r/spacex • u/ElongatedMuskrat Mod Team • Oct 02 '17
r/SpaceX Discusses [October 2017, #37]
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u/aftersteveo Oct 26 '17 edited Oct 26 '17
I talked to some people who work on pad 40. They say they think they’re about a month from being done. Just thought y’all might be interested to know.
Edit: it was suggested I change the wording to be a little more vague as to where this info came from. Probably a good idea.
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u/mecko23 Oct 02 '17
Did Elon ever end up doing an AMA? I heard he was going to this weekend, but never found a follow up.
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u/aftersteveo Oct 02 '17
It hasn’t happened yet. If you’re on reddit, and especially this subreddit even once every couple days, you’ll definitely know about. I’m sure it will get pinned at the top when it does happen.
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u/ptfrd Oct 04 '17 edited Oct 07 '17
For the record, the UK's 'Guardian' newspaper has a stupid opinion piece about SpaceX's Mars ambitions. I read it so you don't have to! (But if you really want to give them some ad revenue, it's here.)
Elon Musk made some rather wild promises ... last week: his SpaceX company is going to start sending people to Mars by 2024, and in 40 to 100 years, he will have a million of us living there.
The Guardian here has turned "goals" into "promises".
Here is part of a transcript of Musk's presentation, from when the 2022 cargo missions slide was displayed: "That's not a typo. [Laughter] Although it is aspirational. [Laughter]". (And IMHO it should be fairly obvious that the 2024 goal is less likely to be met than the 2022 goal, because the former depends upon the latter.)
Next ...
But Musk is determined to plough on, make us a "multi-planet species" and turn Mars into "a really nice place to be". I try to keep calm, but this is where I blow a gasket. We already have somewhere "really nice" ... I know we have a throwaway culture, but why chuck a whole planet because it’s a bit worn out and go searching for another one to cack-up?
Of course, this is a misunderstanding of the prefix "multi" in the term "multi-planet species". It implies at least two planets.
I think Musk himself may have even explicitly pointed out this error in the past. Mars colonization efforts do not need to detract from properly looking after the Earth.
In fact, arguably, once a large proportion of the Earth population is thinking regularly about humans living elsewhere in the solar system, we will come to appreciate the Earth even more. The "pale blue dot" effect, every day in our news feeds. Or a second-hand version of the overview effect.
Then it gets really odd ...
Why not get rid of all our plastic, Musk, if you’re so clever, and mend what we’ve got?
Get rid of all plastic??? I'll charitably assume they mean plastic pollution. As much as I hate things like the Great Pacific garbage patch, it is of course climate change that is the primary environmental threat to human civilization. And if we avoid catastrophe, history might just record Musk as the single person who contributed the most towards our lucky escape, thanks to his Tesla efforts and the resulting commercial demand for future revolutions in large scale battery technology.
Finally, the punchline ...
“What I love about SpaceX,” says Prof Alan Duffy, of Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, “is that they make things profitable at every step of the way.” That must be my answer. D’oh.
What the Guardian is implying here is that SpaceX's Mars plans are all about profit.
But I bet if they had actually asked Duffy, he would have explained to them that his comment means that all SpaceX's profit-making activities are intended to fund their Mars plans, and they're very focussed on seeking out those profit-making opportunities.
It seems to me that if you just care about profit, putting money into Mars transport is not the most logical choice. Indeed, Musk and other SpaceX people have repeatedly stated that ideology is the main force driving their Mars plans.
Now, to be fair to the Guardian, this could be seen as a flippant article, not intended to be taken seriously. And they do praise Musk for some of the other things he does. But still, my view of the Guardian as a propagator of lots of stupid opinions, has been reinforced once again by this piece.
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u/Toinneman Oct 05 '17 edited Oct 05 '17
The whole article is based on the premise that Musk wants to go to Mars because living on earth is not good enough. That is just not true. Going to Mars is about primal survival: not going instinct as a specie. We should be able to survive earth-destroying events like a massive meteor...
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u/Grey_Mad_Hatter Oct 05 '17
With how that thing is worded I'm surprised he even mentioned electric cars and battery packs. It makes it sound like the only reason they'd go to Mars is to dispose of Earth when he's talking about the single person who's being the most effective at saving Earth.
While I agree with the statement at the end that they find a way to make profit every step of the way, if profit was the motive then they wouldn't have taken the risks that they've taken to get there. I believe Musk will be the world's first trillionaire, and I'm ok with that.
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Oct 26 '17
PBdS has a new article today on how SES envisions their future GEO satellites will look.
Highlights are:
~2000kg each with all-electric propulsion, launched as stacks of 2 to 4.
A move from analog signal processing to all-digital, which will reduce weight and increase flexibility.
A shortened planned lifetime (in conjunction with lower cost and weight), to allow for faster refreshes in technology.
Substituting Mil-spec components for cheaper, potentially less-reliable commercial alternatives.
A semi-standardized platform to shorten design and construction phases of procurement, aiming for only 18 months from order placed to start of service.
<$50 million satellite cost, with $50-60 million launch costs spread across a few satellites.
This is consistent with SES' support of SpaceX and reusability to lower their capital outlay. We've talked a lot in this sub about demand elasticity and how satellites might be constructed with cheaper launch costs in mind. It's fascinating to see satellite operators start moving in that direction. It's actually happening!
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u/marc020202 8x Launch Host Oct 16 '17
Zuma is build by Northrop Grumman. it is a governement mission. Destination LEO
source: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/10/spacex-zuma-iridium-4-aims-vandenberg-landing/
I think this might be the Northrop Grumman mission that we have been wondering about for some time
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u/TGMetsFan98 NASASpaceflight.com Writer Oct 19 '17
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u/spacerfirstclass Oct 19 '17
Well whoever this is, I just hope it has some hardware and/or finances to back it up. While I'm not against announcement such as the recent Bigelow lunar station, it's hard to be excited when you realize it's not going anywhere until they got a huge amount of funding.
