NASA funded Moon mission into orbit for them.
It's worth noting that Boeing's satellite division already did a special design of an all-electric-propulsion GEO satellite, which can launch 2 at a time on Falcon 9 and reduce launch costs even further. They've sold and launched 2 pairs so far.
Strike Russians from that list. Angara isn't ready yet and not heavy at all, there are no other launchers in the works and the industry is in shambles.
Why would you fund the SLS then? That makes no sense. If they want to keep ULA around they should tell them to hurry up on the Vulcan Rocket. Then they can throw them a couple of flights.
>Boeing and ULA became complacent without competition. The same would likely happen to SpaceX if Boeing didn't have a heavy launch vehicle to rival the Falcon Heavy.
So are you saying Musk would just sit back and collect money from Falcon Heavy for the rest of his life? No, he is planning to go to Mars, so SpaceX is going to advance the technology as fast as it can.
Were you really unaware of that? Or perhaps you work for ULA.
Regarding SpaceX potential complacency, I think Elon's insanity would prevent that from ever happening. The problem with Boeing and ULA is that they don't have Elon at the helm, just lobbyists and conservative engineers. Better to give all the money to SpaceX and let SpaceX's momentum get us to Mars even faster IMO.
You can think what you want. But if you're perceptive and think really hard about the individuals at the front of companies, and you've spent time thinking about Elon Musk, it's really clear that he will never stop until someone assassinates him.
The guy had a dad who psychologically tortured him, he got thrown down stairs by gangs of blacks in apartheid South Africa, and he completely detached himself from any social connections when he was 17 by moving to Canada. The guy's only reason to live is to fulfill his dreams that he gained from reading every single science fiction book that existed.
Anyway you can think what you want but I know that he's not like the other CEOs that are career CEOs. He's on a mission fueled by intense hardship and retribution
Nobody lives forever. Assassination isn't the only possibility for untimely death when you are around rockets. If Elon passes away, is it possible the successor will "milk the cow" without funding R&D? Yes. Putting all eggs in one basket is unwise.
Aside: does that mean that Falcon 9 could carry ~20,000 CubeSats at the cost of 62M/20k = USD 3,100 per satelite? That would be awesome. Now if I could just find another 19,999 people who want to ride-share with me.
I wonder if this is a good thing. On one hand, the common availability of cubesats would be so much fun from a hacker point of view, but on the other I worry that such a low cost per satellite will start to pollute space. If every bay area hobbiest has one floating in the sky, we're inevitably going to have ones that go unmanaged, rogue, etc with no plans for cleanup/repair if things go wrong.
Many of the cheapest, hackeriest cubesats are deployed into low orbits that decay within weeks or months. Space isn't completely empty, only mostly empty, and even minute air resistance is enough that things like the ISS need to thrust regularly to stay in orbit [1]. I believe it's a common mission profile for cubesats that're built as aerospace engineering senior projects, for example.
If a cloud of 20000 cubesats were released by a single rocket, at least they would all be in approximately the same orbit, which is better than having 20000 cubesats spread out over 20000 orbits. Not to mention, they don't stay up indefinitely- launched into a low orbit, drag eventually pulls them back down.
I'd definitely buy a cubesat launch slot for 3k. Perhaps someone should set up a kickstarter or something.
Unless your Australian... in which case the government says you have to have a stupidly huge insurance policy and other red tape that would make it easily 10x that cost.
It may have had some real function as a hedge against failure of the commercial launch ventures to retain an in-house American launch capability, but this no longer looks like a problem. I believe that there is a use for NASA and even the manned program, but building a booster is stupid at this point, it's just literal corporate welfare now.
That function was served not by SLS but by the formation of United Launch Alliance (a/k/a ULA), which merged the former rocket divisions of both Lockheed/Martin and Boeing, operating both their boosters (Atlas V and Delta IV). The formation of this venture was effectively brokered by government, which also let it charge above-market rates for launches, and until recently gave it an additional $1 billion or so per year on top of that to preserve "launch capability and readiness". Like the speciality shipyards that make nuclear submarines, the Pentagon was arranging to make very sure they stayed in business -- though that may be changing, now that lower-priced, American commercial competition has emerged (in the form of SpaceX, with Blue Origin perhaps coming along as well, having announced plans for an orbital booster with capabilities comparable to the SpaceX Falcon Heavy).
