7 ms·

SpaceX Launch Targeting 6:03pm ET, Extreme Weather Preventing First Stage Recovery

68 points by bsmith 12y ago

soperj 12y ago
That sucks, I really was looking forward to the first stage recovery attempt. Does this mean in the future(if they ever manage to do it) that they'll scrap first stage recoveries in terrible weather?
- sandstrom 12y ago
  They want to return the first stage to land in the future (at least when possible, depends on the launch trajectory etc iirc). So high waves won't be an issue when they start returning the rocket to the launch site. Also, I guess if reuse becomes routine and they need to land in the sea (because there aren't enough fuel to return to land) they could build a huge vessel capable of handling high waves.
  - joezydeco 12y ago
    If reuse becomes routine and the necessary authorities approve, they'll land on solid ground near the launch site. The floating rig was just for the initial tests.
    - sandworm 12y ago
      Near the launch site? That seems a little ambitious, and expensive. Are they planning on doing a u-turn in high atmo? The energy required would be massive. Or are they planning on doing an orbit of some sort? Doesn't the falcon heavy animation show the stages all landing at a different facility? Given that most every launch will point in a different direction from the launch site (different inclinations), boats would seem the best option. They could then haul the stage back to base by sea.
      - elmin 12y ago
        Yes, it's called a boostback burn, and it's been a part of every landing attempt thus far. The first stage has burned so much fuel at the stage separation that it takes much less to return it home than it did to accelerate it. You are correct though that it limits the payload capacity of the platform. I believe the Falcon Heavy animation shows the rockets returning to the launch site.
        garretruh 12y ago
        This launch was/is going to be the first one without a boost back. Because of DSCOVR's mass and destination (Earth-Sun L1 point), there isn't enough fuel to make a boost back burn. That's why the barge is ~650 km off the coast[0] instead of the 350 km it was for CRS-5[1]. [0] https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=zp15b_P5ERVk.kQXYPcLW76sw https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=zp15b_P5ERVk.kQ... [1] https://mapsengine.google.com/map/u/0/viewer?mid=zp15b_P5ERVk.koWeOnV6-O-o https://mapsengine.google.com/map/u/0/viewer?mid=zp15b_P5ERV...
        pbreit 12y ago
        Also, aren't they planning to launch from California and/or Texas in the future?
        mikeash 12y ago
        They've already launched from California, at Vandenberg AFB. They've begun constructing a drone ship for landing future rockets launched from Vandenberg, named Of Course I Still Love You (the one currently in use for KSC launches is called Just Read the Instructions). And yes, they are currently constructing a new spaceport in Texas near Brownsville at the far southeastern corner of the state. Completion and first launches are anticipated in 2016. I'd guess they might use the current drone ship for landings from that one as well, but a lot can change in 2+ years so we'll have to see.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
    - elmin 12y ago
      In this specific case they don't actually have enough extra fuel to do a boostback burn, meaning the landing site has to be significantly down range of the launch site (400 mi IIRC).
    - manicdee 12y ago
      Also worth noting: once cleared for landing on land, SpaceX can move their launches a few hundred miles West and omit the barge, landing the stages down-range at a coastal landing facility. Added bonus here is that returning cores via road is a heck of a lot cheaper than by sea, and you avoid that nasty salt-water-on-fancy-metal action.
  - pocketstar 12y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Launch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Launch
- ISV_Damocles 12y ago
  I'd presume if they can get the recovery rate and refurbishability rate high enough, they'd charge extra to companies that make them launch without recovery versus more flexible scheduling to guarantee recoveries.
  - vonklaus 12y ago
    Why would a company make them launch without recovery? SpaceX has always focused on the paid mission first and runs tests as a secondary task if there is sufficient resources available after successful payload delivery. Also, the cost is expected to drop by a factor of 10. Launches are ~60mil USD (can fluctuate based on specs). Even conservatively, the company would likely pay a 40 million dollar penalty if the whole rocket had to be jettisoned. Some missions with higher payloads will ideally be serviced when the Falcon Heavy comes on line. In terms of weather, I reckon they could have a secondary site to land if weather prevented it in the primary zone. If you mean in the interim before approval of domestic landings on or near launch sites, spaceX probably has pre-existing contracts to do launches. Maybe they would discount them a bit for a better window, prior to Air Force/Regulatory approval.
    - zaphoyd 12y ago
      At some point where recovery is more routine, SpaceX could offer pricing at something like: $60 million we launch your rocket without regards to whether or not we will be able to recover the first stage. $x million, x<<60: we launch your rocket only once the weather/conditions suggests we'll be able to do both. I can see some companies with very specific launch windows (say gravity assisted missions to outer planets) going for the former.
    - tsotha 12y ago
      >Why would a company make them launch without recovery? Because recovery reduces the capability of the rocket. If you look at SpaceX's web site you'll see they plan to have two versions of the Falcon 9 and Falcon 9 Heavy. One version will be recoverable, and one will not. A customer that needs ever last m/sec out of the launcher will not be able to use the latter.