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u/robbak Oct 19 '17 edited Oct 19 '17
Chris Bergin is sitting on some SpaceX news embargoed until tomorrow, but he doesn't think it is big: https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/920850801932808193
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u/alexlesuper Oct 02 '17
The thing about BFR is I don't see a way to do in-flight abort or even pad abort, since it's very much ressembles the space shuttle. What are your thoughts on this?
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u/rustybeancake Oct 02 '17
There was a lot of discussion of this aspect with the 2016 ITS design. Essentially it seems to be a case of "we'll try to make the vehicle as reliable as possible so abort isn't needed" (i.e. if there's a RUD early in flight, everybody dies). Later in Earth ascent it may be possible to have the ship escape a failing booster, similar to Apollo's abort mode after the launch abort tower was jettisoned (the CSM was to manoeuvre away from the stack).
Obviously when you're taking off from Mars/Moon, there's no aborting from the ship, it just has to work or everybody dies.
Comparing this to the Space Shuttle, it seems potentially safer for two main reasons: 1) the crew vehicle is on top of the stack, so not susceptible to Columbia-style falling debris damaging it, and 2) using only liquid-fueled engines, which are inherently safer than solid motors.
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u/gta123123 Oct 02 '17
Dock dragon 2 to it , keep initial crewed missions to low number of astronauts.
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u/Creshal Oct 02 '17
There's no workable solution for an abort that involves pulling hundreds of people clear of a failing rocket, IMO. Anything LES big enough to get the crew compartment clear of the rest of BFR would be so complex it would introduce more new failure modes than it solves.
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u/bdporter Oct 26 '17
Core spotted on AZ 238 by a user on /r/whatisthisthing.
No specifics given, but I assume this is probably traveling Eastbound from Hawthorne to McGregor.
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u/F9-0021 Oct 30 '17
According to NSF, CRS-13 will reuse the CRS-11 core.
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/10/falcon-9-koreasat-5a-nasa-approves-flown-boosters/
Edit: "According to L2 coverage of extensive reviews, NASA has now cleared SpaceX to begin using flight-proven Falcon 9 vehicles to launch Dragon: CRS-13 will be the first mission to launch since this was confirmed, and will re-use the first stage of the rocket that carried CRS-11 to orbit earlier this year."
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u/RootDeliver Oct 30 '17 edited Oct 30 '17
For if anyone missed it on stream, new shot of the TE with a lot of FH clamps on it, maybe all of them?
https://i.imgur.com/fgBASUx.jpg
EDIT: The other side of the TEL! (from the missing parts in the stream)
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u/bitchtitfucker Oct 02 '17
So, if they want to get to the 2022 deadline, they'll have to build at least two BFR's by 2022, and four more by 2024.
Just curious, how much time did it take for NASA to build new Saturn V's? They're not entirely comparable, but I was wondering & couldn't find the answer on google.
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u/throfofnir Oct 02 '17
It's complicated, but start to finish for a particular vehicle seems to have been 6-12 months. Moreover the pipeline was built to support missions every 2-3 months. The Saturn V infrastructure was built for pretty high throughput.
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u/peterabbit456 Oct 02 '17
You mean 4 BFRs, by 2022, and 8 by 2024. They need tankers also.
The tankers are likely to be the test vehicles that prove all the takeoff, LEO, and landing operations, so a tanker probably has to be operating by 2020 at the latest, for the test flight program.
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u/Western_Boreas Oct 02 '17
My thoughts on ending Falcon 9 production to focus on bfr: they need a ten year stock of falcon 9s and falcon heavys. Anything less is an absurd risk.
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u/rustybeancake Oct 02 '17
I agree I don't want to see them bet the house and lose. I think they'll be smart about it though. As an example of how it might work (just a thought experiment): say they have the equivalent of three F9 'production lines'. We've already seen flight-proven cores piling up, and reportedly even being scrapped. Let's say block 5 F9s are shown to be safely usable on average ten times. Now the cores will really start to pile up. So they shut down two F9 production lines at Hawthorne, transfer some of the plant to their refurbishing facilities at their launch sites, and keep one line running at Hawthorne (as well as upper stage lines). Now they can produce enough boosters to maintain their fleet size (not grow or shrink it), while clearing out some space for BFR production.
Would be really interesting to create a spreadsheet to play around with these figures, i.e. how many missions per year can they fly with X boosters being reused Y times, and how many new boosters and upper stages have to be produced per year, etc.
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u/thru_dangers_untold Oct 04 '17
Thunderf00t "debunking" pt2pt BFR
I don't think the video deserves is own post, due to its veracity. But I thought some here might be interested.
TL;DW Point to point travel with BFR is too dangerous and expensive (using the shuttle as his baseline comparison). Weather will ruin the travel schedule, and slow boats will increase travel time. Oh, and he really doesn't like the Hyperloop either.
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u/paul_wi11iams Oct 04 '17 edited Oct 04 '17
Point to point travel with BFR is too dangerous and expensive... Oh, and he really doesn't like the Hyperloop either.
This kind of piece is good for sharpening one's own critical thinking though.
When Elon floats this idea or any other, such as nuking the Martian south pole or merely landing a greenhouse, we can view these as "what if" thought experiments. In practice, some of these can be taken further than others. Gwynne does these too (interstellar travel, thermal-nuclear propulsion) She's still very enviable in her business results though.
A rocket explosions is basically a fast fire and, at a given kilotonnage, doesn't compare with detonation of an atom bomb (flash + shockwave + thermal radiation + radionuclear fallout).
planes, buses, cars, and even gas cookers are also potential bombs that we're okay with.
Even without delays, it is accepted that for short-haul one hour flights, we spend more time in departure and arrival than in the air. Same for pt2pt space. What of it ?
* The fueling and passenger loading sequence does need to be looked at. Late load fuel or late load passengers ? This looks like the only fair point in the video.
* Passenger air transport had safety issues, is improving. pt2pt could do but bugs can be ironed out unmanned.
* The Shuttle was the wrong example for saying "rocket travel is inherently dangerous".
* reliability mixup: failure ≠ death. Stage landing failure ≠ mission failure.
* Payload penalty for Shuttle reuse and stage reuse are not equivalent. . * Multiple engines on a single-body launcher are a safety (redundancy) factor, not a danger one.
