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Yea, I wish we'd get a more detailed explanation of the accounting on this. For all I knew it was totally plausible that fairings would be destroyed by sea wat
by jessriedel 8y ago
Yea, I wish we'd get a more detailed explanation of the accounting on this. For all I knew it was totally plausible that fairings would be destroyed by sea water, and it was also plausible there'd be no damage. The part that confuses me is why they would spend so much effort trying to catch them with Mr. Steven if they are in fact serviceable after a swim. Maybe the idea is that salt-water refurbishment-and-reuse saves a bit of money compared to expendable, but mid-air-catch would have saved more but turned out to be too difficult?
- wongarsu 8y agoThe fairings are also quite big, so I imagine they get destroyed by waves very quickly if the sea isn't completely calm.
- taneq 8y agoThere was a sibling comment which mentioned some kind of anti-salt-water treatment, I guess that was Plan B and crossed the finish line while Plan A was still struggling?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- wazer5 8y agoI think their customers would be more comfortable with (re)using a Caught fairing, so that was Plan A. Also not all fairings are the same. Most have acoustic blankets and other components that need to maintain strict ratings. Remember, many payloads are more expensive than the rocket and the fairing requirements are usually margined-up by the satellite manufacturer to avoid blame for failure.