  - 12y ago
- legohead 12y ago
  what's strange to me is why not continue to delay. how much money are they blowing by letting it land in the ocean? I suppose they are under some kind of contractual obligation?
  - gamegoblin 12y ago
    Correct. They are contracted to launch a satellite. Anything more (such as doing landing experiments) are wholly secondary to that goal.
    - legohead 12y ago
      well that much is obvious. what I meant was, they have already delayed 3 days, why can't they keep delaying? does it say in the contract it has to be delivered by such and such date?
      - JshWright 12y ago
        If they end up having to scrub today, the moon will be in the way for a while (this satellite is actually going out well past the orbit of the Moon) and the next launch window wouldn't be until the 20th. Regardless of any contractual obligations, I think it's pretty obvious that future customers would be wary of SpaceX if they were to intentionally delay a paying customer's payload for a completely optional test, unrelated to the mission that was paid for.
  - ufmace 12y ago
    I don't think "blowing money" really applies at this level, where it's a speculative test. The customer is paying the full price of the whole rocket, just like every other space launch that has ever been carried out up to now. They are perhaps missing an opportunity to get a full-power landing test in on a customer's dime, but it's better to not risk alienating customers with delays that have no relation to the mission that they're paying for.
b_emery 12y ago
Map of significant wave height in feet for the Atlantic: https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/wxmap_cgi/cgi-bin/wxmap_single.cgi?area=ww3_atlantic&dtg=2015021112&prod=sgwvht&tau=000 https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/wxmap_cgi/cgi-bin/wxmap_single.cg... tldr: Not a good day for boating
trose 12y ago
This is really disappointing. I've been psyching myself up for the landing for weeks now. :(
- astrodust 12y ago
  This will not be the last attempt. There's a dozen launches slated this year: http://spacexstats.com/upcoming.php http://spacexstats.com/upcoming.php I can't wait to see how the Heavy turns out.
kodis 12y ago
I was really looking forward to watching the landing attempt. At this point, I'm hoping for another launch delay pushing the attempt back to the 20th.
AYBABTME 12y ago
Wonder when they plan their next attempt, I think they seek support from their customers before attempting recoveries, so maybe they couldn't turn around and try again next launch. Hopefully I'm wrong.
- Sanddancer 12y ago
  Given it's an instantaneous launch window, I think just proving that they can launch satellites right on the nose is a useful demonstration on its own. While it's a shame that the rocket won't be recovered, they'll still get telemetrics from the landing, they just won't get to try a refurbishment.
  - elmin 12y ago
    This isn't their first instantaneous launch window.
    - mikeash 12y ago
      Specifically, ISS launches have an instantaneous window, and SpaceX has done five of those so far.
  - JshWright 12y ago
    All of their launches to the ISS have instantaneous windows.
- JshWright 12y ago
  The customer doesn't care what happens to the first stage after it has done its job. The next launch scheduled after this one will not leave enough performance margin to attempt a landing. The next landing attempt will be with the CRS-6 launch, likely in April.
krschultz 12y ago
They're not kidding, significant wave height in that area is 20 feet at the moment. Yikes. http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=41047 http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=41047
Tossrock 12y ago
I don't understand the reasoning here; how could launching today with a guaranteed failure to recover possibly be more valuable than delaying another day or two with a shot at recovery? The only way it makes sense to me is if sea heights are predicted to remain unmanageably high for unacceptably long, or the chance of recovery was very low to begin with.
- softbuilder 12y ago
  The customer comes first.
- dabeeeenster 12y ago
  Probably because someone is paying them to launch a satellite into orbit? Not trying to be snarky - I have no idea! But that could be reason?
  - mikeash 12y ago
    I'm sure it is. The customer paid for the launch, but doesn't directly care about landing or recovery. That's a secondary mission that SpaceX has essentially glued on to the end. This is great for SpaceX because it means they're getting paid to test their experimental techniques. But it also means that you can't use this as an excuse to delay. Imagine if you paid UPS to send a package across the country and they delayed your package by a week because they're testing a new cargo plane and conditions aren't currently favorable for testing, even though the normal cargo plane would do the job fine right now. You'd probably be pretty unhappy that UPS is putting their own internal testing ahead of doing what you paid them for.
  - Tossrock 12y ago
    Someone who's already been delayed twice. Clearly they are willing to accept some margin of delay. The question I was posing is, how could delaying one more day be worth more (ie cost to SpaceX) than the value of the recovered rocket times the probability of recovery. And the correct answer is in the top response, which is that due to the moon's position, it would be a delay of over a week, not just another day.
senko 12y ago
> The rocket will still attempt a soft landing in the water through the storm (producing valuable landing data), The waves only prevent attempt at landing on the barge. They can still test the stabilization (under very adverse conditions!). So while this may not be as exciting for us observers, it'll still be very useful for SpaceX.

