SpaceX did it

[Nerraw]

So what you're saying is that's the one we should really get excited over?

We should get excited about everything SPACE!

[Medusa Cascade]

We should get excited about everything SPACE!

You're a Kerbal, space inevitably kills you

[Ripster42]

We should get excited about everything SPACE!

Your avi makes me want to play KSP again. That and the bumper sticker I just saw.

But really, gonna be pretty cool when they relaunch. Thanks for the update on that.

[Reeve]

I'm surprised it didn't tip over, it looks really windy there.

All the weight is in the bottom, where the engine and fuel are, which makes it really stable.

[Skroe]

So they just did it again, only this time the payload was going to Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, and the rocket had to burn triple the energy to slow down. Still on an ocean barge, this time the landing was in the dark.

Also, last week Musk announced that his rockets have higher thrust capabilities than he had previously accounted for. As they use the rockets more, I guess they understand the capabilities better and can reduce the safety margin.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/2...-first-thought

According to that article, the Falcon 9 had previously enviously been rated for 15 tons to LEO, and is now rated for 25.1 tons. For GTO, it's 5.3 tons and 9.15 tons respectively. That's a fucking massive increase, and Musk claims that it has nothing to do with hardware improvements.

If the Falcon Heavy makes similar gains after the first several flights, it'll put it on the same footing as the SLS block 1

@Skroe thoughts?

Yeah this was a huge deal. As huge a deal as the first landing a month ago. GTO is the most demanded orbit for communications and earth observation sattelites, so SpaceX just demonstrated reusability for the market where the demand is (as opposed to LEO, which has much lower demand comparatively).

A Falcon Heavy launch to GTO would be a little bit different, because the outer two cores (Falcon 9 first stages) would be landable, but the central core would, normally, be disposed, in order to improve performance. Of course SpaceX also plans to offer an all-resuable Falcon Heavy and a all-single use Maximum Performance Falcon Heavy. It just depends on the performance required. That said, very few payloads, except the largest National Security Payloads, need the full 54 tons a Falcon Heavy could launch. There may however, be an argument for launching sattelites with more fuel, giving them longer life spans and making them more economical, but that isn't clear yet.

The Falcon Heavy and SLS Block I are on different performance classes. The Falcon Heavy will top out at 54 tons. The SLS Block I, which will launch in September 2018, will be rated at 70 tons. That's kind of a conceit though, because the Block IA will only launch once, and the Orion "payload" plus service module plus fuel plus launch escape will weigh somewhere in the 50 ton range to LEO. However it's Translunar Injection mass, which is where the Orion stack is headed, will be about 26 tons (about what the Orion stack will weigh at that point). Falcon Heavy's translunar injection mass is 16-18 tons depending if a capsule is included or not.

Again though, the Block I will fly just once, and is only flying because Congress put a gun to NASA's head back in 2012 and told them that they _will_ fly a rocket by 2018 or be found to have broken the law (in a sense). The Block I uses the Interim Delta Cryogenic Upper Stage, which is the same upper sage of the Delta IV Heavy. Use of this was the only way the SLS would make the deadline. All subsequent flights will start with the "Block IB" around 2021-2022, which will replace the Delta Upper Stage with the new Exploration Upper Stage, which has higher performance (the SLS is the same otherwise). It will increase performance to 105t to LEO or 40t to TLI (and 16 tons to Mars via Trans-Mars Injection). The Evolution after that, the Block II around 2028, will replace the 5 segement Solid Rocket Boosters with either a 6 Segement SRB or two liquid boosters. If a 6 segement is chosen, as I expect it will in order to keep ATK making Solid Rocket Motors (since ICBM/SLBM building demand isn't big enough on its own) - detractors stupidly call this pork - performance will be about 130 tons to LEO and 60 tons to Trans-Lunar Injection.


SLS and Falcon are complimentary. NASA says this. Elon Musk says this. NASA's own studies says that it's mars plan cannot be done without a SLS-sized vehicle, and Elon Musk, while he will likely want to use the Falcom 9 to send probes to Mars in the early 2020s (like the Atlas V presently does), is building the Raptor Engine to eventually replace the 9x Merlin 1-Ds on the Falcon, and eventually as the engine of a whole new rocket, because Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy isn't big enough either.

What do I mean by "big enough"? The SLS - really anything in the 105-130t range is big enough to build infrastructure. Launch habitats. Launch vehicles. Launch the kind of things you need to do a substantial Mars mission or build a lunar base. The Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy are IDEAL resupply and logistics vehicles. The SLS is probably too much overkill for that. Sustaining any sort of mission will need vehicles at all sizes.

The Falcon 9 core probably don't have much more room to grow beyond the huge increase it just experienced, which makes it just-shy of the Delta IV Heavy, and much more economical than the Proton. I wouldn't be surprised if the Merlin 1-D gets another performance boost at some point.

[Nadiru]

Imagine what happens once Musk get's his hands on these: "instead of lithium, researchers at UC Irvine have used gold nanowires to store electricity, and have found that their system is able to far outlast traditional lithium battery construction. The Irvine team's system cycled through 200,000 recharges without significant corrosion or decline."

AuIon batteries are still not energy-dense enough for Tesla's needs; what Tesla should be (and is) shooting for is a supercapacitor: An electrical storage device which can charge rapidly, discharge at variable rates, and holds what the scientists call a "metric fuck-ton" of electricity.

