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Thanks for the closure - I've been refreshing twitter all morning. I've seen the much-touted $90M price-tag for the FH launch, but does that take into account
by meatbags 9y ago
Thanks for the closure - I've been refreshing twitter all morning.
I've seen the much-touted $90M price-tag for the FH launch, but does that take into account loss of the core or boosters?
- Analemma_ 9y agoSpaceX has been keeping their launch prices pretty consistent, even when they couldn't know how many F9 stages they would actually recover. I think they've factored in testing losses into the price.
- drawnwren 9y agoI wouldn't be surprised to learn that advertised prices are still far above what they could achieve after flying for a while and paying down some of their R&D debt (and if/when the market becomes even a little bit competitive).
- mathw 9y agoAlmost inevitably. They don't need to hit rock-bottom prices because they're already there compared to the rest of the current market, and they can use the money to pay back their enormous R&D budget, or if Musk is just throwing that money off as a worthwhile loss then to pay for research on BFR and their other future projects. After all if you can make a hefty profit while still undercutting the competition you're basically winning at capitalism.
- akozak 9y agoI think he said in the press conference that they weren't planning to reuse the core or boosters. (But then mentioned later they wanted some of the parts? IDK)
- mxvzr 9y agoIf I understood properly none of the boosters were block 5 so they weren't looking at re-flying them. They are however interested in recovering the grid fins on the side boosters, which were redesigned to accommodate for the nose cones now sitting on top of them.
- dmix 9y agoBlock 5?
- pi-rat 9y agoVersion 5 of the falcon design.
- Cogito 9y agoTo be perhaps slightly more accurate, it's like a major version 5. Almost (if not) all missions include changes of some kind; the manufacturing blocks each have significant, incompatible differences in parts. Upgrading the grid fins would be a minor version change, modifying the engine to increase its throttle depth a major one. I don't know, but it seems like there would need to be significant re-tooling for each new block, and many parts would be incompatible with previous blocks.
- erikpukinskis 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_Full_Thrust#Block_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_Full_Thrust#Block_5
- dtparr 9y agoThe latest hardware revision that's expected to be the mainstay for F9 flights going forward. Has better performance and addresses some reusability issues discovered in earlier blocks.
- jotm 9y agoBut if they weren't on this flight, how sure is SpaceX that they are more reliable? But yeah, that's just a question from my mind. This launch was amazing, the future in the making right here.
- volkl48 9y agoEven if they're not reusing any of it (this time), it's still very useful to examine and analyze how well it's held up. Perhaps some piece of metal is showing more fatigue than they'd like to see, or a wire had damage to the insulation from a vibration. I'm sure that's the sort of thing they'll be looking at.
- Laforet 9y agoCorrect, the engines were going to be retired anyway but they are keen to reuse the titanium grid fins on the boosters which cost a small fortune to make. The core actually had older ablative grid fins made of aluminium so no great loss there[0]. [0]https://i.redd.it/l6s2bds7pl801.png https://i.redd.it/l6s2bds7pl801.png
- gameswithgo 9y agoahh, I noticed that in the feed and was wondering why. I guess they expected it was the least likely to work? or needed the better grid fins less because of the cylindrical top
- josu 9y agoCan they still recover them?
- 0xTJ 9y agoHave you seen an approximate price for those fins anywhere. I saw the interviews, but I want to know how expensive is expensive.
- nigwil_ 9y agoPlatinum is USD$32K per KG, so if the platinum grid fins are 100KG, then they would cost > $300K each just for materials. With 4 per booster that might be a million dollar price tag for the grid fins.
- JshWright 9y agoThe $90m price is for a fully reusable FH, yes. The cores in this particular flight, however, were not intended for reuse either way.
- mikejb 9y agoThe damage to the ASDS might be more of a problem. Depending on how badly it was damaged, it might not be available to catch other cores that could have landed otherwise
- z3t4 9y agoIt look cool to have them land on their own, but wouldn't it be much cheaper to use parachutes and drop them in the ocean !? Either way they are going to take them apart down to each bolt and then reassemble again to make sure there are no faults. You don't simply fill it up and relaunch.
- wiredfool 9y agoNo. This has been gone ove many times, but: Parachutes aren't cheap or easy. Saltwater is horrible for precision parts. They are trying to gas and go, or at least move, gas and full power test.
- mathw 9y agoA large part of the work SpaceX are trying to do is get it so that they can pretty much just give it a fairly simple inspection, fill it up and relaunch it. They already need far less work between launches than the space shuttle did.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago> You don't simply fill it up and relaunch. Yes, you do. Or at least, that's what they want to do. They've already reflown a bunch of their landed rockets, including the two boosters on Falcon Heavy. The ultimate goal is to be able to fill it up and relaunch, and the ultimate motivation for propulsive landing is simple - that's what is needed on Mars (parachutes won't do much there), so they want to master it. EDIT: I meant that today, with Falcon Heavy Test Flight behind us, the two side boosters qualify as reflown - this was their second mission, not the third.
- jotm 9y agoSo the FH boosters were reused? The ones that landed back again? Amazing, great news to start a morning :)