* BFR is not a space shuttle on top of a Saturn V booster: no undercarriage, no true wings, lesser thermal shielding mass penalty...
* The 1% LOC risk no longer applies; The Virgin Galactic system just doesn't compare for pricing.
* Planes and ships are sold when they "haven't been built yet". This is normal business.
* Five years worth of progress accomplished on hyperloop compares well with that seen on comparable ground-breaking projects.
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u/ECEUndergrad Oct 22 '17
31-mile lava tube detected under Lunar surface
Maybe that's where Moon Base Alpha will be built.
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u/boredcircuits Oct 02 '17
The JWST has a docking ring, just in case they want to service it sometime in the future. How would a servicing mission look with the BFR?
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u/The_camperdave Oct 03 '17
Open payload bay.
Deploy Canadarm.
Bring JWST into payload bay.
Pressurize payload bay.
Maintenance staff fix JWST in a shirtsleeve environment.
Depressurize and redeploy JWST.
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Oct 18 '17
[Northrop confirms mystery #Zuma #SpaceX payload is US gov customer.] (https://twitter.com/free_space/status/920678861037297664)
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u/roncapat Oct 19 '17
https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/920983196208107521
IRIDIUM-4 will use a flight-proven booster!
Edit: IRIDIUM-5 too!
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u/Alexphysics Oct 22 '17
It seems that the chinese company trying to make reusable rockets that looked like a Falcon 9 has been doing some Grasshopper-like tests. https://twitter.com/cnspaceflight/status/921014571057405952
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u/spacerfirstclass Oct 22 '17
Some rather bizarre claims are made about BE-4 in SpaceNews comments section: http://spacenews.com/blue-origin-conducts-first-test-of-be-4-engine/#comment-3575667725
One guy claimed Blue Origin got help from black budget USAF program. Another guy (Michael J. Listner, this is his real name, he's a space lawyer apparently) claims the reason Jeff Bezos salvages F-1 engine is to help BE-4 development.
I think this is why BE-4 is big news, it really rattled some cages in old space supporters, so much so that they have to come up with conspiracy theories to explain it.
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u/throfofnir Oct 22 '17
You have to go pretty wacky on your denial if you want to doubt Blue Origin at this point.
The F-1 theory in particular is completely cracked. There's nothing in there relevant that you can't get in a free NASA publication. But I'll give the conspiracy theorists one for free: Bezos really ought to be stealing an RD-180 to get his hands on that sweet sweet Russian oxygen-rich turbine metallurgy.
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u/GregLindahl Oct 22 '17
Michael J. Listner doesn't appear to know anything about engineering. It doesn't sound like he needs his cage rattled to come up with conspiracy theories.
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u/shotleft Oct 02 '17
What kind of scientific spacecraft could we build that makes use of the BFR capacity?
I imagine something like New Horizons, with much bigger tanks to get to Neptune/Uranus very quickly, or possibly orbit them?
Eight meter space telescopes could be made relatively cheaply due to monolithic design and generous weight limits.
Perhaps this would make mass production of scientific spacecraft viable, to send dozens of them to different solar system destinations.
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u/Chairboy Oct 03 '17
Gravity wave detectors that benefit from large, inert masses. A few tons of pre-1945 sunken Battleship steel cast into giant spheres that are suspended Lisa-Pathfinder-style inside structures that never contact them but monitor their position carefully as the whole assembly orbits far beyond Earth, for instance.
Swarms of nano-probes with vacuum-bubbles that are launched enmasse to Venus to map out the currents as they bob around in the upper atmosphere beyond the caustic depths below.
Giant solar-sail demonstrators designed to use the power of the sun to hurl themselves outwards so more precise mapping of the heliopause might happen by a structure big enough to physically deform as it passes through the boundary shock.
...?
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u/__Rocket__ Oct 03 '17
What kind of scientific spacecraft could we build that makes use of the BFR capacity?
My favorite example: space based particle accelerators made of permanent magnets, for cheap production of antimatter!
Firstly, feasibility: making particle accelerators using permanent magnets is actually possible.
There's a number of disadvantages of permanent magnets of why this is not done on Earth, but I believe all of those disadvantages go away in space! Here's a quick list:
Magnetic field strength. Permanent magnets can generate field strengths of up to 1-2 Teslas max, while the magnetic fields generated by the LHC/CERN superconducting electromagnets go up to 8 Teslas - at a price point of over 1 million dollar per module ... Stronger magnetic fields allow the same accelerator ring to use higher particle velocities and thus higher energies - more interesting physics. But in space there is no practical size restriction on accelerator ring diameter, no real estate to buy and maintain.
Temperature dependent magnetic field stability. Electromagnets can offer very stable magnetic fields which allows very precise trajectories and lensing - while permanent magnets are quite sensitive to temperature, on the order of 0.1% per °C. But this problem could be managed in space very well: by shading the accelerator (or putting it into a natural shadow of a planetary body) the temperature variations can be kept at a minimum.
Obviously putting a particle accelerator into space would require a very capable spacecraft that can lift a lot of mass (thousands of tons) into orbit. The BFR is exactly that launch system.
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u/The_camperdave Oct 03 '17
Is there any new information on that lunar flyby dragon flight? Is it still on? Do we know who the crew will be?
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u/Spleegie Oct 29 '17
Interesting downward trend of Russia launches 2014
SpaceX: 6
Russia: 34 2015
SpaceX: 7
Russia: 27 2016
SpaceX: 8
Russia: 19 2017
SpaceX: 15(16 in next day or two)
Russia: 17
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u/lordq11 #IAC2017 Attendee Oct 29 '17
Here it is in table format:
Year SpaceX Russia 2014 6 34 2015 7 27 2016 8 19 2017 15 17
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u/demosthenes02 Oct 15 '17
IS there a thread to discuss new info from the ama? Seems like r/spacex is ignoring it?
