9 ms·

SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

156 points by trose 12y ago

liquidise 12y ago
As a programmer baffled by hardware, i find these performance enhancements on physical systems remarkable. Congrats to them for pushing the spaceflight envelope.
- nicholasdrake 12y ago
  i'm similarly baffled... but this is what elon says 'I think it's worth noting that when somebody has a breakthrough innovation it is rarely one little thing. Very rarely is it one little thing. It's usually a whole bunch of things that collectively amount to a huge innovation. But the problem is because it's hard to convey a complicated thing to people the innovator or the innovator's PR department will say such and such is the reason why it's better. This little catch phrase. Like what was it with ebay, Pam wants to do Beanie Babies or something. I mean really, that's not the basis of ebay. Oh right, yeah pes dispenser. It's like something the PR department made up. So really innovation is a collection of complex things which are usually difficult to convey so there is some soundbite that's given. You know why's South-West Airlines the most popular Airline in the whole business. It's not just because they use 737s. I mean if it was that easy everybody could do it.' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xohhz9Hn8p0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xohhz9Hn8p0
jedc 12y ago
"What it does is it allows us to land the first stage for GTO missions on the drone ship." Yikes! That's a pretty substantial upgrade.
- antimagic 12y ago
  Yup, that line sent my eyebrows north at a rapid rate! I would never have thought that it was possible to see such rapid advancement in the field of rocketry - it'd been close to stagnant for pretty much all of my 40 years until SpaceX showed up.
cloudwalking 12y ago
"It's about a 30% increase in performance, maybe a little more." That's pretty amazing increase in performance for an existing platform. Also interesting to see that the Falcon Heavy boosters are literally just Falcon 9s strapped to the sides of a larger rocket. They will be producing just two separate rockets on the factory floor. This is how SpaceX will really squeeze out manufacturing efficiencies. Given the Falcon 9 reusability, we're going to see launch costs drop by two entire magnitudes. Instead of destroying an $60MM launch vehicle, each launch just burns $200,000 in fuel. This will open up space in ways we have never imagined.
- arikrak 12y ago
  That was their original plans for the shuttle. Not saying they won't be able to save money this time, but it's never that simple.
  - cryptoz 12y ago
    Part of the Shuttle's reusability problems stemmed from Congress (and other decision-makers) forcing NASA to use facilities in ~40-50 different states and multiple subcontractors. And, full & rapid reusability was never in the Shuttle plans. They aimed for moderate reusability and then failed spectacularly at that. SpaceX is much more centralized and much more efficient. There are certainly comparisons to me made, and lessons to be learned, but I think that SpaceX has already met/surpassed all levels of success that NASA achieved in reusability, the only caveat being that they haven't technically done it in a production environment yet.
    - nickff 12y ago
      We should put less focus on reusability, and pay more attention to labor (inspection and repair time) per launch. If you compare SpaceX and NASA under this paradigm, or by looking at launch cost per unit of mass, SpaceX has long since surpassed all other launch providers. The shuttle had a number of issues, including design issues due to DoD requirements, engine pressure issues due to internal NASA priorities, and budget trade-offs due to Congressional directives. The most important lesson to take away from the shuttle is that returning the most costly components to earth does not necessarily translate into cost savings.
martythemaniak 12y ago
Currently they have to throw away the rockets used for GTO missions (around half of them) and can only attempt landings on LEO missions such as the ISS resupplies. Given their last few landing attempts, it's pretty likely that they'll be able to land a rocket sometime this year, which means that starting next year they might be able to reuse all of their F9 Rockets. A lot of customers may not want to fly on a used rocket though (no one knows the risks), so SpaceX may end up with quite a large number of rockets, which they'll have to fly to establish costs/risks/etc. It looks like at least a some part of their satellite internet plan was meant to take advantage of this large launch capacity. I'm also very curious to see what the prices for a used rocket launch are. Rockets are obviously expensive, but so are the operational costs in setting them up. Anyway, these are probably the most exciting times in spaceflight since the 60s!
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  The rocket is paid for with its primary mission. Elon has said that the fuel is a very small cost compared to the entire launch, so I would assume the cost to refly a "used" rocket is going to be orders of magnitude cheaper than the original flight. I could see SpaceX segmenting their customers into two tiers: mission completion sensitive, and cost sensitive, with who gets which rockets straightforward.
  - FrojoS 12y ago
    Unfortunately, they can not reuse the second stage yet and they might never be able to with Falcon 9. I think Elon has already stated as much. The payload penalty due to the required heat shield, thrusters, fuel and legs for the second stage would be too much. For arguments sake, lets assume that the second stage was 10% of the manufacturing cost and the first stage was 90%. You could argue, that the engines are what's most expensive and the first stage has nine times as many. Ignoring the cost for lunch, landing, refuelling etc. you could at best reduce the cost by 90%, a single order of magnitude. Unfortunately, the first stage might be worth much more. I wouldn't be surprised if the cost distribution is closer to 50-50. The second stage has all the avionics, a special vacuum version of the Merlin engine and might be more weight optimised due to the larger effect on maximum payload. Lets hope the Mars rocket (BFR) will allow full, low cost reusability. I'm sure SpaceX is working very hard on that.
FD3SA 12y ago
