NASA Seems Open To Even More Re-Uses Of SpaceX Booster Rockets (teslarati.com) 50
The International Space Station tweeted Sunday that a SpaceX Dragon cargo craft was expected to arrive early Monday morning. "Get up early and catch live coverage of the rendezvous and capture on nasa.gov/live beginning at 5:30 a.m. EDT."
But Teslarati reports that there's also good news about its booster rocket: SpaceX has safely returned Falcon 9 booster B1056 to port and lifted the rocket ashore after successfully supporting Cargo Dragon's 18th mission to the International Space Station. B1056's safe return is by no means a surprise, but it is still a relief after mild issues caused Falcon Heavy center core B1055 to topple over just a few weeks prior. SpaceX's robotic "Octagrabber" was visibly attached to newest Falcon 9 booster, taking advantage of compatibility not available to the Falcon Heavy core. According to NASA and SpaceX, the booster's recovery was weighing on the minds of both stakeholders thanks to interest in reusing B1056 on future Cargo Dragon launches....
SpaceX VP of Flight Reliability Hans Koenigsmann noted that SpaceX is moving to a concept of operations where booster recovery is just as important and just as necessary as any other technical aspect of launch. In other words, when SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You suffered a rare hardware failure that hobbled its redundant power supplies, NASA had no qualms with the company's decision to scrub the launch attempt. In fact, confirming educated speculation previously published on Teslarati, NASA had a "vested interest" in the successful recovery of B1056. According to NASA ISS manager Kenny Todd's comments, NASA unequivocally wants SpaceX to fly its next Cargo Dragon mission -- CRS-18, NET mid-July -- on the newly flight-proven booster. NASA is even open to flying on B1056 for a third time on CRS-19, pending the condition and availability of the booster.
Unique in SpaceX's Falcon 9 Block 5 fleet thanks to an exceptionally gentle reentry and recovery, B1056 should easily lend itself to multiple reuses in support of future NASA missions. In fact, of the three (up to as many as five) additional CRS1 Cargo Dragon missions still on contract, there is no immediate technical reason to assume that Falcon 9 B1056 can't be involved in a majority of those launches, if not all of them. NASA, of course, has the final say in which Falcon 9s their missions launch on, but the agency's apparent openness to launching on a twice-flown booster opens the door for thrice-flown boosters and beyond.
But Teslarati reports that there's also good news about its booster rocket: SpaceX has safely returned Falcon 9 booster B1056 to port and lifted the rocket ashore after successfully supporting Cargo Dragon's 18th mission to the International Space Station. B1056's safe return is by no means a surprise, but it is still a relief after mild issues caused Falcon Heavy center core B1055 to topple over just a few weeks prior. SpaceX's robotic "Octagrabber" was visibly attached to newest Falcon 9 booster, taking advantage of compatibility not available to the Falcon Heavy core. According to NASA and SpaceX, the booster's recovery was weighing on the minds of both stakeholders thanks to interest in reusing B1056 on future Cargo Dragon launches....
SpaceX VP of Flight Reliability Hans Koenigsmann noted that SpaceX is moving to a concept of operations where booster recovery is just as important and just as necessary as any other technical aspect of launch. In other words, when SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You suffered a rare hardware failure that hobbled its redundant power supplies, NASA had no qualms with the company's decision to scrub the launch attempt. In fact, confirming educated speculation previously published on Teslarati, NASA had a "vested interest" in the successful recovery of B1056. According to NASA ISS manager Kenny Todd's comments, NASA unequivocally wants SpaceX to fly its next Cargo Dragon mission -- CRS-18, NET mid-July -- on the newly flight-proven booster. NASA is even open to flying on B1056 for a third time on CRS-19, pending the condition and availability of the booster.
Unique in SpaceX's Falcon 9 Block 5 fleet thanks to an exceptionally gentle reentry and recovery, B1056 should easily lend itself to multiple reuses in support of future NASA missions. In fact, of the three (up to as many as five) additional CRS1 Cargo Dragon missions still on contract, there is no immediate technical reason to assume that Falcon 9 B1056 can't be involved in a majority of those launches, if not all of them. NASA, of course, has the final say in which Falcon 9s their missions launch on, but the agency's apparent openness to launching on a twice-flown booster opens the door for thrice-flown boosters and beyond.
Good safety record on reused rockets now (Score:5, Interesting)
SpaceX now has a better safety record on reused rockets than new ones. Two new rockets failed, and no reused ones.
I hope they resolve the Crew Dragon issue soon. Depending on the Russians for access to space is a non-starter, and if Boeing has another problem with their rocket, which hasn't been a picnic so far, we're stuck.
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I suppose there's a bathtub curve in there somehow. But as long as they're on the bottom part of that, rack up the launches!
Every complex part of a spacecraft that's reused, is one that doesn't need to be built from 'scratch'. Read: saving the cost of doing that. Which ultimately contributes to making access to space cheaper (and perhaps even safer like you said).
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Space Travel isn't safe.
So we are trying to determine if it is safer to reuse rockets proven to work, while may have some wear and tare from their travels. Or get a new one, where a faulty build can cause problems, but it is filled with new and unused parts.
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Space Travel isn't safe.
So we are trying to determine if it is safer to reuse rockets proven to work, while may have some wear and tare from their travels. Or get a new one, where a faulty build can cause problems, but it is filled with new and unused parts.
SpaceX and Blue Origin both have "private jet level" cost and safety as goals, and they seem to be getting there. Of course, private jets are a surprisingly dangerous way to travel, but not so bad that people actually care. It will takes hundreds more launches to establish that sort of safety record, but both companies are clearly seeking it.