68 points by bsmith 12y ago

That sucks, I really was looking forward to the first stage recovery attempt. Does this mean in the future(if they ever manage to do it) that they'll scrap first stage recoveries in terrible weather?

sandstrom 12y ago
They want to return the first stage to land in the future (at least when possible, depends on the launch trajectory etc iirc). So high waves won't be an issue when they start returning the rocket to the launch site. Also, I guess if reuse becomes routine and they need to land in the sea (because there aren't enough fuel to return to land) they could build a huge vessel capable of handling high waves.
- joezydeco 12y ago
  If reuse becomes routine and the necessary authorities approve, they'll land on solid ground near the launch site. The floating rig was just for the initial tests.
  - sandworm 12y ago
    Near the launch site? That seems a little ambitious, and expensive. Are they planning on doing a u-turn in high atmo? The energy required would be massive. Or are they planning on doing an orbit of some sort? Doesn't the falcon heavy animation show the stages all landing at a different facility? Given that most every launch will point in a different direction from the launch site (different inclinations), boats would seem the best option. They could then haul the stage back to base by sea.
    - elmin 12y ago
      Yes, it's called a boostback burn, and it's been a part of every landing attempt thus far. The first stage has burned so much fuel at the stage separation that it takes much less to return it home than it did to accelerate it. You are correct though that it limits the payload capacity of the platform. I believe the Falcon Heavy animation shows the rockets returning to the launch site.
      - garretruh 12y ago
        This launch was/is going to be the first one without a boost back. Because of DSCOVR's mass and destination (Earth-Sun L1 point), there isn't enough fuel to make a boost back burn. That's why the barge is ~650 km off the coast[0] instead of the 350 km it was for CRS-5[1]. [0] https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=zp15b_P5ERVk.kQXYPcLW76sw https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=zp15b_P5ERVk.kQ... [1] https://mapsengine.google.com/map/u/0/viewer?mid=zp15b_P5ERVk.koWeOnV6-O-o https://mapsengine.google.com/map/u/0/viewer?mid=zp15b_P5ERV...
      - pbreit 12y ago
        Also, aren't they planning to launch from California and/or Texas in the future?
        mikeash 12y ago
        They've already launched from California, at Vandenberg AFB. They've begun constructing a drone ship for landing future rockets launched from Vandenberg, named Of Course I Still Love You (the one currently in use for KSC launches is called Just Read the Instructions). And yes, they are currently constructing a new spaceport in Texas near Brownsville at the far southeastern corner of the state. Completion and first launches are anticipated in 2016. I'd guess they might use the current drone ship for landings from that one as well, but a lot can change in 2+ years so we'll have to see.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
  - elmin 12y ago
    In this specific case they don't actually have enough extra fuel to do a boostback burn, meaning the landing site has to be significantly down range of the launch site (400 mi IIRC).
  - manicdee 12y ago
    Also worth noting: once cleared for landing on land, SpaceX can move their launches a few hundred miles West and omit the barge, landing the stages down-range at a coastal landing facility. Added bonus here is that returning cores via road is a heck of a lot cheaper than by sea, and you avoid that nasty salt-water-on-fancy-metal action.