"It's about a 30% increase in performance, maybe a little more. What it does is it allows us to land the first stage for GTO missions on the drone ship." I am constantly blown away by SpaceX. This is an absurd level of improvement for an already mature, commercially successful rocket. If even 1% of the world's companies in other sectors worked this well, I can only imagine how much our quality of life would improve. Musk seems extremely adept at applying the best of software development practices to hardware design. Some things that stand out: -Extreme streamlining of the product range -Complete control of the design, prototyping, testing and manufacturing cycles achieved by keeping the entire process in-house - Optimal product iteration roadmap, which balances maximum improvement per iteration with minimum time-to-market I think Musk should open an engineering management consulting firm, and hire a few smart people to analyze SpaceX and transfer some of its engineering management methodologies into a set of training modules. I'm usually of the opinion that good management is just common sense, but the degree to which SpaceX is outdoing its competitors suggests they've made a significant breakthrough in their engineering/management processes.
- msandford 12y ago
  > I think Musk should open an engineering management consulting firm, and hire a few smart people to analyze SpaceX and transfer some of its engineering management methodologies into a set of training modules. It's a nice idea, but it wouldn't make any sense. Big institutions are arranged a certain way because of the incentives. You're not going to change the incentives because the people at the top fundamentally don't understand the way R&D works. Further, big organizations tend to reward a track record of successes no matter how small, rather than rewarding herculean efforts that only succeed halfway (or fail). The culture is generally anathema to taking risk. Because the organizations are the way they are, nothing will change unless you change management to the highest ranks and empower people at all levels to make things better. Sadly that rarely happens in big companies; people manage to claw their way up and they're not going to risk that job, power or prestige unless it's a sure thing. Which R&D never is.
  - FD3SA 12y ago
    I completely agree, and if you look at my past posts, I am quite cynical with most modern companies precisely because I understand that human primal impulses, such as the insatiable drive for status and wealth accumulation, tend to completely sabotage any potential for innovation. Musk's companies are two of the very few exceptions to this universal empirical reality, and as such underscore the need to try and understand what makes them (SpaceX and Tesla) different, right down to the psychology of the executive team and founders. In my opinion, nothing is more important for the success of a company than the psychological foundations of the executive team and investors. They set the incentive structures, and their subordinates do their best to carry them out. In most companies, the incentive structure is to get paid as much as possible by playing office politics. Hence, we get golden parachutes, "cost-centers", and an obsession with stock price and quarterly profits.
krschultz 12y ago
SpaceX continues to be a PR machine. This news comes barely 24 hours after a significant delay due to a helium tank problem - http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/03/17/spacex-puts-off-next-falcon-9-launch/ http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/03/17/spacex-puts-off-next-fa.... I'm not saying SpaceX has a fundamental problem, I just find it interesting how obvious PR planted articles are.
- justicezyx 12y ago
  Given the long-time of stagnant situation of space exploration, it really makes sense to PR like this. Otherwise SpaceX is already dead.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- ChuckMcM 12y ago
  You realize that both of the stories, the delay and the discussion of the engine came out of the same luncheon right? From the linked article : "In a luncheon talk at the Satellite 2015 show in Washington March 17" From the Spaceflight Now article : "Speaking at a luncheon in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday" So really it was just a update where all the information came out and different reporters chose different things to report on.
  - krschultz 12y ago
    The information that came out in this article is not news. There has been significant discussions about not only the improved performance of the engines, but customers debating whether or not they wanted to be the first to fly on those upgraded engines. Meanwhile the helium leak problem & reshuffling of schedule is an actual bit of news. We have known about the helium leaks before, but this is the first time it got so bad they had to so dramatically change the launch schedule. If it is a fundamental problem (which is sure seems to be), it might put this years launch schedule in some jeopardy.
    - ChuckMcM 12y ago
pqomdv 12y ago
U.S. House Armed Services Committee Hearings - Assuring Assured Access to Space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ff_5jF_3QU&feature=youtu.be&t=42m1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ff_5jF_3QU&feature=youtu.be... This isn't the talk by Gwynne mentioned in the article, however it is a government hearing that happened on the same day by the same person. ( Gotta love the title: AAA - Assuring Assured Access... )
eabraham 12y ago
Considering that the cheaper "used" launch cost will lower the bar for getting satellites to LEO, I wonder how long until we need to worry about Kessler Syndrome[1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
- pqomdv 12y ago
  I can't wait for junkyard micro-satellites equipped with an ion thruster. They are launched in the hundreds at a time, each locates their specific target, attaches and start a slow descend to burn in the atmosphere. This process is done automatically over a time-frame of months, since ion thrusters work slowly, which is great for automation.
  - Gravityloss 12y ago
    there are even more efficient and cheaper ways for deorbiting than ion engines.
    - pqomdv 12y ago
      Can you elaborate?
      - TheLoneWolfling 12y ago
        Just a long wire would work.
- 32faction 12y ago
  I did my undergraduate capstone class on the Kessler Syndrome. UNCOPUOS, the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space dictate that a satellite must deorbit itself within 25 years after mission completion. The Kessler Syndrome right now is a potentially exponential problem that we should be conscientious of because our access to space depends on open orbital lanes. I want to submit a YC application proposing an orbital debris mitigation as a service company but im not sure if it's an idea YC will facilitate The science behind the movie Gravity wasn't too accurate but the scenario the characters found themselves in is very very plausible.