SLS isn't really suitable for defense satellite launches. It's oversized for the job, and won't be capable of the required flight rates (several launches per year at least) for a very long time, if ever. (Current schedule is years between launches.) It also isn't necessary for launching crew to at least low earth orbit; one of the commercial crew contractors (Boeing) is expecting to send crew up on man-rated versions of the ULA Atlas V.
The LEO payloads for FH and SLS block 1 are similar but SLS can put nearly twice as much mass on a trans-lunar injection. There's also the larger faring size on SLS and future blocks will have more performance.
All of which isn't to say that SLS is cost effective, but it does have capabilities which will be unique for at least a window of time.
The SLS will have a unique capability for a while, but it will only launch once and then it will not be available again until a time that will look very different.
This is super interesting - is there any information if they're doing this for other Falcon 9s? Or are all of the new 9s built like this now? Was this a contingency plan if the heavy wasn't launched on time or a scramble to get it done?
Then again there is Block 5, the 'final' version including the new retractable landing legs, new engine enclosure heat shield and further performance improvements. Those were supposed to be in production by now, but we'll see. They're an important next milestone because that will be the version that gets man-rated and will thus have to be a 'frozen' config.
This is the one I'm really interested in seeing. In theory it is the culmination of all the things they will have learned from landing boosters back. Given the thermal damage to the guide fins on SES-10 (another one that wasn't 'supposed' to be recoverable) I expect there will also be an upgrade there some how.
I found it interesting that the latest piece on New Glenn showed the booster landing with winged guide fins. I'm not sure that will work given NASA research into hyper-sonic flight with airfoil wings. If they can pull it off that will be a good data point as well.
At lunch the other day we got into a discussion as to whether a 'landable' booster could also continue on to orbit. Specifically if, after the second stage had separated and headed on, the first stage could re-light and put itself into its own orbit. I couldn't find anywhere that suggested what the mass of the booster was at separation. Would be a fun kerbal program.
If you want to put the first stage in orbit, then eliminate the second stage engine, and plumb the second stage fuel into the first stage tanks. Replace the central first stage booster's bell with a wider vacuum-optimized bell. Hopefully, the weight saved by eliminating the second stage engine would make up for the reduced efficiency of that central engine, during atmospheric flight.
Running a vacuum-optimised engine in atmosphere means the exhaust is overexpanded, which causes severe flow seperation and chaotic flow.
Even small amounts of overexpansion are harmful to the nozzle; overexpansion to vacuum-type ratios is likely to cause an Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly.
They've made some amazing progress! However, a landable booster can't put itself into orbit -- its engine cutoff is always well under 3000 m/s (today's was about 9800 kph according to the YouTube broadcast, or about 2700 m/s, and that was with no fuel margin left for landing), but about 7800 m/s is required for orbit.
Elon's tweet today (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/669132749500887040) was that a booster with no payload could put itself into orbit. And that certainly supports your statement. It clearly would not be possible to launch a second stage and have the booster stage make it all the way into orbit. But it isn't as far out of whack as it might be.
Tsiolkovsky is very clear about the propellant mass fraction needed for single stage to orbit, and it is unachievable with current materials, i.e. you can't build a useful SSTO using Al-Li tanks.
The first stage has a fuel mass fraction of 95.5%. Propellant densification and high thrust to weight ratio engines buy you lot. That should be enough to make orbit.
I was wondering if they've considered just leaving the first stage in orbit and then refueling it later for recovery. It might be worth it to refuel after super heavy loads on the Falcon Heavy.
Is there any information about how second stage recovery would work? A powered landing on a single vacuum engine from orbital velocity seems implausible...
The first stage does not have enough delta-V to reach stable orbit which is the sole reason for existence of second stage. Building something that can reach orbit with only one stage is in fact the holy grail of cheap space flight, it is my understanding that such thing is physically impossible when you carry entire used reaction mass from the surface of earth.
According to Elon Musk [1], the first stage could technically fly all the way to orbit (if it weren't lifting the rest of the rocket); it just wouldn't be able to carry a useful payload.
