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Does anyone know what happens to the 2nd stage engine? Does it stay in orbit or does it eventually fall back to earth/go into space?
by dmlittle 6y ago
Does anyone know what happens to the 2nd stage engine? Does it stay in orbit or does it eventually fall back to earth/go into space?
- trp1 6y agoIt'll do a couple orbits then fall back down to Earth.
- noir_lord 6y agoburns up.
- Gwypaas 6y agoDepends on the mission, for something like this it deorbits fairly quickly due to the drag of the low orbit. To geostationary transfer orbit it takes longer but the periapsis (lowest point) is low enough to slowly deorbit it. Then we have launches straight to geostationary orbits and similar, for those the second-stages will essentially never come down and they end up positioned in a graveyard orbit.
- thepete2 6y agoEven the ISS needs burns now and then to stay up, so yes at that altitude it will fall down eventually.
- johncalvinyoung 6y agoSaw a diagram showing that the 2nd stage should deorbit and splashdown somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Not sure when, precisely, though.
- drmpeg 6y agoIt's does a deorbit burn to actively fall back to Earth.
- nyhc99 6y agoSpaceX was talking about trying to recover the 2nd stage back in 2018, Elon suggested they would use a giant "party balloon" and land it on a "giant bounce house." I haven't heard any talk of progress made since then. https://hackaday.com/2018/05/23/spacexs-next-giant-leap-second-stage-recovery/ https://hackaday.com/2018/05/23/spacexs-next-giant-leap-seco...
- efxhoy 6y agoThey scrapped that idea last year afaik and are now focusing all efforts on starship which will be fully reusable.