34 ms·

SpaceX successfully launches and recovers second Falcon 9 in 48 hours

507 points by janober 9y ago

agumonkey 9y ago
The frequency is quite staggering. Will Musks replace Hertz?
- ygra 9y ago
  This was only possible since the two launches were on different pads. Otherwise they're on a good path of having one launch every two weeks this year.
  - Klathmon 9y ago
    And they have quite aggressive goals of 24 hour turnaround on the same pad with the same first stage eventually.
    - oneplane 9y ago
      But it's having goals like that, that gets you there. Remember when the others made fun of re-usable 1st stages? :D
      - bigiain 9y ago
        From Twitter this morning: https://twitter.com/AirlineFlyer/status/878333086819246081 https://twitter.com/AirlineFlyer/status/878333086819246081 :-)
    - krallja 9y ago
      It seems like most missions don't have the fuel budget to return to LZ, so they're going to have to buy a lot more drone ships!
      - Klathmon 9y ago
        There has been talk of the droneships refueling the landed stages and then them taking off and flying back to the LZ. It's sounds crazy to me, but so did a rocket launching, splitting in half, then landing 1/2 on a barge in the ocean to be reused while the other half goes to a GTO orbit.
      - ygra 9y ago
        Once Falcon Heavy is flying you could upgrade those flights to FH with a flight profile where you can land all cores on land. The only difference would be more fuel used (which is cheap) and threefold increased risk of stuff going wrong in the first two minutes. May depend on how important it is to get those cores back immediately. Upgrading otherwise expendable flights to FH is already planned as well. The upgrades of Block 5 later this year will improve reusability and performance, though, so more missions can be RTLS.
        krallja 9y ago
        If the payload is small enough (compared to FH), will it be possible to SSTO? Then you could park in LEO, and return to LZ when it's clear! Edit: no. Falcon Heavy has more than one stage.
  - apendleton 9y ago
    Next year they should be going from two launch facilities to four, though, so if each one takes two weeks to turn around, they could still conceivably maintain an every 3-4-day cadence.
- frozenport 9y ago
  Sounds like you got a ragging Elon
- valuearb 9y ago
  As in our entire development team turned over at 1/2 Musks rate?
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    Exactly
vermontdevil 9y ago
And the second launch with the updated grid fins made out of titanium alloy. Elon Musk said it went well and they want to reuse them indefinitely.
- dtparr 9y ago
  Your wording makes it sound like there have been two launches with the new grid fins. For clarification, I believe you meant the second of this weekend's launches was the first to use the new grid fins.
- olex 9y ago
  This was the first launch of the titanium fins. The BulgariaSat booster from two days ago was an older block 3 first stage with the "original" aluminum fins. They did glow quite a bit during the very hot re-entry, visible on the last few video frames before the feed cut out: https://youtu.be/Y8mLi-rRTh8?t=1405 https://youtu.be/Y8mLi-rRTh8?t=1405
  - nialv7 9y ago
    That was probably not just glow. That was the shielding material actually burning.
    - olex 9y ago
      Yes, you're correct. Elon stated in a tweet earlier today that the aluminum fins had burned up their ablative coating on every flight.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - vermontdevil 9y ago
    I misphrased it. I meant the second launch of the weekend. Not the second launch of the fins.
snovv_crash 9y ago
Did anyone else notice that the engines shut off while the rocket was still a small ways up, after which it fell quite heavily onto the landing legs?
- preben 9y ago
  Might be an artifact of the weather conditions, which was said to be less than ideal.
- olex 9y ago
  Yes. Probably due to pitching drone ship deck due to heavy seas, the stage reached zero vertical velocity above the deck and had to shut down. Even at the lowest throttle setting the first stage still has a TWR > 1 and cannot hover without accelerating upwards again, so calculating the "suicide burn" timing is really crucial. edit Corrected "TWR > 0" to "TWR > 1".
  - winslow 9y ago
    Is that TWR (Thrust to Weight Ratio) for when all 9 Merlin engines are lit? Landing burn today had 3 lit if I recall correctly.
    - olex 9y ago
      No, that's for a single engine. At landing, the first stage is nearly empty, and thus very light. Even the single center engine alone, throttled as low as it will go (40% or something like that, I don't think we have the exact number for the Merlin-D), produces too much thrust to be able to hover. The Grasshopper and F9R testing vehicles carried extra ballast to be able to hover and descend under thrust without cutting their engines.
      - winslow 9y ago
        That's pretty cool. Makes sense, especially with stage 1 being so light on re-entry that a single engine would have a TWR > 1.
TheAlchemist 9y ago
This is becoming really astonishing. It's more and more fitting the quote “They did not know it was impossible so they did it” I mean, the company was founded only 15 years ago, they started (with success) launching stuff into space only 10 years ago and now it feels like they are able to launch rockets into space every week. Reusable rockets should we add. Musk very often sets impossible deadlines, but in this case, even if you take a step back, it's scary to make 10 years predictions based on this company track record !
