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Once it has been recovered, how challenging is it to recycle a the first stage? If I recall correctly, the solid state boosters on either side of the space shu
by amorphid 10y ago
Once it has been recovered, how challenging is it to recycle a the first stage? If I recall correctly, the solid state boosters on either side of the space shuttle would get reused, too, if you went out and picked them after they fell into the ocean.
EDIT:
It looks like making the shuttle boosters wasn't all that economical... https://www.quora.com/Space-Shuttle-How-much-money-was-saved-by-reusing-the-Solid-Rocket-Boosters-SRBs-instead-of-making-them-disposable/answer/Dave-Mohr-1 https://www.quora.com/Space-Shuttle-How-much-money-was-saved...
- _ph_ 10y agoThe hope is, that long term the first stages can basically be refueled and be ready for relaunch. Of course, only experience will tell how much that is possible. One big difference though is, that unlike the space shuttle boosters, the Falcon first stages are not dumped into salt water on landing. This is one of several reasons, they chose not to go via parachutes for their first stage recovery.
- TorKlingberg 10y agoSolid fuel rockets have a much simpler design, no fuel pumps or cry-cooled fuel tanks. But they are less efficient weight wise, and you cannot turn them off to abort a launch.
- simonh 10y agoUnless you decide to compromise the design by manufacturing them in sections with dodgy O-ring connections.
- mabbo 10y ago> how challenging is it to recycle a the first stage Depends on how well it lands. There's a 'loss-leader' booster that landed but is in bad enough condition that they're keeping it for comparison purposes as to how bad it can get (JCSAT-14, someone else posted in these comments). In terms of time, this first refurb happened in the last year or so, because no booster had ever landed before Dec 2015.