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I find this statement from Elon really interesting[1]: > We just completed the post-landing inspection and all systems look good. Ready to fly again. While El

I find this statement from Elon really interesting[1]: > We just completed the post-landing inspection and all systems look good. Ready to fly again. While Elon Musk is known for being a bit optimistic with his predictions from time to time, it really points to where SpaceX wants to be: instant reusability. That's when we really reach a new space age, when rockets are as reusable as airplanes, and SpaceX is working on it. What a time to be alive. [1]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/754931091891453952 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/754931091891453952

simonh 10y ago
> We just completed the post-landing inspection and all systems look good. Ready to fly again. It makes me wonder if they should literally do that. Fuel up the stage, send it off and recover it again. Maybe fit it out with a dummy upper stage. They have a handful of first stages now, so why not? It would reassure insurers and customers that the process is reliable, provide opportunities to trial out and streamline the refit process and provide valuable info on stage wear and tear. They're need to get flight approvals and so on, it would certainly cost a lot more than just the fuel so might not be worth the trouble.
- typicalbender 10y ago
  Wouldn't it be great if after a few more successful launches and recoveries they just come out and say they've been re-using the rockets all along.
  - ygra 10y ago
    Payload insurance won't like that very much.
    - typicalbender 10y ago
      Them pulling it off doesn't mean that they aren't telling their insurers :)
- alex_duf 10y ago
  they might as well put a real payload on it right? It's not exactly cheap to launch a full rocket, especially when you involve hundreds of engineers. I would be curious to know what's more expensive. Build again a satellite that exploded or planning an empty launch?
  - IshKebab 10y ago
    They could definitely launch cheap things that you still on need on ISS like water, fuel and food.
    - lmm 10y ago
      Any launch to the ISS involves expending a second stage, and IIRC NASA requires the Dragons to be certified (as much for the safety of the ISS as anything else) in a way that currently requires a new one each time.
      - nicolapcweek94 10y ago
        That doesn't stop them from launching a new Dragon (2? hopefully they'll reuse CRS8's booster before that, but it'd be cool to see the first Dragon 2 on top of the first booster landed on the ship) on top of a reused booster though... and of course, reusing the first stage doesn't mean reusing the second stage (which is, in fact, never even recovered) Moot point though, since SES has pretty much already bought the first reused launch ( http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/02/23/ses-eager-to-fly-satellite-aboard-used-falcon-9-rocket/ http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/02/23/ses-eager-to-fly-satell... )
        lmm 10y ago
        > That doesn't stop them from launching a new Dragon (2? hopefully they'll reuse CRS8's booster before that, but it'd be cool to see the first Dragon 2 on top of the first booster landed on the ship) on top of a reused booster though... and of course, reusing the first stage doesn't mean reusing the second stage (which is, in fact, never even recovered) Sure. My point is that kind of mission is nowhere near as cheap as "throw a bunch of food/water/fuel on top and send it up".
- InclinedPlane 10y ago
  Why not? Because they can mate it to a 2nd stage that costs about $10-15 million and then sell a flight for $40+ million. Not only is that a hefty profit margin, it's a full-scale, live-fire, "all up" test of reusability, all on someone else's dime. This has been SpaceX's genius move since the start, they've been developing reusable rockets which normally would be a multi-billion dollar R&D effort. Except they've been able to fit that development program into a commercial launch business, so that the vast majority of the costs have been subsidized by their customers. Instead of being chumps who spend tens of millions of dollars per flight of their own money to test hardware, they get the same testing, or better, while turning a profit. And that's why Blue Origin is still working with incredibly small sub-orbital boosters that are not even in official service yet while SpaceX has been making money hand over fist for years and has also managed to pioneer reuse of orbital launcher stages (while at the same time doing R&D for manned capsules, next generation methalox rockets, Mars colonization, etc.)