156 points by trose 12y ago

As a programmer baffled by hardware, i find these performance enhancements on physical systems remarkable. Congrats to them for pushing the spaceflight envelope.

nicholasdrake 12y ago
i'm similarly baffled... but this is what elon says 'I think it's worth noting that when somebody has a breakthrough innovation it is rarely one little thing. Very rarely is it one little thing. It's usually a whole bunch of things that collectively amount to a huge innovation. But the problem is because it's hard to convey a complicated thing to people the innovator or the innovator's PR department will say such and such is the reason why it's better. This little catch phrase. Like what was it with ebay, Pam wants to do Beanie Babies or something. I mean really, that's not the basis of ebay. Oh right, yeah pes dispenser. It's like something the PR department made up. So really innovation is a collection of complex things which are usually difficult to convey so there is some soundbite that's given. You know why's South-West Airlines the most popular Airline in the whole business. It's not just because they use 737s. I mean if it was that easy everybody could do it.' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xohhz9Hn8p0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xohhz9Hn8p0

jedc 12y ago

"What it does is it allows us to land the first stage for GTO missions on the drone ship." Yikes! That's a pretty substantial upgrade.

antimagic 12y ago
Yup, that line sent my eyebrows north at a rapid rate! I would never have thought that it was possible to see such rapid advancement in the field of rocketry - it'd been close to stagnant for pretty much all of my 40 years until SpaceX showed up.

cloudwalking 12y ago

"It's about a 30% increase in performance, maybe a little more." That's pretty amazing increase in performance for an existing platform. Also interesting to see that the Falcon Heavy boosters are literally just Falcon 9s strapped to the sides of a larger rocket. They will be producing just two separate rockets on the factory floor. This is how SpaceX will really squeeze out manufacturing efficiencies. Given the Falcon 9 reusability, we're going to see launch costs drop by two entire magnitudes. Instead of destroying an $60MM launch vehicle, each launch just burns $200,000 in fuel. This will open up space in ways we have never imagined.