- lettergram 9y ago
  I mean, NASA helped them a ton based on their previous research to this point. Going forward I'd expect some slowdown. But yes, very impressive IMO that he won all the necessary investments and contracts. My bet is his buddy Theil (idk not really buddy, but collegue) helped out with that.
  - ryanmarsh 9y ago
    Going forward I'd expect some slowdown Slowdown in funding or launch pace? SpaceX is cutting launch costs significantly. I suspect that many satellite projects that weren't viable before will become viable now, thus increasing launch pace.
    - andrewwharton 9y ago
      Slowdown in development pace I believe. Not to take anything away at all, but a large part of the rocket development until now was based on an existing knowledge base from NASA. Going forward, there's going to be more and more uncharted territory, so things will likely progressively slow down, relative to the astonishingly fast development pace up until this point.
      - adventured 9y ago
        That premise doesn't inherently follow at all. Quite the opposite. The uncharted territory combined with Musk & Bezos being willing to do audacious things with billions of dollars, is why breakthroughs are about to accelerate again. With scale and greater R&D capabilities, SpaceX will (perhaps along with Blue Origin and others) be responsible for the next great leap forward in space technology - finally. Whereas the US Government launch platforms, through NASA and ULA, had been extremely stagnant in several areas that SpaceX & Co are operating in, due to eg wild (but typical) Congressional incompetence (constantly shifting goals, setting up the context where ULA was granted a monopoly (again due to Congressional incompetence or worse)). The Space Shuttle was an absurd production in all regards, it set US launch progress back decades due to the hyper bloat / cost that was entirely unnecessary. The Shuttle was the space equivalent of the F35, a boondoggle that isn't really great at anything and costs several times what it should have. Now that the incompetent Congress is much further removed when it comes to deciding which way to go (how to get there, why, etc etc etc), space tech will accelerate again.
Tade0 9y ago
I like how SpaceX has a "pricing" section on its webpage as if space flight was something mundane and pedestrian like an oil change in your car or something.
- JshWright 9y ago
  https://www.rocketbuilder.com/ https://www.rocketbuilder.com/ (Granted, SpaceX did it first)
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    I watched the three promo movies on their website; it's interesting how much they focus on the "cheaper price tag != better" angle, by highlighting savings coming from better reliability ratings (= better insurance) and more reliable launch schedules. Feels like an obvious dig at SpaceX ;).
    - greglindahl 9y ago
      You have to sell what you have, and that's what they've got. ULA's insurance rates are not significantly different from SpaceX, btw.
- toomanybeersies 9y ago
  Someone a while ago wrote a blog post comparing the pricing sections on various startup websites and how some startups don't have actual prices on the site, and made a comment about how if SpaceX can put a pricing section on their site, your startup can surely manage it too.
  - bluGill 9y ago
    Your startup can, but should you? Your competition wants to know what you charge so they can undercut you - or if they choose not to undercut you know how much they have to spin that they are better to account for the higher costs. Either way the competition will use your pricing information against you. Now there are other considerations. SpaceX has a number of good PR reasons to want to be upfront about their costs (their competition is regularly accused of cheating the government every election cycle). If you sell retail your customers will ignore you if you don't have pricing information.
zer00eyz 9y ago
Those fins are awesome: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/878821062326198272 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/878821062326198272 Cast and cut titanium. They are about 4x5 feet and some of the largest (if not the largest) titanium castings in the world. Titanium is an amazing material that is super hard to work with (special furnaces), and has its own sets of risks (titanium fire any one). I would love to see what goes into making those things because it simply has to be impressive.
- snovv_crash 9y ago
  I'm curious why they didn't go the laser-sintered 3D printed route. For low volume items like these I'd imagine that the cost of the moulds and machining would be prohibitively expensive, and printing would let them try some different designs as they lead up to a Block-5 design freeze.
  - 2dollars27cents 9y ago
    There are a few reasons I could think of: 1 - Most industrial DMLS/EBM systems have a build envelope far too small for this. A system like the Norsk Merke IV might have the required size, but parts built that that process still require post-machining. 2 - Tolerances. Casting -> Machining still offers greater control over the final geometry than additive processes, especially at that scale. 3 - Casting is a bit more design-agnostic than additive processes. 4 - QC processes for casting + machining are far more defined than for additive processes. None of these are insurmountable challenges, so I'm sure in the future a laser-sintered/EBM/plasma-deposition process will be used or at least heavily-considered.