- jessriedel 10y ago
  > Fuel up the stage, send it off and recover it again. For first stages that land on a barge, they are already planning on returning them to the mainland by partially refueling them and boosting them back under their own power.
  - ceejayoz 10y ago
    [citation needed], please. I follow SpaceX pretty closely and to my knowledge this has never gone beyond random internet commenters' "what if?" speculation.
    - stepanhruda 10y ago
      I didn't know about it either, but: > Landing a core stage on the platform would be a major achievement. However, Mr. Musk appears to have yet more plans for the Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship. “Will allow (for) refuel and rocket flyback in future,” he added to the unveiling of the ship. http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/11/spacex-autonomous-spaceport-drone-ship/ http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/11/spacex-autonomous-spa...
      - ceejayoz 10y ago
        I'm guessing that went the way of Falcon Heavy fuel crossfeed - too complex, too risky, and unnecessary.
        stepanhruda 10y ago
        They haven't reflown a single booster yet, this is the next step after that.
        ceejayoz 10y ago
        It seems pretty unlikely unless SpaceX builds a larger, permanent installation out in the ocean (think oil rig style). The drone ships are relatively small. Storing cryogenic fuel on them would require a lot of infrastructure, which is costly and dangerous if you crash a booster. They have to return for fueling and maintenance, so a crane makes a lot more sense than incurring the wear, tear, and risk of a launch you could easily avoid.
- madaxe_again 10y ago
  Once they've done a lot more landings, yes. Until then, I'd wager their focus is on testing materials after re-entry for annealing, heat and stress fractures, ablation, and so forth. From this they'll be able to optimise their design (more so than already) to be more resilient to these forces, and will end up with standardised check-lists for re-flight. They're also working heavily on autonomy, so the current ground crews of hundreds could diminish to the same kind of numbers one has for commercial flight. If you launch 200 times a day, which is where they are headed, it becomes routine space traffic control with inexpensive ground crews following procedural manuals. So, I wouldn't expect any rapid turnarounds soon, but give it ten years and they could be turning them around in hours or days, which would absolutely change the economics of space flight. I don't think Musk is into demand driven pricing - he wants his eutopia to be for all - so we may see spaceflight costs rapidly trend down to the same order of magnitude as current commercial flight, perhaps by the 2030s, perhaps sooner. So far they've maintained fantastic momentum.
  - SEJeff 10y ago
    SpaceX was founded 14 years ago. In another 10 years, they'll likely have what you describe on their Mars base. The velocity of this company is simply unprecedented. SpaceX was founded in July of 2002 and the first F9 (I'm purposefully ignoring the Falcon 1 program) went up in July of 2010. For reference, the Space Shuttle Program was formally created by President Nixon in 1972. The first Space Shuttle launch, STS-1, happened on April 12th, 1981.
    - toomanybeersies 10y ago
      That's 8 years for F9, and 9 years for the Shuttle. I wouldn't call 1 year faster unprecedented. The Apollo program was unprecedented. It took only 8 years to put a man on the moon, from putting a man in space.
      - SEJeff 10y ago
        9 years for an agency with lots of space and rocket experience vs 8 years for a company with no space or rocket experience at all. There is no comparison between the two.
- TrevorJ 10y ago
  Probably, though I doubt they will until the get more data. That's the real goldmine here, nobody has ever been in the position to really study a first stage that's been to orbit and back before SpaceX started doing this. I imagine that they will be developing tons of data on how many flights all the parts are rated for before they require rebuilding or inspection, etc. I'm pretty confident they are well on their way towards pretty quick turnarounds though - the engines are the biggest hurdle and they seem to be remarkably robust as demonstrated by the number of times they light them before sending them up already, and the relight tests they have done on recovered cores.

