6 ms·
Has anyone seen any updates on how their fairing recovery attempt went? They had the ship done and seemingly ready back in December - https://imgur.com/gallery
by huhtenberg 9y ago
Has anyone seen any updates on how their fairing recovery attempt went?
They had the ship done and seemingly ready back in December - https://imgur.com/gallery/MQcEE https://imgur.com/gallery/MQcEE
- gaius 9y agoThey had the Air Force bomb it instead
- emeraldd 9y agoBased on https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/24990/did-the-fairings-from-the-falcon-heavy-test-flight-get-recovered https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/24990/did-the-fair... it looks like they didn't get it this time.
- wlesieutre 9y agoFairing recovery was asked in the press conference afterward - here's a transcription from r/spacex Fairing recovery has proven surprisingly difficult. I'm still fairly sure we can do it in the next six months, but the fairing is [not aerodynamic], messes with the parachute... we also have a fairing version 2, much more important than version 1 fairings.... my guess is next six months for fairing recovery. We have the special boat. .....we might even be able to catch the dragon too, if nasa wants to https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/7vruh7/falcon_heavy_postlaunch_media_briefing_megathread/dtunrx5/ https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/7vruh7/falcon_heavy...
- rwmj 9y agoIsn't the fairing just a simple pair of metal casings. Why bother to recover it?
- niroyb 9y agoIt's carbon composites, slow to build and about 10% of the total launch cost.
- 51Cards 9y agoEven being a seemingly simple structure it would still be expensive to build. I'm sure it also contains latching hardware, etc. used to release it. Seeing as it's mostly a static piece if they can get it down in one piece it's probably "trivial" (compared to a full core) to re use it, but it saves money (and junk in the ocean)
- toufka 9y agoI think they cost on the order of magnitude of $1M each. As I've heard it been put - "Imagine if there was a pallet of $1M in cash falling from the sky. And you knew where and when it would fall. And you'd expect the rate of 'cashfall' to increase to tens, even hundreds of times a year. Would you try to develop a system to catch it?"
- dogma1138 9y agoOnly if the total operational cost of that system would be lower than the amount of cash falling from the sky.
- mkempe 9y agoThe profit equation is a little bit more complex. Consider that recovered fairings would be used multiple times, not just once each; and the long time to manufacture each new one adds an unwanted scheduling delay.
- jccooper 9y agoThey're actually huge expensive carbon fiber things. Think "racing yacht hulls", and cost several millions of dollars each. A significant portion of the cost of the whole vehicle. Plus they're slow to manufacture, so they can increase tempo if they can get them back intact.