4 ms·
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!
by 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 agoThere 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 agoOnce 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 agoIf 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.