- pocketstar 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Launch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Launch
ISV_Damocles 12y ago
I'd presume if they can get the recovery rate and refurbishability rate high enough, they'd charge extra to companies that make them launch without recovery versus more flexible scheduling to guarantee recoveries.
- vonklaus 12y ago
  Why would a company make them launch without recovery? SpaceX has always focused on the paid mission first and runs tests as a secondary task if there is sufficient resources available after successful payload delivery. Also, the cost is expected to drop by a factor of 10. Launches are ~60mil USD (can fluctuate based on specs). Even conservatively, the company would likely pay a 40 million dollar penalty if the whole rocket had to be jettisoned. Some missions with higher payloads will ideally be serviced when the Falcon Heavy comes on line. In terms of weather, I reckon they could have a secondary site to land if weather prevented it in the primary zone. If you mean in the interim before approval of domestic landings on or near launch sites, spaceX probably has pre-existing contracts to do launches. Maybe they would discount them a bit for a better window, prior to Air Force/Regulatory approval.
  - zaphoyd 12y ago
    At some point where recovery is more routine, SpaceX could offer pricing at something like: $60 million we launch your rocket without regards to whether or not we will be able to recover the first stage. $x million, x<<60: we launch your rocket only once the weather/conditions suggests we'll be able to do both. I can see some companies with very specific launch windows (say gravity assisted missions to outer planets) going for the former.
  - tsotha 12y ago
    >Why would a company make them launch without recovery? Because recovery reduces the capability of the rocket. If you look at SpaceX's web site you'll see they plan to have two versions of the Falcon 9 and Falcon 9 Heavy. One version will be recoverable, and one will not. A customer that needs ever last m/sec out of the launcher will not be able to use the latter.
- 12y ago
legohead 12y ago
what's strange to me is why not continue to delay. how much money are they blowing by letting it land in the ocean? I suppose they are under some kind of contractual obligation?
- gamegoblin 12y ago
  Correct. They are contracted to launch a satellite. Anything more (such as doing landing experiments) are wholly secondary to that goal.
  - legohead 12y ago
    well that much is obvious. what I meant was, they have already delayed 3 days, why can't they keep delaying? does it say in the contract it has to be delivered by such and such date?
    - JshWright 12y ago
      If they end up having to scrub today, the moon will be in the way for a while (this satellite is actually going out well past the orbit of the Moon) and the next launch window wouldn't be until the 20th. Regardless of any contractual obligations, I think it's pretty obvious that future customers would be wary of SpaceX if they were to intentionally delay a paying customer's payload for a completely optional test, unrelated to the mission that was paid for.
- ufmace 12y ago
  I don't think "blowing money" really applies at this level, where it's a speculative test. The customer is paying the full price of the whole rocket, just like every other space launch that has ever been carried out up to now. They are perhaps missing an opportunity to get a full-power landing test in on a customer's dime, but it's better to not risk alienating customers with delays that have no relation to the mission that they're paying for.