    - JshWright 9y ago
      What would be the advantage? "3D printing" is great for geometries and structures that don't lend themselves well to traditional CNC milling, but a grid fin is a really straightforward part.
  - zer00eyz 9y ago
    As I understand it (and I am not an expert I just enjoy the field) sintered materials retain some degree of porosity (and loose some strength due to this and how the particles are adhered). This is OK for the average power drill in your house. It isn't critical, and they can compensate for the porosity with extra materials. If we were replacing a steel part with at TI one, then sintering might make sense, the extra strength, and lowered weight would compensate for the differences in materials.
schiffern 9y ago
Incredible time-lapse of the landing, from Elon Musk's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/BVxysOlA04j/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BVxysOlA04j/ The yawing motion at the beginning of the video is because they moved the drone ship to avoid stormy seas, so the stage had to thrust sideways to retarget. In calm weather SpaceX positions the ship right along the ballistic path, so the stage only needs to pitch up and "flip." You can also see the grid fins "pulling up" through the atmosphere to bleed off as much speed as possible. I described the optimization a while back. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14288431 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14288431 Fantastic job to everyone at SpaceX!
- vvanders 9y ago
  That comment is worth a read, I had no clue they were actually generating lift on the body to reduce fuel/etc. Incredible stuff.
  - JshWright 9y ago
    The new and improved grid fins debuted on this flight allow them even greater capabilities in that regard (greater control authority means they can achieve a higher angle of attack).
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - schiffern 9y ago
    Thanks. I made a mistake in that comment, saying the lift/drag of the Shuttle was 1. The hypersonic L/D was 1, but during subsonic approach it was 4.5. In hindsight it kinda makes sense that wings do something. :) The maneuver is more noticeable with the new titanium grid fins (needed because the old aluminum ones caught fire from aerodynamic heating). Not only are they larger, but they use a "sawtooth" leading edge that increases control authority. New: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/879065552060260352 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/879065552060260352 Old: http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/4571-spacex_falcon_9_orbcomm_og2-michael_howard.jpg http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12... They also happen to be the largest titanium forgings in the world. https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42544.340#msg1661163 https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42544.340#...
app4soft 9y ago
Take TLE of all Irridium-NEXT satelites... http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/iridium-NEXT.txt http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/iridium-NEXT.txt ... and import it to Stellarium http://www.stellarium.org/wiki/index.php/Satellites_plugin http://www.stellarium.org/wiki/index.php/Satellites_plugin P.S.: Stellarium 0.16.0 released few days ago! https://sourceforge.net/p/stellarium/news/2017/06/stellarium-0160/ https://sourceforge.net/p/stellarium/news/2017/06/stellarium...
- antgiant 9y ago
  Any idea how I could get a copy of Stellarium 0.16.0 compiled for Raspberry Pi?
lostdog 9y ago
To deploy 10 satellites, does the rocket do a series of burns, or do the satellites have enough propulsion to deploy themselves to separate orbits?
- olex 9y ago
  The satellites do it themselves. The deployments from second stage are staggered with pauses of 100 seconds between each to allow them to safely drift apart from the initial separation jolt. After that, the sats do their own thing.
- mikeash 9y ago
  The required propulsion is minimal. They're all going into the same orbit, just spaced around it. A tiny speed difference is enough to do that, since it adds up over time.
- InclinedPlane 9y ago
  The deployment from the dispenser just puts the satellites in the same orbit with a little bit of offset between them, enough for comfort. The satellites then raise their orbits just a hair using their own propulsion and then use phasing to adjust their positioning so that they are equidistant along the orbit. That part takes a long time (hours) but it doesn't require a lot of propulsive capabilities so the satellites do it themselves.
ChuckMcM 9y ago
Per Elon's tweet those grid fins were much better behaved than previous versions. Nothing got hot enough to start showing up in the visible spectrum (good). And what was interesting for me was the lack of gunk landing on the camera. (presumably from the fact that the covering of the fins wasn't burning off like it had in previous flights). What is particularly impressive for me is the slow and steady progress on the 'landed' F9's. The first one successfully landed looked really beat up, and the next couple marginally less so, Friday's went through a part of flight regime that SpaceX had deemed "un-recoverable" and an this one came through looking quite good. Still feels like science fiction to me ...
- JshWright 9y ago
