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I heard that Musk said that the next goal is to get Falcon 9 total turnaround time to under 24 hours. That's a direct dress rehearsal for the https://en.wikipe

I heard that Musk said that the next goal is to get Falcon 9 total turnaround time to under 24 hours. That's a direct dress rehearsal for the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITS_launch_vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITS_launch_vehicle plan, where it takes off and returns directly to its pad, where it's refueled and 2nd stage loaded on top, for immediate turnaround. We're living in the fuckin' future.

schoen 10y ago
It's kind of weird to think that it would be so reliable that it wouldn't even need serious inspection before flying again! But I guess other vehicles like cars and trucks are in that category (they don't typically receive an in-depth safety inspection before and after each trip), so maybe rockets can get there too...
- greglindahl 10y ago
  Airplanes are the comparison that SpaceX uses.
  - collinmanderson 10y ago
    Exactly. Airplanes get inspected between flights, but it takes hours, not days to do the inspections.
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      It does not take hours. Southwest turns a 747 around in 20 minutes. That includes baggage unload/reload, fueling, and pilot pre-flight.
      - wl 10y ago
        Southwest doesn't fly 747s, only 737s.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- monkmartinez 10y ago
  I had an in-flight emergency (kind of) today while doing a cross country flight with a friend who is a PPL. We lost the alternator and lucky for us the weather was really good, sans high winds. That means we had no instruments and no comms.... except the back up handheld radio and our cell phones. No harm, no foul and we landed safely... I say that to say this; I would hope they are just really fast at inspections. There is a real reason to get them right. Failures happen, even to super analog tech.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    I think its important to note that while you shoot for reusability, if the vehicle fails where it can complete is primary objective (but not return to pad), that's not a show stopper; SpaceX has an entire warehouse full of returned cores now. For ICT, same deal. Hope for the best, but if your core has a critical failure and must burn a bit longer to achieve orbit, thereby losing boostback and sacrificing itself, you start rolling out the next core to the pad as soon as telemetry tells you (if you're on the clock with colonists waiting in orbit for fuel before breaking orbit). This is not without precedent; a Falcon 9 core previously had a failure of an engine in flight, and the vehicle recalculated the burn time on the fly to continue on with the primary mission. https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/that-smooth-spacex-launch-turns-out-one-of-the-engines-exploded/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/that-smooth-spacex-l...
    - gnode 10y ago
      Ultimately, it may be better to abort in such cases, and land with payload (assuming there's enough propellant left to do so), or even discard the payload. As re-usability becomes more commonplace, the cost of the first stage booster will dwarf the cost per launch, and we'll probably see space launches for increasingly lower value cargo.
      - toomuchtodo 10y ago
        The dynamic loads of a fully loaded Falcon 9 preclude an abort once it's off the pad; you are committed. I'm not an aerospace engineer, but if one wants to comment, I'd be happy to be corrected. It already requires ideal conditions for stages to separate successfully.
- awqrre 10y ago
  inspections might be easily automated
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
mcbutterbunz 10y ago
What sort of benefit would an immediate turn around launch provide?
- GeneralMayhem 10y ago
  Not connected to SpaceX in any way, but I can speculate. 1. Drastically less capex for the same traffic volume. If you have enough business to be launching once a week and it takes you on average six months to get a rocket turned around, you need at least 25 rockets (probably closer to 35 to smooth out the peaks). If it takes you on average a day to get a rocket ready, then you only really need two (one and a backup). 2. Beyond being useful on its own, immediate turnaround means that you don't have to do much between launches, which means that you've cut down drastically on opex. It's not just that you can get a rocket ready in a day, it's that you can get a rocket ready with less than a day's worth of work. 3. Agility means that you might be able to take opportunities that might otherwise be unavailable due to short notice. Your probe only has an hour launch window every couple of years, and it's delayed so that it won't be ready until 2 months before? With other launch systems, you might have to cancel due to uncertainty. With SpaceX, no problem - as long as nobody else is scheduled for that day, you can always jump in if your probe is ready.
  - collinmanderson 10y ago
    SpaceX also only has so much warehouse space, and they can't have too many rockets in the shop at the same time. That would limit how often they can do flights.