[Reeve]

Yeah this was a huge deal. As huge a deal as the first landing a month ago. GTO is the most demanded orbit for communications and earth observation sattelites, so SpaceX just demonstrated reusability for the market where the demand is (as opposed to LEO, which has much lower demand comparatively).

A Falcon Heavy launch to GTO would be a little bit different, because the outer two cores (Falcon 9 first stages) would be landable, but the central core would, normally, be disposed, in order to improve performance. Of course SpaceX also plans to offer an all-resuable Falcon Heavy and a all-single use Maximum Performance Falcon Heavy. It just depends on the performance required. That said, very few payloads, except the largest National Security Payloads, need the full 54 tons a Falcon Heavy could launch. There may however, be an argument for launching sattelites with more fuel, giving them longer life spans and making them more economical, but that isn't clear yet.

The Falcon Heavy and SLS Block I are on different performance classes. The Falcon Heavy will top out at 54 tons. The SLS Block I, which will launch in September 2018, will be rated at 70 tons. That's kind of a conceit though, because the Block IA will only launch once, and the Orion "payload" plus service module plus fuel plus launch escape will weigh somewhere in the 50 ton range to LEO. However it's Translunar Injection mass, which is where the Orion stack is headed, will be about 26 tons (about what the Orion stack will weigh at that point). Falcon Heavy's translunar injection mass is 16-18 tons depending if a capsule is included or not.

You say that the Falcon Heavy will top out at 54 (short) tons, but that's the figure they're giving us today. Yet the Falcon 9 has been uprated nearly 70% from its original capability numbers. Is there not some room for the Falcon Heavy to make similar gains?

[Deleted]

Seems this thread lasted to page 3 of happy people cheering this n I was glad as well for this achievement, but then Skroe came along n started writing huge posts of creating a galactic empire, military bases n shoot Russia from space with lazers.



Unfortunately mods won't allow us to speculate to what irl frustrations makes him thus

Lol

[Gheld]

nowai, where's the strings? How the hell is it stabilized?

[Reeve]

nowai, where's the strings? How the hell is it stabilized?

All the weight is in the bottom, which helps. But if you see the closeup landing vid, it does bounce and slide a bit.

[Gheld]

^ still an impressive feat. Getting an object to travel from the edge of space to sea level while moving essentially backwards. I imagine most of it's descent involves a drogue chute or something like that.

[Osmeric]

AuIon batteries are still not energy-dense enough for Tesla's needs; what Tesla should be (and is) shooting for is a supercapacitor: An electrical storage device which can charge rapidly, discharge at variable rates, and holds what the scientists call a "metric fuck-ton" of electricity.

Supercapacitors have poor energy density. Where they shine is high power density and long cycle life. They're used in things like regenerative braking systems for garbage trucks.

[Skroe]

You say that the Falcon Heavy will top out at 54 (short) tons, but that's the figure they're giving us today. Yet the Falcon 9 has been uprated nearly 70% from its original capability numbers. Is there not some room for the Falcon Heavy to make similar gains?

The expansion of capability was provided via the full thrust model that changed some valves and stretched falcon 9 cores. Falcon heavy, just guessing, could probably pick up another 10 tons of cargo, especially if they adopt a larger and more powerful upper stage or stretch it again to hold more fuel. No matter what though the limiting factor is core diameter. Off the top of my head I believe Falcons have a 4.5 meter diameter payload fairing. The sls will have a 8 meter with the block ii cargo having perhaps a 10 meter fairing. Falcon can support a larger fairing most likely, but only so much. This is why the future space vehicle has a larger core diameter because volume, not just mass, does matter.

So yes spacex can probably find additional performance, but it'll only get it close to ge sls block 1 that will launch exactly once. It would take s new vehicle to get to sls block 1b territory. This is of course, the plan. Merlin 1D on falcon will be replaced by a single Vulcan, then a cluster of Vulcans will be used on a newer, larger diameter core launch vehicle. Also the first use of Vulcan will be as an upper stage so it could be that more capable upper stage I was talking about that gets the falcon heavy a boost to sls mark 1 territory

[Masark]

So yes spacex can probably find additional performance, but it'll only get it close to ge sls block 1 that will launch exactly once. It would take s new vehicle to get to sls block 1b territory. This is of course, the plan. Merlin 1D on falcon will be replaced by a single Vulcan, then a cluster of Vulcans will be used on a newer, larger diameter core launch vehicle. Also the first use of Vulcan will be as an upper stage so it could be that more capable upper stage I was talking about that gets the falcon heavy a boost to sls mark 1 territory

Unless I missed an announcement, I think you mean Raptor rather than Vulcan.

[Skroe]

Unless I missed an announcement, I think you mean Raptor rather than Vulcan.

Yeah i do. I was typing from my phone and was speeding through what I was writing. My mistake! Yes in all cases I said Vulcan i meant Raptor.

[Skroe]

By the way, it doesn't mean much, but while in Florida for Mother's day, I swung by Kennedy Space Center on Friday to visit a friend.

SpaceX shirts and stuff are being sold in the gift shop right next to all the Apollo, Space Shuttle and ISS stuff.

Totally snagged an Occupy Mars shirt. Pretty cool that Private Space Flight stuff is being sold in a government facility. .