  > Nothing got hot enough to start showing up in the visible spectrum (good). The new grid fins undergo the same amount of heating, they're just better able to cope with the heat. The reduced heat in this case was due to the much lower energy entry profile (the partial boostback burn killed a large chunk of the stage's velocity prior to reentry, combined with the fact that it was a lower energy orbit in the first place).
  - ChuckMcM 9y ago
    Thanks Josh. I went back and reviewed the Iridium 1 footage and saw that even the Aluminum fins had no trouble with this particular launch and recovery option. I am looking forward to seeing the first GTO launch with a booster that has them.
Animats 9y ago
Nice. SpaceX is finally getting their launch rate up. As a business, that's been SpaceX's biggest problem. Customers like the pricing but not the long delays. Finally, SpaceX seems to be getting past that. Getting pad time at Canaveral is a bottleneck. SpaceX is still building their own launch site at Brownsville,, TX, but that's going slowly.[1] All SpaceX has there right now is some fill that's settling (the location is on sand maybe 2m above sea level) and a dish antenna. Next to be built, the fire station. First launch is now supposed to be no earlier than 2018. [1] http://www.krgv.com/story/35550679/3m-road-project-underway-to-facilitate-spacex http://www.krgv.com/story/35550679/3m-road-project-underway-...
- mabbo 9y ago
  Today's launch wasn't from Canaveral. It was a polar orbit launch, so it went from Vandenberg near LA. It's still around a two-week turnaround to get a launch pad ready in Canaveral.
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    Why? Because the exhaust fire burns everything in its path down to the core?
    - azernik 9y ago
      Not down to the core, but part of the process is a couple of days of inspection to figure out which parts need replacing.
- InclinedPlane 9y ago
  If they achieve this launch rate through the rest of the year they should hit about 20 launches.
deegles 9y ago
Looking forward to articles complaining about SpaceX launching too often. :)
gsmethells 9y ago
I'm reading his autobiography right now. Fascinating life of both the man and his companies if you are interested: https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/0062301233 https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/...
- naedish 9y ago
  That's a biography, not autobiography. And Musk ended up refuting some aspects of the book.
  - dewski 9y ago
    As someone who read the book, do you know which parts he refuted?
    - icelancer 9y ago
      Primarily the child care / miss the birth of a son quote, and the fact he called himself a Samurai. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon-musk-takes-to-twitter-to-refute-bio-book-passages-2015-05-12 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon-musk-takes-to-twitter-... So basically very little.
babyrainbow 9y ago
There seems to be a reason that more companies are not attempting to reuse rockets [1] So considering that, SpaceX has not proved anything, yet. Because the impossible or hard part is not launching and landing rockets. Hard part is to do it.. 1. With same or more reliability than using completely new rockets. 2. Launch with enough frequency to justify the reusing procedure.. So yea. A couple of launches and reuses does not prove anything. It is a start, sure. But they have not yet proved others who didn't attempt this yet.. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14626183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14626183
ttandon 9y ago
Does anyone know why a side-view of the actual touchdown (like they usually release after) hasn't been posted by SpaceX yet?
sidcool 9y ago
Some mornings when I am unable to get out of bed, such news act as an Adrenaline shot for me. I kick myself out of the black hole and go ahead to launch my rockets (metaphorical). If Elon can, I need to, as his protege (again metaphorical)
esseti 9y ago
wondering if all this tech is only for rockets or he has a plan to build the next generation of "airplanes" for traveling.
- ygra 9y ago
  I guess from Elon's POV travelling long distances is already fairly efficient with airplanes for people and ships for cargo. As evident from projects like Hyperloop and The Boring Company he tends to tackle the shorter distances where things like trucks, cars, or planes are rather wasteful (and trains seem to be not good enough, but maybe that's also due to the US' bad train infrastructure with virtually no high-speed rail at all). So, no, I don't see anything like that coming. Based purely on speculation and observation, of course.
  - bluGill 9y ago
    > US' bad train infrastructure with virtually no high-speed rail at all The US has the best train infrastructure in the world. What is lacking is passenger rail, which gives the false impressions that the infrastructure is bad. Trains are not a very good fit for moving people for the most part. Other countries have stretched those limits to the max which means that they can give the impressions of good train infrastructure.
chaosbutters314 9y ago
I had always hoped that they would use giant versions of these pin toys to land rockets. https://www.amazon.com/Toysmith-Classic-Pin-Art-Black/dp/B000FZVNM4 https://www.amazon.com/Toysmith-Classic-Pin-Art-Black/dp/B00...
peki 9y ago
I'm wondering what would be the flight time for a transcontinental flight on a SpaceX falcon9? How about London to NY?