b_emery 12y ago

Map of significant wave height in feet for the Atlantic: https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/wxmap_cgi/cgi-bin/wxmap_single.cgi?area=ww3_atlantic&dtg=2015021112&prod=sgwvht&tau=000 https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/wxmap_cgi/cgi-bin/wxmap_single.cg... tldr: Not a good day for boating

trose 12y ago

This is really disappointing. I've been psyching myself up for the landing for weeks now. :(

astrodust 12y ago
This will not be the last attempt. There's a dozen launches slated this year: http://spacexstats.com/upcoming.php http://spacexstats.com/upcoming.php I can't wait to see how the Heavy turns out.

kodis 12y ago

I was really looking forward to watching the landing attempt. At this point, I'm hoping for another launch delay pushing the attempt back to the 20th.

AYBABTME 12y ago

Wonder when they plan their next attempt, I think they seek support from their customers before attempting recoveries, so maybe they couldn't turn around and try again next launch. Hopefully I'm wrong.

Sanddancer 12y ago
Given it's an instantaneous launch window, I think just proving that they can launch satellites right on the nose is a useful demonstration on its own. While it's a shame that the rocket won't be recovered, they'll still get telemetrics from the landing, they just won't get to try a refurbishment.
- elmin 12y ago
  This isn't their first instantaneous launch window.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    Specifically, ISS launches have an instantaneous window, and SpaceX has done five of those so far.
- JshWright 12y ago
  All of their launches to the ISS have instantaneous windows.
JshWright 12y ago
The customer doesn't care what happens to the first stage after it has done its job. The next launch scheduled after this one will not leave enough performance margin to attempt a landing. The next landing attempt will be with the CRS-6 launch, likely in April.

krschultz 12y ago

They're not kidding, significant wave height in that area is 20 feet at the moment. Yikes. http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=41047 http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=41047

Tossrock 12y ago

I don't understand the reasoning here; how could launching today with a guaranteed failure to recover possibly be more valuable than delaying another day or two with a shot at recovery? The only way it makes sense to me is if sea heights are predicted to remain unmanageably high for unacceptably long, or the chance of recovery was very low to begin with.

softbuilder 12y ago
The customer comes first.
dabeeeenster 12y ago
Probably because someone is paying them to launch a satellite into orbit? Not trying to be snarky - I have no idea! But that could be reason?
- mikeash 12y ago
  I'm sure it is. The customer paid for the launch, but doesn't directly care about landing or recovery. That's a secondary mission that SpaceX has essentially glued on to the end. This is great for SpaceX because it means they're getting paid to test their experimental techniques. But it also means that you can't use this as an excuse to delay. Imagine if you paid UPS to send a package across the country and they delayed your package by a week because they're testing a new cargo plane and conditions aren't currently favorable for testing, even though the normal cargo plane would do the job fine right now. You'd probably be pretty unhappy that UPS is putting their own internal testing ahead of doing what you paid them for.
- Tossrock 12y ago
  Someone who's already been delayed twice. Clearly they are willing to accept some margin of delay. The question I was posing is, how could delaying one more day be worth more (ie cost to SpaceX) than the value of the recovered rocket times the probability of recovery. And the correct answer is in the top response, which is that due to the moon's position, it would be a delay of over a week, not just another day.

senko 12y ago

> The rocket will still attempt a soft landing in the water through the storm (producing valuable landing data), The waves only prevent attempt at landing on the barge. They can still test the stabilization (under very adverse conditions!). So while this may not be as exciting for us observers, it'll still be very useful for SpaceX.