arikrak 12y ago
That was their original plans for the shuttle. Not saying they won't be able to save money this time, but it's never that simple.
- cryptoz 12y ago
  Part of the Shuttle's reusability problems stemmed from Congress (and other decision-makers) forcing NASA to use facilities in ~40-50 different states and multiple subcontractors. And, full & rapid reusability was never in the Shuttle plans. They aimed for moderate reusability and then failed spectacularly at that. SpaceX is much more centralized and much more efficient. There are certainly comparisons to me made, and lessons to be learned, but I think that SpaceX has already met/surpassed all levels of success that NASA achieved in reusability, the only caveat being that they haven't technically done it in a production environment yet.
  - nickff 12y ago
    We should put less focus on reusability, and pay more attention to labor (inspection and repair time) per launch. If you compare SpaceX and NASA under this paradigm, or by looking at launch cost per unit of mass, SpaceX has long since surpassed all other launch providers. The shuttle had a number of issues, including design issues due to DoD requirements, engine pressure issues due to internal NASA priorities, and budget trade-offs due to Congressional directives. The most important lesson to take away from the shuttle is that returning the most costly components to earth does not necessarily translate into cost savings.

martythemaniak 12y ago

Currently they have to throw away the rockets used for GTO missions (around half of them) and can only attempt landings on LEO missions such as the ISS resupplies. Given their last few landing attempts, it's pretty likely that they'll be able to land a rocket sometime this year, which means that starting next year they might be able to reuse all of their F9 Rockets. A lot of customers may not want to fly on a used rocket though (no one knows the risks), so SpaceX may end up with quite a large number of rockets, which they'll have to fly to establish costs/risks/etc. It looks like at least a some part of their satellite internet plan was meant to take advantage of this large launch capacity. I'm also very curious to see what the prices for a used rocket launch are. Rockets are obviously expensive, but so are the operational costs in setting them up. Anyway, these are probably the most exciting times in spaceflight since the 60s!

toomuchtodo 12y ago
The rocket is paid for with its primary mission. Elon has said that the fuel is a very small cost compared to the entire launch, so I would assume the cost to refly a "used" rocket is going to be orders of magnitude cheaper than the original flight. I could see SpaceX segmenting their customers into two tiers: mission completion sensitive, and cost sensitive, with who gets which rockets straightforward.
- FrojoS 12y ago
  Unfortunately, they can not reuse the second stage yet and they might never be able to with Falcon 9. I think Elon has already stated as much. The payload penalty due to the required heat shield, thrusters, fuel and legs for the second stage would be too much. For arguments sake, lets assume that the second stage was 10% of the manufacturing cost and the first stage was 90%. You could argue, that the engines are what's most expensive and the first stage has nine times as many. Ignoring the cost for lunch, landing, refuelling etc. you could at best reduce the cost by 90%, a single order of magnitude. Unfortunately, the first stage might be worth much more. I wouldn't be surprised if the cost distribution is closer to 50-50. The second stage has all the avionics, a special vacuum version of the Merlin engine and might be more weight optimised due to the larger effect on maximum payload. Lets hope the Mars rocket (BFR) will allow full, low cost reusability. I'm sure SpaceX is working very hard on that.

FD3SA 12y ago

"It's about a 30% increase in performance, maybe a little more. What it does is it allows us to land the first stage for GTO missions on the drone ship." I am constantly blown away by SpaceX. This is an absurd level of improvement for an already mature, commercially successful rocket. If even 1% of the world's companies in other sectors worked this well, I can only imagine how much our quality of life would improve. Musk seems extremely adept at applying the best of software development practices to hardware design. Some things that stand out: -Extreme streamlining of the product range -Complete control of the design, prototyping, testing and manufacturing cycles achieved by keeping the entire process in-house - Optimal product iteration roadmap, which balances maximum improvement per iteration with minimum time-to-market I think Musk should open an engineering management consulting firm, and hire a few smart people to analyze SpaceX and transfer some of its engineering management methodologies into a set of training modules. I'm usually of the opinion that good management is just common sense, but the degree to which SpaceX is outdoing its competitors suggests they've made a significant breakthrough in their engineering/management processes.