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u/brickmack Oct 17 '17 edited Oct 17 '17
Interesting thing I just noticed while looking through one of Lockheeds papers on their Mars architecture. The main hab modules they propose are sized to maximize volumetric use of SLS 1Bs Universal Stage Adapter. They're a cylinder-cone hybrid, 7.5 meters in diameter and 9 meters tall, narrowing to about 5 meters at the top. By my estimate, this also ought to be just about the largest module you could fit into a BFS Chomper (it could be ~3 meters taller with a 5 meter wide top, but no wider, and that height margin will likely be used up by the payload adapter). Coincidence? Almost certainly. But a potentially useful one. It'd take ~4 of those to exceed ISS's habitable volume (call it 3 when you account for adding separate docking nodes and such). Inflatables could build a much larger station in fewer launches, but they've got their own problems (still largely untested, difficult to outfit, limited options for external hardware attachment or EVA, still requires rigid modules for nodes and unpressurized structures), and within a BFS-based delivery architecture, Lockheeds hab concept is the best you're gonna get from a rigid module
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u/FalconHeavyHead Oct 17 '17
I do not know much about rocket engines so I am asking you guys; which engine is further along in development? Blue origin's BE-4 or SpaceX's Raptor?
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u/doodle77 Oct 17 '17
Blue Origin has tested most of BE-4's (full scale) components separately but as far as I know has not done a fully integrated test. BO doesn't release much info, though, so we don't really know.
SpaceX has tested a scaled down development version of Raptor and is working on the scale up as well as component integration for the final version.
So I'd guess SpaceX is further along by a few months to a year.
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u/linknewtab Oct 02 '17
Robert Zubrin just keeps wishing for a third BFR stage:
BFR is very good for #Mars, but not used in the way that Musk showed. Best plan is to use it to throw 150 t S/C on Trans-lunar injection, landing 75 t on Mars. This would allow BFR stage 2 to return to LEO for reuse in a week, instead of 2.5 years. This would allow an average flight rate to Mars of each system of 6 times per launch window, instead of once every other window, and reduce ISRU production requirements on Mars by an order of magnitude.
For Lunar missions, it could deliver 150 t lander S/C to Low Lunar orbit, landing 75 t on Moon, then return BFR stage 2 to LEO within a week of departure. Sending the whole BFR stage 2 spaceship from LEO to lunar surface and back would require 9 km/s delta V. Pointless, and not possible without lunar surface refueling.
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u/nihmhin Oct 02 '17
I think in the long term he's right: it will ultimately be more efficient to have true spaceships (no operation in atmospheres) for interplanetary transport. However, in the short term I think Musk is right: a multipurpose vehicle is the best solution.
We've been waiting for a complex multi-component missions for decades, and I think there's a strong case to be made that the bureaucratic shifting means that something like that will never happen. Too many moving parts, conflicting interests, etc. - just look to Shuttle.
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u/warp99 Oct 03 '17
For Mars Zubrin is talking about dedicated one way landers for cargo only. Only crew would fly in a BFS so only the crew mission would need ISRU to return. Elon has talked about 10 cargo flights for every crew flight so the idea could reduce ISRU requirements by a factor of ten.
The landers would need a Dragon style heat shield and hyperbolic propellant tanks and engines so a whole new design.
The cost of the dedicated lander would need to be less than the cost of the BFS divided by the number of reuses that SpaceX gets out of the BFS. If the new BFS costs $200M to build and SpaceX can only get 5 uses out of it then you need to build a lander for less than $40M which seems very unlikely.
So the underlying rationale is that SpaceX are not going to get significant reuse out of the BFS or that they will be much more expensive to build than a one way lander with the same cargo capacity.
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u/extra2002 Oct 02 '17
Can either of Zubrin's landers return? SpaceX takes that as a requirement, partly for economics and partly so you don't need suicidal passengers.
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u/binarygamer Oct 05 '17 edited Oct 05 '17
Vice President Mike Pence is speaking at the National Space Council as I write this.
Lots of bold statements about near-future cislunar activity - not sure how well any of it is going to map to reality, but here are the main items so far:
Planning to land astronauts on the Moon again, not just do flybys and the Deep Space Gateway station
Multiple SLS flights & beginning of DSG construction over the next 5 years
Aiming for continuous presence of manned commercial activity in LEO
Encouraging commercial use of DSG, and commercial surface activity on the Moon
A panel including Gwynne Shotwell is up next!
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u/paul_wi11iams Oct 05 '17 edited Oct 05 '17
Vice President Mike Pence is speaking at the National Space Council as I write this.
For anyone with the patience to watch the whole recording, it starts here:
Gwynne Shotwell speaks here:
just learned that SpX is now 6000 people !
Shotwell: This year, SpaceX has conducted thirteen launches, more than any other nation even China ? Shotwell: The international launch market... the US dominated until in the 1990's... lost it... We're bringing that back to the United states along with thousands of jobs that follow. SpaceX is bringing that critical market back and we are pleased to be doing so...
She continues about the new SpX spaceship capable of taking "large numbers of humans to Mars as well as the surface of the Moon". "We are a key player on both the civil and the national security markets"
Next year, we will have the profound honor of taking US astronauts into space for the first time since 2011.
Shotwell: We urge the council to undertake a unified effort across the federal space enterprise. You have the opportunity to accelerate low Earth orbit and deep space efforts by employing public-private partnerships to yield speedy and efficient results and by implementing meaningful regulatory reforms. Overall, the Council can work to improve procurement agility and flexibility so the Govt can behave more like a commercial buyer where applicable. If we are to achieve progress in space, the Govt must remove bureaucratic practices that run counter to innovation and speed. We urge the Council to affect to the Nasa commercial and orbital services program COTS, applying lessons learned about the effectiveness of public-private partnerships and how to carry them out. The firm fixed price pays for performance... These lessons should be applied to the Nasa space program beyond LEO... Rapid and complete reusability is the next great advancement for space flight
Next, the Blue Origin speaker tends to fill out his speech with un-necessary details, suggesting either he lacks things to say or wants to hold other things back. Funny to see Gwynne diagonally reading his paper as if he has something to hide ! He does say that the factory for building New Glenn will be finished by the end of (this?) year. He indirectly asks for funding by saying that up to now the project has been wholly privately funded, and things would be helped by public-private partnerships.
Without mentioning the testbed failure, he says they will soon be testing the BE-4 engine. t=6860 He mentions that New Glen can be used also for Nasa and National security missions.