As far as cost, if Starship works anywhere near as expected, it will bring launch costs per kilo down into the realm of a seat on the Concorde or a luxury jet halfway
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I agree that's what they are aiming toward. I'm skeptical that they can get within two orders of magnitude of private jet travel though,
They already are, depending on how you look at it. Falcon 9 costs ~$3000/kg to LEO. A seat on the Concorde was almost $10k, inflation-adjusted, call it $100/kg. Private jets cost more. Of course, that's cargo, not man-rated, but two orders of magnitude is in the can. Starship will credibly cut another order of magnitude off costs, and that's certainly the target for New Glenn (though I'll give that more credibility once New Shepard starts actually launching tourists).
Re: Good safety record on reused rockets now (Score:2)
They were talking about safety; you're talking about cost. Bit of a difference there.
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Ah, sure. No metrics there yet to compare, but private planes aren't safe, so two orders or magnitude is likely.
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I've been thinking for a while now that supply and demand might actually make a once-flown booster more expensive than a new one! Especially ones recovered by RTLS instead of droneship.
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What are the logical conditions to prove or disprove a supernatural entity?
Just because we cannot prove it does exist, it doesn't preclude the fact if it really does or doesn't exist.
Spending time proving that there is or isn't a god using logic and scientific principals is a general waste, because all you really doing is catering to the people with the belief or disbelief, and reinforcing their particular stance on the issue.
Chances are this post will give me the Invisible Pink Unicorn argument. Where the
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Actually the assumption of the root of the Unicorns are Narwhals. Their teeth are traded in Europe since the last ice age ...
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The Word of God teaches that God made the stars. I love how Genesis 1:16 is written... “HE MADE THE STARS ALSO.”
Yeah, but the "Word" of this "G-d" doesn't teach us about them galaxies. Do you know why? Because the people who wrote it didn't know about them. So, either G-d dictated poorly, or G-d created the galaxies after people invented the telescope and saw them.
Which is it?
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The Word of God teaches that God made the stars. I love how Genesis 1:16 is written... “HE MADE THE STARS ALSO.”
Yeah, but the "Word" of this "G-d" doesn't teach us about them galaxies. Do you know why? Because the people who wrote it didn't know about them. So, either G-d dictated poorly, or G-d created the galaxies after people invented the telescope and saw them.
Which is it?
Er, or the third possibly that the point of the message wasn't to teach about galaxies?
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Now, now, don’t confuse the poor binary thinkers...
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Or the fact that galaxies are made out of stars ... erm, consist out of stars? Oh, are large clusters of stars? No actually they are super cluster of star clusters containing many stars ... what ever.
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Genesis is fairly clear that before God there was only darkness and void. That he made the sun and the moon and the stars is just listing a few examples and doesn't prove anything other than that the text is addressing the audience or that they wrote down the bits of Creation they understood. Besides, a galaxy is just a big cluster of stars so that's a bit redundant. It's not even a criticism, it's just saying it's a story anyone could write without special knowledge. There's a thousand better arguments I'd
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That's cold (Score:5, Funny)
NASA had a "vested interest" in the successful recovery of B1056
See that right there? That's NASA telling everyone about it's new BFF while a teary-eyed ULA clutches a photo of NASA and the ULA wearing matching t-shirts. ;)
Re: That's cold (Score:4, Insightful)
ULA is fine right now, because NASA needs multiple launch providers (in case an accident grounds one for a while) and there are plenty of missions with special needs ULA can do better at and SpaceX just doesn't have the launch cadence to do everything anyway.
If another company like Blue Origin succeeds, that's when ULA is dead.
Re: That's cold (Score:2)
and there are plenty of missions with special needs ULA can do better at
Are there actually? Like what?
and SpaceX just doesn't have the launch cadence to do everything anyway.
ULA flew 8 missions in 2018, while spacex flew 21. Given that SpaceX is continually building new rockets and decreasing the turnaround time for refurbished ones, whereas ULA has to build a new one for every launch ... I don't think it's a stretch to say that SpaceX could probably handle enough launches this year to make ULA irrelevant. If not this year then certainly by 2020.
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Would be really interesting to be in the inside of the ULA meetings:
Engineers: we're f'd. It'll take us a decade to catch up.
Management: we've got a history of supplying NASA with launch vehicles, back to Mercury.
Engineers: we're f'd.
Maybe that's the reason ULA was spun off from it's various parent companies to be its own thing. ULA exists to milk the government cow, but that never lasts forever.
Re:That's cold (Score:5, Insightful)
At least in other human affairs, the fact you were once nice, and a good person doesn't cover you when you turn evil.
It's one reason we have divorce.
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I wonder if you know what "vested interest" means. It means they have monetary considerations which makes sense. Their vested interest is that it succeeds because that will save them money in the long run. NASA has a vested interest in all of their launches being successful reusable or expendable, because failed launches and failed recoveries are expensive.
This is another case of uneducated "journalists" misusing terms they don't actually understand. Vested interest has become to mean some form of nebulou
IIRC boosters for NASA jobs have extra monitoring (Score:2)
IIRC NASA monitors the construction of launchers used on their missions. So, technically the same as SpaceX's other Falcon 9 boosters, but different (and thus vested) because NASA has spent money to audit or whatever the construction of this specific one.
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This is another case of uneducated "journalists" misusing terms they don't actually understand. Vested interest has become to mean some form of nebulous interest and cooperation greater than normal.
I think it's you that doesn't understand. If you're waiting for your stock options or pension benefits or whatever to vest they're tied to that company. You don't get them if you switch jobs or the company goes under. In most cases It's not inherently bad, like you work hard now to get a big stock payout later. But it also means you have incentive to protect that future payout, like if you discover a big scandal right before your stock options vest do you blow the whistle and tank the stock or sit quiet hop
Goodluck NASA (Score:1)