msandford 12y ago
> I think Musk should open an engineering management consulting firm, and hire a few smart people to analyze SpaceX and transfer some of its engineering management methodologies into a set of training modules. It's a nice idea, but it wouldn't make any sense. Big institutions are arranged a certain way because of the incentives. You're not going to change the incentives because the people at the top fundamentally don't understand the way R&D works. Further, big organizations tend to reward a track record of successes no matter how small, rather than rewarding herculean efforts that only succeed halfway (or fail). The culture is generally anathema to taking risk. Because the organizations are the way they are, nothing will change unless you change management to the highest ranks and empower people at all levels to make things better. Sadly that rarely happens in big companies; people manage to claw their way up and they're not going to risk that job, power or prestige unless it's a sure thing. Which R&D never is.
- FD3SA 12y ago
  I completely agree, and if you look at my past posts, I am quite cynical with most modern companies precisely because I understand that human primal impulses, such as the insatiable drive for status and wealth accumulation, tend to completely sabotage any potential for innovation. Musk's companies are two of the very few exceptions to this universal empirical reality, and as such underscore the need to try and understand what makes them (SpaceX and Tesla) different, right down to the psychology of the executive team and founders. In my opinion, nothing is more important for the success of a company than the psychological foundations of the executive team and investors. They set the incentive structures, and their subordinates do their best to carry them out. In most companies, the incentive structure is to get paid as much as possible by playing office politics. Hence, we get golden parachutes, "cost-centers", and an obsession with stock price and quarterly profits.

krschultz 12y ago

SpaceX continues to be a PR machine. This news comes barely 24 hours after a significant delay due to a helium tank problem - http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/03/17/spacex-puts-off-next-falcon-9-launch/ http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/03/17/spacex-puts-off-next-fa.... I'm not saying SpaceX has a fundamental problem, I just find it interesting how obvious PR planted articles are.

justicezyx 12y ago
Given the long-time of stagnant situation of space exploration, it really makes sense to PR like this. Otherwise SpaceX is already dead.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
ChuckMcM 12y ago
You realize that both of the stories, the delay and the discussion of the engine came out of the same luncheon right? From the linked article : "In a luncheon talk at the Satellite 2015 show in Washington March 17" From the Spaceflight Now article : "Speaking at a luncheon in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday" So really it was just a update where all the information came out and different reporters chose different things to report on.
- krschultz 12y ago
  The information that came out in this article is not news. There has been significant discussions about not only the improved performance of the engines, but customers debating whether or not they wanted to be the first to fly on those upgraded engines. Meanwhile the helium leak problem & reshuffling of schedule is an actual bit of news. We have known about the helium leaks before, but this is the first time it got so bad they had to so dramatically change the launch schedule. If it is a fundamental problem (which is sure seems to be), it might put this years launch schedule in some jeopardy.
  - ChuckMcM 12y ago

pqomdv 12y ago

U.S. House Armed Services Committee Hearings - Assuring Assured Access to Space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ff_5jF_3QU&feature=youtu.be&t=42m1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ff_5jF_3QU&feature=youtu.be... This isn't the talk by Gwynne mentioned in the article, however it is a government hearing that happened on the same day by the same person. ( Gotta love the title: AAA - Assuring Assured Access... )

eabraham 12y ago

Considering that the cheaper "used" launch cost will lower the bar for getting satellites to LEO, I wonder how long until we need to worry about Kessler Syndrome[1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

pqomdv 12y ago
I can't wait for junkyard micro-satellites equipped with an ion thruster. They are launched in the hundreds at a time, each locates their specific target, attaches and start a slow descend to burn in the atmosphere. This process is done automatically over a time-frame of months, since ion thrusters work slowly, which is great for automation.
- Gravityloss 12y ago
  there are even more efficient and cheaper ways for deorbiting than ion engines.
  - pqomdv 12y ago
    Can you elaborate?
    - TheLoneWolfling 12y ago
      Just a long wire would work.
32faction 12y ago
I did my undergraduate capstone class on the Kessler Syndrome. UNCOPUOS, the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space dictate that a satellite must deorbit itself within 25 years after mission completion. The Kessler Syndrome right now is a potentially exponential problem that we should be conscientious of because our access to space depends on open orbital lanes. I want to submit a YC application proposing an orbital debris mitigation as a service company but im not sure if it's an idea YC will facilitate The science behind the movie Gravity wasn't too accurate but the scenario the characters found themselves in is very very plausible.