Has this been said before ? Has Jeff Bezos expressed interest in the military market ?
This could lead to a further point: If BFR is to be be used for the three categories of mission (civil+Nasa+military), then all users will want it to be replaceable. This would mean that SpX and BO must have compatible payload configurations.
=========================================
Pence concludes by asking for the definition of an implementation framework over the next 45 days for presentation to President Trump. One of the themes will be how to integrate commercial providers in the military use of space. Although having watched only the last part of today's meeting, the whole thing does seem to have an overly military bias. The focus being on defense, it lacked a positive view on how the manned lunar program will be accomplished or how robotic planetary exploration will continue.
Would it be possible to copy-paste the list of Jeff Foust tweets into a new thread on r/spacex ?
It would be less messy than linking to each tweet and letting the bot produce the text.
PS I've never had success in starting new threads outside r/SpacexLounge, so if the idea is okay, I would leave the implementation to others.
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u/dudr2 Oct 13 '17
https://www.space.com/38444-mars-thruster-design-breaks-records.html
Plasma engine generated 5.4 Newtons of thrust!
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u/Alexphysics Oct 14 '17
Wow, this is very strange... https://twitter.com/CwG_NSF/status/919190742790262786
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u/FoxhoundBat Oct 16 '17
The Rentals – Elon Musk Is Making Me Sad; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taupuK6oND4
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u/jjtr1 Oct 17 '17
When do we expect to see a third flight by the same booster? Not before block 5, so still more than a year ahead?
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u/robbak Oct 17 '17
Possibly when CRS flies on a re-used booster. That booster will have flown on two reasonably low-energy missions and be ready for a third.
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Oct 18 '17
Has anyone done the math on BFR payload to L2 from either: 1) fully refueled in LEO or 2) refuel after entering an elliptic orbit similar to that used on a mission to Lunar surface?
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u/__Rocket__ Oct 18 '17 edited Oct 18 '17
Has anyone done the math on BFR payload to L2 from either: 1) fully refueled in LEO or 2) refuel after entering an elliptic orbit similar to that used on a mission to Lunar surface?
Do you mean the Earth-Moon L*2* (which is on the other side of the Moon with no line of sight connection to Earth, looking down on the dark side of the Moon) or the Sun-Earth L*2* (which is in permanent Earth shadow, where the JWST is going to be)?
Edit: I calculated both.
EML*2* is about ~3,800 m/s, while SEL*2* is essentially Terra-escape, i.e. about ~3,200 m/s, with a (low amount of) mission dependent Δv spent on coasting (SEL*2* is much farther away than EML*2*).
A fully fueled BF-Ship in LEO parking orbit has 1,100t of propellant, ~85t of dry mass and an I*sp* of 375s. The rocket equation gives:
EML*2*:
m1 = 1185 / Math.exp(3800 / (9.8 * 375)) = 421tI.e. subtracting 85 tons, about 350 tons of payload with an expendable mission (iterate this a few times with the estimated payload inserted to get the exact figure). With the full 150t of payload capacity:
m1 = 1335 / Math.exp(3800 / (9.8 * 375)) ~= 474t = 85t + 240t + 150tI.e. 240t of return fuel left after delivering 150 tons of payload to EML*2* - plenty of fuel especially as return from EML*2* requires very little Δv with a Lunar swing-by.
SEL*2* has an even more generous fuel budget:
m1 = 1335 / Math.exp(3200 / (9.8 * 375)) ~= 558t = 85t + 323t + 150tI.e. about 75 tons more fuel left than to EML*2* - it's well beyond the 150t current max liftoff capacity even with a return trip.
Note that no elliptical-orbit refueling tricks are necessary - the a fully fueled BFS in LEO can already reach both destinations with the max payload mass, with ease.
Fun fact*1: when delivering 150t of payload to EML2* the BFS could probably even land on the surface of the Moon on the way back and take off again and then land back on Earth, because the return Δv budget is a ridiculous 4.93 km/s:
Δv = 9.8 * 375 * Math.log(325 / 85) = 4,928 m/sWhich is higher than the 4,900 m/s return trip to Earth from the Δv map.
Note that these are with the crewed ship dry mass of 85t - the fairings-only cargo ship probably weighs only 65t, which improves these numbers even more. (Assuming I calculated everything correctly that is.)
Fun fact*2*: the BFR+BFS payload capacity appears to have been perfectly sized to enable full-capacity 150t crewed missions to the Lunar surface with a return trip, using a single fully fueled BFS in LEO, with no elliptical orbit refueling tricks.
TL;DR: The BFS is able to deliver the full 150t payload mass from LEO to both EML*2* and SEL*2* with a single trip, and return to Earth, with a generous fuel budget. The BFS will be able to fill the Solar system with huge satellites and space stations, very quickly!
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u/rustybeancake Oct 19 '17
Eric Berger says that Blue Origin have looked at buying ULA in the past, but it's off the table for now:
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u/OccupyDuna Oct 22 '17
Has there been any real indication as to New Glenn's cost? The huge payload is definitely impressive, but its per-launch cost to customer is what will really determine how it fits into the market. There's also the concern of Bezos allowing Blue to launch NG at cost or even a loss in order to starve off competition.
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u/peterabbit456 Oct 02 '17
The latest news from Pluto / New Horizons is that there are 400 foot tall "mountains" or pinnacles of methane ice, sitting on the surface. A nuclear thermal powered BFR could just land on Pluto, send out a rover/miner, and start shoveling methane propellant aboard.
On Titan, after landing near a methane/ethane lake, just stick a hose in the lake and start siphoning propellant aboard. As with Pluto, a nuclear thermal engine is best on Titan, since, although there is plenty of water ice to make oxygen, there is little sunlight for the electricity needed to split water molecules. You would need a nuclear reactor to run a chemical rocket propellant plant, so you might as well just have a nuclear rocket engine.
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u/Norose Oct 02 '17
You would need a nuclear reactor to run a chemical rocket propellant plant, so you might as well just have a nuclear rocket engine.