507 points by janober 9y ago

agumonkey 9y ago

The frequency is quite staggering. Will Musks replace Hertz?

ygra 9y ago
This was only possible since the two launches were on different pads. Otherwise they're on a good path of having one launch every two weeks this year.
- Klathmon 9y ago
  And they have quite aggressive goals of 24 hour turnaround on the same pad with the same first stage eventually.
  - oneplane 9y ago
    But it's having goals like that, that gets you there. Remember when the others made fun of re-usable 1st stages? :D
    - bigiain 9y ago
      From Twitter this morning: https://twitter.com/AirlineFlyer/status/878333086819246081 https://twitter.com/AirlineFlyer/status/878333086819246081 :-)
  - krallja 9y ago
    It seems like most missions don't have the fuel budget to return to LZ, so they're going to have to buy a lot more drone ships!
    - Klathmon 9y ago
      There has been talk of the droneships refueling the landed stages and then them taking off and flying back to the LZ. It's sounds crazy to me, but so did a rocket launching, splitting in half, then landing 1/2 on a barge in the ocean to be reused while the other half goes to a GTO orbit.
    - ygra 9y ago
      Once Falcon Heavy is flying you could upgrade those flights to FH with a flight profile where you can land all cores on land. The only difference would be more fuel used (which is cheap) and threefold increased risk of stuff going wrong in the first two minutes. May depend on how important it is to get those cores back immediately. Upgrading otherwise expendable flights to FH is already planned as well. The upgrades of Block 5 later this year will improve reusability and performance, though, so more missions can be RTLS.
      - krallja 9y ago
        If the payload is small enough (compared to FH), will it be possible to SSTO? Then you could park in LEO, and return to LZ when it's clear! Edit: no. Falcon Heavy has more than one stage.
- apendleton 9y ago
  Next year they should be going from two launch facilities to four, though, so if each one takes two weeks to turn around, they could still conceivably maintain an every 3-4-day cadence.
frozenport 9y ago
Sounds like you got a ragging Elon
valuearb 9y ago
As in our entire development team turned over at 1/2 Musks rate?
- agumonkey 9y ago
  Exactly

vermontdevil 9y ago

And the second launch with the updated grid fins made out of titanium alloy. Elon Musk said it went well and they want to reuse them indefinitely.

dtparr 9y ago
Your wording makes it sound like there have been two launches with the new grid fins. For clarification, I believe you meant the second of this weekend's launches was the first to use the new grid fins.
olex 9y ago
This was the first launch of the titanium fins. The BulgariaSat booster from two days ago was an older block 3 first stage with the "original" aluminum fins. They did glow quite a bit during the very hot re-entry, visible on the last few video frames before the feed cut out: https://youtu.be/Y8mLi-rRTh8?t=1405 https://youtu.be/Y8mLi-rRTh8?t=1405
- nialv7 9y ago
  That was probably not just glow. That was the shielding material actually burning.
  - olex 9y ago
    Yes, you're correct. Elon stated in a tweet earlier today that the aluminum fins had burned up their ablative coating on every flight.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- vermontdevil 9y ago
  I misphrased it. I meant the second launch of the weekend. Not the second launch of the fins.

snovv_crash 9y ago

Did anyone else notice that the engines shut off while the rocket was still a small ways up, after which it fell quite heavily onto the landing legs?

preben 9y ago
Might be an artifact of the weather conditions, which was said to be less than ideal.
olex 9y ago
Yes. Probably due to pitching drone ship deck due to heavy seas, the stage reached zero vertical velocity above the deck and had to shut down. Even at the lowest throttle setting the first stage still has a TWR > 1 and cannot hover without accelerating upwards again, so calculating the "suicide burn" timing is really crucial. edit Corrected "TWR > 0" to "TWR > 1".
- winslow 9y ago
  Is that TWR (Thrust to Weight Ratio) for when all 9 Merlin engines are lit? Landing burn today had 3 lit if I recall correctly.
  - olex 9y ago
    No, that's for a single engine. At landing, the first stage is nearly empty, and thus very light. Even the single center engine alone, throttled as low as it will go (40% or something like that, I don't think we have the exact number for the Merlin-D), produces too much thrust to be able to hover. The Grasshopper and F9R testing vehicles carried extra ballast to be able to hover and descend under thrust without cutting their engines.
    - winslow 9y ago
      That's pretty cool. Makes sense, especially with stage 1 being so light on re-entry that a single engine would have a TWR > 1.