simonh 10y ago

> We just completed the post-landing inspection and all systems look good. Ready to fly again. It makes me wonder if they should literally do that. Fuel up the stage, send it off and recover it again. Maybe fit it out with a dummy upper stage. They have a handful of first stages now, so why not? It would reassure insurers and customers that the process is reliable, provide opportunities to trial out and streamline the refit process and provide valuable info on stage wear and tear. They're need to get flight approvals and so on, it would certainly cost a lot more than just the fuel so might not be worth the trouble.

typicalbender 10y ago
Wouldn't it be great if after a few more successful launches and recoveries they just come out and say they've been re-using the rockets all along.
- ygra 10y ago
  Payload insurance won't like that very much.
  - typicalbender 10y ago
    Them pulling it off doesn't mean that they aren't telling their insurers :)
alex_duf 10y ago
they might as well put a real payload on it right? It's not exactly cheap to launch a full rocket, especially when you involve hundreds of engineers. I would be curious to know what's more expensive. Build again a satellite that exploded or planning an empty launch?
- IshKebab 10y ago
  They could definitely launch cheap things that you still on need on ISS like water, fuel and food.
  - lmm 10y ago
    Any launch to the ISS involves expending a second stage, and IIRC NASA requires the Dragons to be certified (as much for the safety of the ISS as anything else) in a way that currently requires a new one each time.
    - nicolapcweek94 10y ago
      That doesn't stop them from launching a new Dragon (2? hopefully they'll reuse CRS8's booster before that, but it'd be cool to see the first Dragon 2 on top of the first booster landed on the ship) on top of a reused booster though... and of course, reusing the first stage doesn't mean reusing the second stage (which is, in fact, never even recovered) Moot point though, since SES has pretty much already bought the first reused launch ( http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/02/23/ses-eager-to-fly-satellite-aboard-used-falcon-9-rocket/ http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/02/23/ses-eager-to-fly-satell... )
      - lmm 10y ago
        > That doesn't stop them from launching a new Dragon (2? hopefully they'll reuse CRS8's booster before that, but it'd be cool to see the first Dragon 2 on top of the first booster landed on the ship) on top of a reused booster though... and of course, reusing the first stage doesn't mean reusing the second stage (which is, in fact, never even recovered) Sure. My point is that kind of mission is nowhere near as cheap as "throw a bunch of food/water/fuel on top and send it up".
InclinedPlane 10y ago
Why not? Because they can mate it to a 2nd stage that costs about $10-15 million and then sell a flight for $40+ million. Not only is that a hefty profit margin, it's a full-scale, live-fire, "all up" test of reusability, all on someone else's dime. This has been SpaceX's genius move since the start, they've been developing reusable rockets which normally would be a multi-billion dollar R&D effort. Except they've been able to fit that development program into a commercial launch business, so that the vast majority of the costs have been subsidized by their customers. Instead of being chumps who spend tens of millions of dollars per flight of their own money to test hardware, they get the same testing, or better, while turning a profit. And that's why Blue Origin is still working with incredibly small sub-orbital boosters that are not even in official service yet while SpaceX has been making money hand over fist for years and has also managed to pioneer reuse of orbital launcher stages (while at the same time doing R&D for manned capsules, next generation methalox rockets, Mars colonization, etc.)
jessriedel 10y ago
> Fuel up the stage, send it off and recover it again. For first stages that land on a barge, they are already planning on returning them to the mainland by partially refueling them and boosting them back under their own power.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  [citation needed], please. I follow SpaceX pretty closely and to my knowledge this has never gone beyond random internet commenters' "what if?" speculation.
  - stepanhruda 10y ago
    I didn't know about it either, but: > Landing a core stage on the platform would be a major achievement. However, Mr. Musk appears to have yet more plans for the Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship. “Will allow (for) refuel and rocket flyback in future,” he added to the unveiling of the ship. http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/11/spacex-autonomous-spaceport-drone-ship/ http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/11/spacex-autonomous-spa...
    - ceejayoz 10y ago
      I'm guessing that went the way of Falcon Heavy fuel crossfeed - too complex, too risky, and unnecessary.
      - stepanhruda 10y ago
        They haven't reflown a single booster yet, this is the next step after that.
        ceejayoz 10y ago
        It seems pretty unlikely unless SpaceX builds a larger, permanent installation out in the ocean (think oil rig style). The drone ships are relatively small. Storing cryogenic fuel on them would require a lot of infrastructure, which is costly and dangerous if you crash a booster. They have to return for fueling and maintenance, so a crane makes a lot more sense than incurring the wear, tear, and risk of a launch you could easily avoid.
madaxe_again 10y ago
Once they've done a lot more landings, yes. Until then, I'd wager their focus is on testing materials after re-entry for annealing, heat and stress fractures, ablation, and so forth. From this they'll be able to optimise their design (more so than already) to be more resilient to these forces, and will end up with standardised check-lists for re-flight. They're also working heavily on autonomy, so the current ground crews of hundreds could diminish to the same kind of numbers one has for commercial flight. If you launch 200 times a day, which is where they are headed, it becomes routine space traffic control with inexpensive ground crews following procedural manuals. So, I wouldn't expect any rapid turnarounds soon, but give it ten years and they could be turning them around in hours or days, which would absolutely change the economics of space flight. I don't think Musk is into demand driven pricing - he wants his eutopia to be for all - so we may see spaceflight costs rapidly trend down to the same order of magnitude as current commercial flight, perhaps by the 2030s, perhaps sooner. So far they've maintained fantastic momentum.
- SEJeff 10y ago
  SpaceX was founded 14 years ago. In another 10 years, they'll likely have what you describe on their Mars base. The velocity of this company is simply unprecedented. SpaceX was founded in July of 2002 and the first F9 (I'm purposefully ignoring the Falcon 1 program) went up in July of 2010. For reference, the Space Shuttle Program was formally created by President Nixon in 1972. The first Space Shuttle launch, STS-1, happened on April 12th, 1981.
  - toomanybeersies 10y ago
    That's 8 years for F9, and 9 years for the Shuttle. I wouldn't call 1 year faster unprecedented. The Apollo program was unprecedented. It took only 8 years to put a man on the moon, from putting a man in space.
    - SEJeff 10y ago
      9 years for an agency with lots of space and rocket experience vs 8 years for a company with no space or rocket experience at all. There is no comparison between the two.
TrevorJ 10y ago
Probably, though I doubt they will until the get more data. That's the real goldmine here, nobody has ever been in the position to really study a first stage that's been to orbit and back before SpaceX started doing this. I imagine that they will be developing tons of data on how many flights all the parts are rated for before they require rebuilding or inspection, etc. I'm pretty confident they are well on their way towards pretty quick turnarounds though - the engines are the biggest hurdle and they seem to be remarkably robust as demonstrated by the number of times they light them before sending them up already, and the relight tests they have done on recovered cores.