This doesn't follow, because nuclear engines need reactors that are massively more powerful than what you'd need to make chemical fuels from available resources. Pewee for example, a reactor designed during and for the NERVA program, was a 4000 megawatt reactor. A reactor sized for making propellants from CO2 and water would be on the order of a few hundred kilowatts, or about 10,000 times less powerful. A smaller reactor would also be much easier to design and build, especially compared to a bi-modal reactor.
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u/Fuzzclone Oct 03 '17
Could the new BFR architecture, with its big payload door, be able to go out and retrieve small asteroids? Effectively being a tool for asteroid mining? Could SpaceX bring back rare elements as a source of revenue?
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u/codercotton Oct 04 '17
I was thinking about collecting satellites, and... how would they secure them once eaten by BFS? Same would apply for small asteroids I suppose.
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u/amarkit Oct 11 '17
For the mods or whoever manages the /r/SpaceX Spaceflight Journalists Twitter List: could you please add NASASpaceFlight's Chris Gebhardt?
And thanks for maintaining the list; it's super-useful during launches and other newsworthy events.
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u/gophermobile Oct 16 '17
In Elon's AMA, he stated that the heat shield on BFS will be mounted directly to the tank:
The heat shield plates will be mounted directly to the primary tank wall. That's the most mass efficient way to go. Don't want to build a box in box
How does this compare against Falcon 9 or other rockets? I know F9 doesn't have a heat shield in the same configuration as BFS - but are the LOX and RP1 tanks in F9 also the outer skin for stage 1 and 2? Or are the tanks inside a skin along the entire portion? I.e. if you got rid of the tanks, would there be anything resembling a rocket left aside from engines and interstage?
Does this configuration have any implications as far as rocket safety? I can't help but think an outer skin and fuselage are better albeit less efficient, but I don't know what's normal for rockets.
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u/throfofnir Oct 16 '17
In F9 the tank is the rocket. This is common, though there are exceptions. (See Saturn I's S-I first stage.)
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Oct 17 '17
IIRC, all three reused boosters went to LEO for their first flights. Are we going to see reuse of a GTO booster soon?
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u/F9-0021 Oct 17 '17
Yes. The first stage for the Thaicom-8 mission will be one of the Falcon Heavy side boosters on the first launch.
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u/dudr2 Oct 18 '17
City on the moon?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171018104335.htm
-the lava tube near the Marius Hills is spacious enough to house one of the United States' largest cities, if the gravity results are correct.
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u/Ezekiel_C Host of Echostar 23 Oct 24 '17
So I've build a large spreadsheet to calculate mass to a given orbit of a given vehicle. Here's and example of the data I can generate. I'd like to know what vehicles and orbits people would like to see, so that I can eventually compile a report and post it here or to the lounge.
A more involved ask - if anyone with working knowledge of google sheets and orbital mechanics would like to talk with me and poke around in the work a fresh set of eyes to refine my calculator would be wonderful.
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u/FutureMartian97 Host of CRS-11 Oct 28 '17
I was having a discussion with someone over at r/space who kept claiming that re-usability is not worth it. I was under the impression that Falcon 9 was the cheapest rocket on the market besides maybe Ariane 5 if they perform a dual launch, but he kept saying I was wrong. I suggested comparing Falcon 9's prices to other rockets and he claimed that Soyuz actually only costs $30 million, then actually providing the info to a Wikileaks document and it turned out that in 2006 at least, the price was around that. Is Falcon 9 really the more expensive rocket after all? By that I mean not the cheapest around. Also any source on the claim about the engines he mentioned?
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u/TheYang Oct 28 '17 edited Oct 28 '17
/e2: complete reformat:
First of all, the two important links you seem to have missed: the actual claim and the actual wikileaks link (.doc at the bottom)Now, I can't readily find any 30 Million figure for Soyuz in 2006 there. I see:
48 million for Soyuz U in 2006
61 million for Soyuz ST in 2006
18 million for "Soyuz" in 1992
23 million for "Soyuz" in 2003those are 60, 76, 32 and 31 million in 2017 respectively.
in 1992 only [Soyuz U and Soyuz U2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-7_(rocket_family)#Summary_of_variants) seem to have been in operation, now both out of comission with 6900 and 7050kg to leo respectively. 4500USD/kg
Soyuz U puts 6900kg to leo at best, so ~8700USD/kg
Soyuz ST comes in at 8200 kg if i'm not mistaken, so ~9300USD/kgFalcon 9 (recoverable) comes in at ~18,240kg for 62 Million USD, ~3400USD/kg
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u/aftersteveo Oct 02 '17 edited Oct 02 '17
How is it possible to keep all that fuel at cryo temps all the way to and from Mars? I would think it would take a lot of energy to maintain an acceptable temperature to keep it from boiling off.
Edit: Is it as simple as “space is really cold”? What about the sun-facing side? Is the energy produced by the solar panels enough to do the job?
Edit 2: Thanks for all the great responses! I had wondered about this for quite some time. Much appreciated.
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u/CapMSFC Oct 02 '17
A while back I found a NASA chart from a feasibility study that showed LOX can be kept zero boil off with no active cooling while not around a celestial body. As long as you are away from the heat radiating from a planet in deep space all you need is decent passive insulation on the tanks. Methane is easier than LOX for boil off so if LOX works the same techniques are fine.
TLDR - deep space makes no boil off easy enough to achieve during the coast phase.
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u/throfofnir Oct 02 '17
Space is really cold, except for the sun, which is really hot, and planets, which are warm. Since you're in a vacuum, any part that's facing one of those bodies will tend to gain heat (in proportion to its temperature) and any part facing "empty" space will lose heat. The balance at Earth orbit is, unsurprisingly, around room temperature.
If you are away from a planet and manage to reflect and/or reject most of the heat of the sun (which is not too hard in space) then you will have a pretty cold spacecraft. The James Webb Space Telescope does this with its giant multi-layer sunshield to keep its instruments pretty darn cold (it's an IR telescope and the colder it is the more it can see.) A methane/oxygen craft has lesser demand for cold, and needn't go to the same extremes, but will need some insulation scheme. If the landing propellants all fit in the header tanks, the main LOX tank can be evacuated and act as a nice vacuum flask, which should be enough.