TheAlchemist 9y ago

This is becoming really astonishing. It's more and more fitting the quote “They did not know it was impossible so they did it” I mean, the company was founded only 15 years ago, they started (with success) launching stuff into space only 10 years ago and now it feels like they are able to launch rockets into space every week. Reusable rockets should we add. Musk very often sets impossible deadlines, but in this case, even if you take a step back, it's scary to make 10 years predictions based on this company track record !

lettergram 9y ago
I mean, NASA helped them a ton based on their previous research to this point. Going forward I'd expect some slowdown. But yes, very impressive IMO that he won all the necessary investments and contracts. My bet is his buddy Theil (idk not really buddy, but collegue) helped out with that.
- ryanmarsh 9y ago
  Going forward I'd expect some slowdown Slowdown in funding or launch pace? SpaceX is cutting launch costs significantly. I suspect that many satellite projects that weren't viable before will become viable now, thus increasing launch pace.
  - andrewwharton 9y ago
    Slowdown in development pace I believe. Not to take anything away at all, but a large part of the rocket development until now was based on an existing knowledge base from NASA. Going forward, there's going to be more and more uncharted territory, so things will likely progressively slow down, relative to the astonishingly fast development pace up until this point.
    - adventured 9y ago
      That premise doesn't inherently follow at all. Quite the opposite. The uncharted territory combined with Musk & Bezos being willing to do audacious things with billions of dollars, is why breakthroughs are about to accelerate again. With scale and greater R&D capabilities, SpaceX will (perhaps along with Blue Origin and others) be responsible for the next great leap forward in space technology - finally. Whereas the US Government launch platforms, through NASA and ULA, had been extremely stagnant in several areas that SpaceX & Co are operating in, due to eg wild (but typical) Congressional incompetence (constantly shifting goals, setting up the context where ULA was granted a monopoly (again due to Congressional incompetence or worse)). The Space Shuttle was an absurd production in all regards, it set US launch progress back decades due to the hyper bloat / cost that was entirely unnecessary. The Shuttle was the space equivalent of the F35, a boondoggle that isn't really great at anything and costs several times what it should have. Now that the incompetent Congress is much further removed when it comes to deciding which way to go (how to get there, why, etc etc etc), space tech will accelerate again.

Tade0 9y ago

I like how SpaceX has a "pricing" section on its webpage as if space flight was something mundane and pedestrian like an oil change in your car or something.

JshWright 9y ago
https://www.rocketbuilder.com/ https://www.rocketbuilder.com/ (Granted, SpaceX did it first)
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  I watched the three promo movies on their website; it's interesting how much they focus on the "cheaper price tag != better" angle, by highlighting savings coming from better reliability ratings (= better insurance) and more reliable launch schedules. Feels like an obvious dig at SpaceX ;).
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    You have to sell what you have, and that's what they've got. ULA's insurance rates are not significantly different from SpaceX, btw.
toomanybeersies 9y ago
Someone a while ago wrote a blog post comparing the pricing sections on various startup websites and how some startups don't have actual prices on the site, and made a comment about how if SpaceX can put a pricing section on their site, your startup can surely manage it too.
- bluGill 9y ago
  Your startup can, but should you? Your competition wants to know what you charge so they can undercut you - or if they choose not to undercut you know how much they have to spin that they are better to account for the higher costs. Either way the competition will use your pricing information against you. Now there are other considerations. SpaceX has a number of good PR reasons to want to be upfront about their costs (their competition is regularly accused of cheating the government every election cycle). If you sell retail your customers will ignore you if you don't have pricing information.

zer00eyz 9y ago

Those fins are awesome: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/878821062326198272 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/878821062326198272 Cast and cut titanium. They are about 4x5 feet and some of the largest (if not the largest) titanium castings in the world. Titanium is an amazing material that is super hard to work with (special furnaces), and has its own sets of risks (titanium fire any one). I would love to see what goes into making those things because it simply has to be impressive.