schoen 10y ago

It's kind of weird to think that it would be so reliable that it wouldn't even need serious inspection before flying again! But I guess other vehicles like cars and trucks are in that category (they don't typically receive an in-depth safety inspection before and after each trip), so maybe rockets can get there too...

greglindahl 10y ago
Airplanes are the comparison that SpaceX uses.
- collinmanderson 10y ago
  Exactly. Airplanes get inspected between flights, but it takes hours, not days to do the inspections.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    It does not take hours. Southwest turns a 747 around in 20 minutes. That includes baggage unload/reload, fueling, and pilot pre-flight.
    - wl 10y ago
      Southwest doesn't fly 747s, only 737s.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
monkmartinez 10y ago
I had an in-flight emergency (kind of) today while doing a cross country flight with a friend who is a PPL. We lost the alternator and lucky for us the weather was really good, sans high winds. That means we had no instruments and no comms.... except the back up handheld radio and our cell phones. No harm, no foul and we landed safely... I say that to say this; I would hope they are just really fast at inspections. There is a real reason to get them right. Failures happen, even to super analog tech.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  I think its important to note that while you shoot for reusability, if the vehicle fails where it can complete is primary objective (but not return to pad), that's not a show stopper; SpaceX has an entire warehouse full of returned cores now. For ICT, same deal. Hope for the best, but if your core has a critical failure and must burn a bit longer to achieve orbit, thereby losing boostback and sacrificing itself, you start rolling out the next core to the pad as soon as telemetry tells you (if you're on the clock with colonists waiting in orbit for fuel before breaking orbit). This is not without precedent; a Falcon 9 core previously had a failure of an engine in flight, and the vehicle recalculated the burn time on the fly to continue on with the primary mission. https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/that-smooth-spacex-launch-turns-out-one-of-the-engines-exploded/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/that-smooth-spacex-l...
  - gnode 10y ago
    Ultimately, it may be better to abort in such cases, and land with payload (assuming there's enough propellant left to do so), or even discard the payload. As re-usability becomes more commonplace, the cost of the first stage booster will dwarf the cost per launch, and we'll probably see space launches for increasingly lower value cargo.
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      The dynamic loads of a fully loaded Falcon 9 preclude an abort once it's off the pad; you are committed. I'm not an aerospace engineer, but if one wants to comment, I'd be happy to be corrected. It already requires ideal conditions for stages to separate successfully.
awqrre 10y ago
inspections might be easily automated

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

mcbutterbunz 10y ago

What sort of benefit would an immediate turn around launch provide?

GeneralMayhem 10y ago
Not connected to SpaceX in any way, but I can speculate. 1. Drastically less capex for the same traffic volume. If you have enough business to be launching once a week and it takes you on average six months to get a rocket turned around, you need at least 25 rockets (probably closer to 35 to smooth out the peaks). If it takes you on average a day to get a rocket ready, then you only really need two (one and a backup). 2. Beyond being useful on its own, immediate turnaround means that you don't have to do much between launches, which means that you've cut down drastically on opex. It's not just that you can get a rocket ready in a day, it's that you can get a rocket ready with less than a day's worth of work. 3. Agility means that you might be able to take opportunities that might otherwise be unavailable due to short notice. Your probe only has an hour launch window every couple of years, and it's delayed so that it won't be ready until 2 months before? With other launch systems, you might have to cancel due to uncertainty. With SpaceX, no problem - as long as nobody else is scheduled for that day, you can always jump in if your probe is ready.
- collinmanderson 10y ago
  SpaceX also only has so much warehouse space, and they can't have too many rockets in the shop at the same time. That would limit how often they can do flights.