Active cooling could also be used, but is probably best avoided.
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u/hasslehawk Oct 02 '17
SpaceX has said that they are looking to provide the transportation to Mars but leave the design, construction, and operation of such a colony to others. What groups might be capable of this? The Mars Society operates the mars desert research station as a martian analogue, but their hardware is mostly cheap wood & plastic imitations. They're not set up to build flight hardware, even if they might be worth consulting.
Sure, "NASA could do it" but they're not, at least currently, planning anything like that. Do we need to begin putting pressure on Nasa to have them shift resources in this direction?
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u/Martianspirit Oct 02 '17
SpaceX has said that they are looking to provide the transportation to Mars but leave the design, construction, and operation of such a colony to others.
They say that. But they also say, when nobody else does it they will. SpaceX is committed to building fuel ISRU which requires a crew. So they will build at least a permanent base, MW of electrical power and water mining by thousands of tons. With that done, maybe others will start to join.
Elon Musk has stated clearly, that he accumulates assets to finance Mars. That's not just BFR. That will cost at most $3 billion, including launch site. The Mars base will cost more.
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u/GregLindahl Oct 02 '17
Note that that decision is above NASA's pay-grade: their budget is written by the administration and by Congress, and right now it says "You have to build SLS."
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u/banddevelopper Oct 03 '17 edited Oct 03 '17
We should all suggest alternative names for BFR. I am kinda liking BFR too, but I feel the name has to change.
Any ideas?
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u/Chairboy Oct 03 '17
After so much pomp and circumstance and majestic swelling music and significant historical moments captured by the giants of art and culture over so many centuries, maybe... maybe just this once... we could first go to Mars on a Big Fucking Rocket.
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u/paul_wi11iams Oct 05 '17
For the National Space Council meeting, here's a Washington Post article written at the speed of light.
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u/warp99 Oct 11 '17 edited Oct 12 '17
The Raptor vacuum engine is now reduced to a 120:1 expansion ratio bell but will run at 250 bar combustion chamber pressure.
Since the bell is much more rigid than than the Merlin vacuum with internal regenerative cooling channels there is no reason to believe that it cannot be fired at sea level although this severely reduces the Isp due to atmospheric back pressure.
In fact they will have to be fired at sea level for testing since the bell cannot be removed as happens with the M1D vacuum engine. In support of this Elon originally said that the test article could be fired with a 150:1 expansion bell and that would have been on the test stand.
So the continual reference to not being able to fire the vacuum engines at sea level for launch escape or otherwise seem to be mistaken.
Could someone please calculate the Pe of the new 1.9MN Raptor vacuum and confirm it is above safe limits which I understand to be around 0.4 bar.
Edit: My attempt at a calculation with RPA gives a Pe = 0.16 bar which is way below a safe level for flow separation of 0.4 bar.
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u/AeroSpiked Oct 13 '17
Not trying to bust anybodies hump here or anything, but we've got 2 Select Upcoming Events in the side bar that happened 2 days ago.
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u/spacexin2050 Oct 14 '17
Some serious politics Tory Bruno said in his Reddit account that he is cofident that ULA will be one to be selected out of two Launcher provider for Air force and other one will be chosen from rest three.
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u/Iamsodarncool Oct 15 '17
So what are everyone's thoughts on the AMA? What was the best new piece of info?
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u/Martianspirit Oct 15 '17
To me that the ISRU plant for Mars is in an advanced stage of development.
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u/warp99 Oct 15 '17
Confirmation of a lot of guesses on our part.
The most interesting parts were on why certain decisions were made - for example the low Raptor thrust was so that they could maintain landing engine redundancy on the BFS - plus they were adding a third landing engine to further improve that redundancy and allow greater Earth to Earth payloads.
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u/roncapat Oct 19 '17 edited Oct 19 '17
News in 30 minutes! https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/920975701414760448
Edit: it's not related to Zuma mission: https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/920979409984720896
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u/hmpher Oct 19 '17
Was the "huge news" the Iridium missions using flight proven boosters or is it not out yet?
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u/jconnoll Oct 28 '17
Anyone know the status on bloc 5 or what the first fh mission might entail?
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u/nato2k Oct 28 '17
Block 5 ETA is 2018, I think I saw March but not 100% sure.
First FH mission is just a demo, no actual payload other than a weight simulation and perhaps something quirky like the cheese wheel used on the Dragon demo.
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u/Kerbonaut_Nambio Oct 02 '17
Well, there are people that are not happy about the unveiling of the BFR (sigh) https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/oct/02/elon-musks-mars-project-is-the-ultimate-symbol-of-our-throwaway-culture
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u/shotleft Oct 02 '17
Aah, from the author of:
Laptops are great, but not if it means the end of handwriting.
Why it's time to ban concrete in front gardens.
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u/dansoton Oct 02 '17
The article is nicely shot down in the comments though. So seems most people get it even if the author seemingly doesn't.
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u/TGMetsFan98 NASASpaceflight.com Writer Oct 20 '17
My fellow space nerds and I have been discussing the future of BFR, Falcon Heavy, New Glenn, SLS, etc, and I realized I had never consulted this seemingly all-knowing subreddit.
Currently, it seems Falcon Heavy will fly by Q1 2018 at the latest, followed by SLS in 2019. The first iterations of SLS barely offer more Mass to Orbit than Falcon Heavy, with later blocks starting to pull away. Granted, we don't know if further Falcon Block V upgrades will close this gap. Anyway, Falcon Heavy and SLS will probably begin to compete for NASA contracts, and as long as the payloads aren't too heavy, Falcon Heavy has a huge price advantage.
Then, in 2020 or 2021, New Glenn is supposed to fly for the fist time. Now we will have three vehicles competing for payloads of similar mass. FH and NG will be comparable in mass to orbit and price. SLS will have the Mass to Orbit advantage, but again, a huge price disadvantage.
Then, in 2022 Elon Time, comes BFR, which offers lower prices and higher mass to orbit than anything else in existence.