And that answers my question. Interesting concept in that twitter feed to launch "boosters" to orbit, refill on orbit and then use them as space tugs between earth and moon. Of course 'on orbit refill' is like Toyota's "first remove the engine" step on Camry timing belt changes. Short easy to say step, encapsulating a whole lot of work and engineering.
Lockheed Martin's CRS-2 losing bid involved an upper stage which could be refueled and repeatedly used. Apparently it was way too expensive.
But on-orbit refill: not only has ISS been refueled by numerous vehicles, but China just did it to their new space station. I see people saying it's hard all the time, but no one explaining if this ISS thing is inefficient or something.
It has been my understanding that the ISS doesn't "refuel", rather the attached crew transport vehicle (the shuttle and now only the Soyuz) used their thrusters to boost its orbit. Searching for information on this I found this Quora answer (https://www.quora.com/How-does-and-how-often-does-the-ISS-ha...) which suggested there had been one test refueling.
I think you saw the same ULA presentation I did, they seemed to think it was very difficult and didn't mention the ISS at all as I recall.
The cost of the space shuttle flight would be about 50x what you recovered. Useful maybe to get a science experiment back but not to reduce launch cost.
The tallest building is about 830m high. A rocket would have to undergo some fierce acceleration to gain any useful speed over that distance. Something like pushing a bullet through water.
The stresses on such a structure, and the launch vehicle, would probably give them a limited life span.
I suspect economics plays a big role here. I suspect it is cheaper to launch multistage rockets than to build a mass driver long / tall enough to be useful.
Theoretical max height for a building using conventional skyscraper techniques is 11 miles, at which point it's ridiculously expensive. Someone at JPL did a work up of using columns made out of ultra pressurized boron balloon tanks, and found that 100km is actually possible, though also ridiculously expensive.
A rocket would have to undergo some fierce acceleration to gain any useful speed over that distance.
To convert a Falcon 1st stage into a cheat-SSTO, all you need to do is to lighten it a bit and give it a bit of a boost. Such is the nasty nature of the rocket equation. You have to accelerate the fuel you need to accelerate the fuel. So by "cheating" with accelerating the fully loaded rocket, you save a lot of fuel weight for the same final delta-v. Due to the same nasty mathematics, this translates to a tiny payload, of course.
I suspect economics plays a big role here. I suspect it is cheaper to launch multistage rockets than to build a mass driver long / tall enough to be useful.
Yadda yadda. Yes, this comes up in just about every discussion like this. It's just neat to think about what else you could do with a Falcon 1st stage. I mean, would you turn down a single stage vehicle you could take into orbit? It would make an extravagant billionaire's toy.
Actually, this general sort of scheme does have a practical use. Modify a methane-oxygen fueled 1st stage so that it could make it to a somewhat higher orbit, but still have payload for a docking and remote maneuvering system. Then have the empty tanks dock with each other to create a space station with tons of internal space. You couldn't do this with the Falcon 9, as it uses RP-1, but methane and oxygen would just boil off into vacuum.
With mountains and tunnels you can have a much longer runway. Maybe Musk's SpaceX and Boring companies can have a joint venture. With Everest at about 9000m and the deepest mine at 4000m that would give you 13000 meters. Maybe you could dig deeper or curve the track for an even greater launch distance and less peak acceleration.
Something that can withstand the acceleration of a mass driver and the accompanying atmospheric heating while still being light enough to achieve orbit would be quite the feat.
If we're going to do creative difficult things with orbital first stages, then I would like to see them used as space stations. 3.7m OD should be nice and roomy on the inside. Perhaps, a bunch of them could be linked together into a ring? There were ideas like this for the Shuttle's big orange tank, back in the day.
It's not like a car that just needs more gas to keep going. It takes a lot of refurbishment to make it so it fly again after it's taken off into space.
This is good. Space-X just needs to keep those routine launches going, catch up on their backlog, and keep their customer base happy. They were falling behind for a while, and losing customers to Arianespace.
Because it has a mass large enough to be awkward to launch in an Ariane 5 upper berth or with Proton. "Super Heavy" is a bad choice of words since rockets themselves are often classed as "medium", "heavy", and "super heavy", and this satellite is nowhere near the mass for needing a "super heavy" rocket to launch.