snovv_crash 9y ago
I'm curious why they didn't go the laser-sintered 3D printed route. For low volume items like these I'd imagine that the cost of the moulds and machining would be prohibitively expensive, and printing would let them try some different designs as they lead up to a Block-5 design freeze.
- 2dollars27cents 9y ago
  There are a few reasons I could think of: 1 - Most industrial DMLS/EBM systems have a build envelope far too small for this. A system like the Norsk Merke IV might have the required size, but parts built that that process still require post-machining. 2 - Tolerances. Casting -> Machining still offers greater control over the final geometry than additive processes, especially at that scale. 3 - Casting is a bit more design-agnostic than additive processes. 4 - QC processes for casting + machining are far more defined than for additive processes. None of these are insurmountable challenges, so I'm sure in the future a laser-sintered/EBM/plasma-deposition process will be used or at least heavily-considered.
  - JshWright 9y ago
    What would be the advantage? "3D printing" is great for geometries and structures that don't lend themselves well to traditional CNC milling, but a grid fin is a really straightforward part.
- zer00eyz 9y ago
  As I understand it (and I am not an expert I just enjoy the field) sintered materials retain some degree of porosity (and loose some strength due to this and how the particles are adhered). This is OK for the average power drill in your house. It isn't critical, and they can compensate for the porosity with extra materials. If we were replacing a steel part with at TI one, then sintering might make sense, the extra strength, and lowered weight would compensate for the differences in materials.

schiffern 9y ago

Incredible time-lapse of the landing, from Elon Musk's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/BVxysOlA04j/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BVxysOlA04j/ The yawing motion at the beginning of the video is because they moved the drone ship to avoid stormy seas, so the stage had to thrust sideways to retarget. In calm weather SpaceX positions the ship right along the ballistic path, so the stage only needs to pitch up and "flip." You can also see the grid fins "pulling up" through the atmosphere to bleed off as much speed as possible. I described the optimization a while back. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14288431 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14288431 Fantastic job to everyone at SpaceX!

vvanders 9y ago
That comment is worth a read, I had no clue they were actually generating lift on the body to reduce fuel/etc. Incredible stuff.
- JshWright 9y ago
  The new and improved grid fins debuted on this flight allow them even greater capabilities in that regard (greater control authority means they can achieve a higher angle of attack).
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- schiffern 9y ago
  Thanks. I made a mistake in that comment, saying the lift/drag of the Shuttle was 1. The hypersonic L/D was 1, but during subsonic approach it was 4.5. In hindsight it kinda makes sense that wings do something. :) The maneuver is more noticeable with the new titanium grid fins (needed because the old aluminum ones caught fire from aerodynamic heating). Not only are they larger, but they use a "sawtooth" leading edge that increases control authority. New: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/879065552060260352 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/879065552060260352 Old: http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/4571-spacex_falcon_9_orbcomm_og2-michael_howard.jpg http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12... They also happen to be the largest titanium forgings in the world. https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42544.340#msg1661163 https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42544.340#...

app4soft 9y ago

Take TLE of all Irridium-NEXT satelites... http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/iridium-NEXT.txt http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/iridium-NEXT.txt ... and import it to Stellarium http://www.stellarium.org/wiki/index.php/Satellites_plugin http://www.stellarium.org/wiki/index.php/Satellites_plugin P.S.: Stellarium 0.16.0 released few days ago! https://sourceforge.net/p/stellarium/news/2017/06/stellarium-0160/ https://sourceforge.net/p/stellarium/news/2017/06/stellarium...

antgiant 9y ago
Any idea how I could get a copy of Stellarium 0.16.0 compiled for Raspberry Pi?

lostdog 9y ago

To deploy 10 satellites, does the rocket do a series of burns, or do the satellites have enough propulsion to deploy themselves to separate orbits?

olex 9y ago
The satellites do it themselves. The deployments from second stage are staggered with pauses of 100 seconds between each to allow them to safely drift apart from the initial separation jolt. After that, the sats do their own thing.
mikeash 9y ago
The required propulsion is minimal. They're all going into the same orbit, just spaced around it. A tiny speed difference is enough to do that, since it adds up over time.
InclinedPlane 9y ago
The deployment from the dispenser just puts the satellites in the same orbit with a little bit of offset between them, enough for comfort. The satellites then raise their orbits just a hair using their own propulsion and then use phasing to adjust their positioning so that they are equidistant along the orbit. That part takes a long time (hours) but it doesn't require a lot of propulsive capabilities so the satellites do it themselves.

ChuckMcM 9y ago

Per Elon's tweet those grid fins were much better behaved than previous versions. Nothing got hot enough to start showing up in the visible spectrum (good). And what was interesting for me was the lack of gunk landing on the camera. (presumably from the fact that the covering of the fins wasn't burning off like it had in previous flights). What is particularly impressive for me is the slow and steady progress on the 'landed' F9's. The first one successfully landed looked really beat up, and the next couple marginally less so, Friday's went through a part of flight regime that SpaceX had deemed "un-recoverable" and an this one came through looking quite good. Still feels like science fiction to me ...

JshWright 9y ago
> Nothing got hot enough to start showing up in the visible spectrum (good). The new grid fins undergo the same amount of heating, they're just better able to cope with the heat. The reduced heat in this case was due to the much lower energy entry profile (the partial boostback burn killed a large chunk of the stage's velocity prior to reentry, combined with the fact that it was a lower energy orbit in the first place).
- ChuckMcM 9y ago
  Thanks Josh. I went back and reviewed the Iridium 1 footage and saw that even the Aluminum fins had no trouble with this particular launch and recovery option. I am looking forward to seeing the first GTO launch with a booster that has them.

Animats 9y ago

Nice. SpaceX is finally getting their launch rate up. As a business, that's been SpaceX's biggest problem. Customers like the pricing but not the long delays. Finally, SpaceX seems to be getting past that. Getting pad time at Canaveral is a bottleneck. SpaceX is still building their own launch site at Brownsville,, TX, but that's going slowly.[1] All SpaceX has there right now is some fill that's settling (the location is on sand maybe 2m above sea level) and a dish antenna. Next to be built, the fire station. First launch is now supposed to be no earlier than 2018. [1] http://www.krgv.com/story/35550679/3m-road-project-underway-to-facilitate-spacex http://www.krgv.com/story/35550679/3m-road-project-underway-...

mabbo 9y ago
Today's launch wasn't from Canaveral. It was a polar orbit launch, so it went from Vandenberg near LA. It's still around a two-week turnaround to get a launch pad ready in Canaveral.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  Why? Because the exhaust fire burns everything in its path down to the core?
  - azernik 9y ago
    Not down to the core, but part of the process is a couple of days of inspection to figure out which parts need replacing.
InclinedPlane 9y ago
If they achieve this launch rate through the rest of the year they should hit about 20 launches.

deegles 9y ago

Looking forward to articles complaining about SpaceX launching too often. :)

gsmethells 9y ago

I'm reading his autobiography right now. Fascinating life of both the man and his companies if you are interested: https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/0062301233 https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/...

naedish 9y ago
That's a biography, not autobiography. And Musk ended up refuting some aspects of the book.
- dewski 9y ago
  As someone who read the book, do you know which parts he refuted?
  - icelancer 9y ago
    Primarily the child care / miss the birth of a son quote, and the fact he called himself a Samurai. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon-musk-takes-to-twitter-to-refute-bio-book-passages-2015-05-12 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon-musk-takes-to-twitter-... So basically very little.

babyrainbow 9y ago

There seems to be a reason that more companies are not attempting to reuse rockets [1] So considering that, SpaceX has not proved anything, yet. Because the impossible or hard part is not launching and landing rockets. Hard part is to do it.. 1. With same or more reliability than using completely new rockets. 2. Launch with enough frequency to justify the reusing procedure.. So yea. A couple of launches and reuses does not prove anything. It is a start, sure. But they have not yet proved others who didn't attempt this yet.. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14626183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14626183

ttandon 9y ago

Does anyone know why a side-view of the actual touchdown (like they usually release after) hasn't been posted by SpaceX yet?

sidcool 9y ago

Some mornings when I am unable to get out of bed, such news act as an Adrenaline shot for me. I kick myself out of the black hole and go ahead to launch my rockets (metaphorical). If Elon can, I need to, as his protege (again metaphorical)

esseti 9y ago

wondering if all this tech is only for rockets or he has a plan to build the next generation of "airplanes" for traveling.

ygra 9y ago
I guess from Elon's POV travelling long distances is already fairly efficient with airplanes for people and ships for cargo. As evident from projects like Hyperloop and The Boring Company he tends to tackle the shorter distances where things like trucks, cars, or planes are rather wasteful (and trains seem to be not good enough, but maybe that's also due to the US' bad train infrastructure with virtually no high-speed rail at all). So, no, I don't see anything like that coming. Based purely on speculation and observation, of course.
- bluGill 9y ago
  > US' bad train infrastructure with virtually no high-speed rail at all The US has the best train infrastructure in the world. What is lacking is passenger rail, which gives the false impressions that the infrastructure is bad. Trains are not a very good fit for moving people for the most part. Other countries have stretched those limits to the max which means that they can give the impressions of good train infrastructure.

chaosbutters314 9y ago

I had always hoped that they would use giant versions of these pin toys to land rockets. https://www.amazon.com/Toysmith-Classic-Pin-Art-Black/dp/B000FZVNM4 https://www.amazon.com/Toysmith-Classic-Pin-Art-Black/dp/B00...

peki 9y ago

I'm wondering what would be the flight time for a transcontinental flight on a SpaceX falcon9? How about London to NY?