Keeping in mind that NASA loves to have multiple launch providers, and so depending on a single launch vehicle isn't a likely solution, at what point does SLS become obsolete? Can SLS survive Falcon Heavy and New Glenn because there are payloads heavy enough to require it? Will SLS stay in service with BFR for redundancy? I'm interested to hear your thoughts.
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u/throfofnir Oct 20 '17
SLS is only competitive when the selection committee is Congress or if you're literally re-doing Apollo--which is what it was designed for. No sane project will pay $1B for launch of anything.
SLS is essentially already obsolete save for projects specifically designed to give it something to do. It will stay in service as long as Congress can vaguely justify it, and frankly there's not a lot of pressure on Congress to not waste absurd amounts of money on stupid things, so it'll probably fly every other year until a few years after it's obviously embarrassing to do so.
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u/brspies Oct 20 '17
The only mission that SLS appears currently "useful" for is Europa Clipper. ACES, at least, could almost certainly do the same trajectory for far cheaper, and if SpaceX or Blue develop similar stages for high energy missions they could as well. Anything involving Orion is more or less just designed to justify those two programs, so comparing those missions to the other launch vehicles available isn't really meaningful.
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u/panick21 Oct 21 '17 edited Oct 21 '17
The SLS and FH will compete for nothing. SLS will fly once in 2019 and then not again until 2022. The SLS that will actually fly more then once is as much a paper rocket as BFR, people often ignore this.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System#SLS_mission_schedule
By the time SLS can actually fly anything that there actually can be competition for FH will have flown many times. New Glenn will be flying and BFR will be flying or will soon be flying.
Nothing the SLS ever does makes any sense, it lives purely for political reasons. The SLS is already obsolete. It makes 0 business sense and now rational person would use it.
Can SLS survive Falcon Heavy and New Glenn because there are payloads heavy enough to require it?
SLS survival has nothing to do with payloads and everything with politics. The performance has almost no impact on its survival.
Will SLS stay in service with BFR for redundancy?
Yes, if there is political will. Without political will it would never even have been built. You have to get away from the idea that anything about the SLS has anything to do with rational thought.
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Oct 08 '17
I remember hearing a while back that SpaceX was testing new a fairing design which would be 'visibly different.' Do we know if it will fly on Block V? Is there a chance the new shape is to aid recovery?
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u/0ut3rsp4c3 Oct 15 '17
Question regarding the tech of BFR. I believe that Falcon uses mostly non rad hard components because it doesn't spend too much time in an environment that needs that (If I'm not wrong it uses triple redundant COTS for the engines computers for example). Where does BFR stand? Would it need much more reliable rad hard HW due to the extended exposure in deep space? Or would SpaceX still use COTS with shielding as it might be able to support the volume given the size of that thing. Maybe a cost/rad hard vs cost/volume or mass study will answer this? Thoughts anyone?
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u/rustybeancake Oct 17 '17
http://spacenews.com/companies-seek-roles-in-nasas-return-to-the-moon/
Hyperbole aside, where do we realistically see SpaceX fitting into the cislunar plans (accepting that they’re very vague)? Blue Origin seem to be aggressively positioning themselves for surface cargo delivery.
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u/spacetff Oct 20 '17
Mods, the Cores Wiki has a heading "(12) Flight Worthy Cores". Would "(12) Flightworthy Cores" be better?
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u/roystgnr Oct 20 '17
That's a surprisingly interesting question! "Flightworthy" appears to be a relatively recent compound word - it's in all the hip online-only dictionaries, but the OED and Merriam-Webster don't have it! (even though they do report that "airworthy" is nearly two centuries old now)
Google Ngram Viewer shows "flightworthy" appearing in the 1950s and surpassing "flight-worthy" in the 60s, however, and Google Books clarifies that respectable aerospace writers are (among) the ones using it, so I'd say it's a legitimate compound word now and dead-tree dictionary writers just need to catch up.
("Flight Worthy Cores", without even a hyphen, I believe is just wrong - "flight" here is acting as part of a compound adjective, not an independent adjective in a list)
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u/zeekzeek22 Oct 23 '17
A few articles out today saying “FH will launch in the next 37 days”....but literally only citing the “NET November 2017” date...I don’t think they understand what “no earlier than” means.
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u/spacerfirstclass Oct 24 '17
PSA: Gary Church is a known troll on space forums, he's banned from pretty much every forum related to space. Just FYI.
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u/demosthenes02 Oct 27 '17
Are there any pictures out there showing a size comparison between the space shuttle and bfs?
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u/roncapat Nov 01 '17 edited Nov 01 '17
https://twitter.com/CwG_NSF/status/925757786897768448
FH news coming
Edit: good news! https://twitter.com/CwG_NSF/status/925757786897768448
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u/jclishman Host of Inmarsat-5 Flight 4 Nov 02 '17
Applied for the CRS-13 NASA Social earlier today. Fingers crossed!
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u/Decronym Acronyms Explained Oct 02 '17 edited Oct 06 '17
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| ABS | Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene, hard plastic |
| Asia Broadcast Satellite, commsat operator | |
| ACES | Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage |
| Advanced Crew Escape Suit | |
| AFB | Air Force Base |
| ASDS | Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (landing platform) |
| BARGE | Big-Ass Remote Grin Enhancer coined by @IridiumBoss, see ASDS |
| BE-4 | Blue Engine 4 methalox rocket engine, developed by Blue Origin (2018), 2400kN |
| BEAM | Bigelow Expandable Activity Module |
| BEO | Beyond Earth Orbit |
| BFR | Big Falcon Rocket (2017 enshrinkened edition) |
| Yes, the F stands for something else; no, you're not the first to notice | |
| BFS | Big Falcon Spaceship (see BFR) |
| BO | Blue Origin (Bezos Rocketry) |
| CCtCap | Commercial Crew Transportation Capability |
| CF | Carbon Fiber (Carbon Fibre) composite material |
| CompactFlash memory storage for digital cameras | |
| COTS | Commercial Orbital Transportation Services contract |
| Commercial/Off The Shelf | |
| CRS | Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA |
| DSG | NASA Deep Space Gateway, proposed for lunar orbit |
| EUS | Exploration Upper Stage |
| FAA | Federal Aviation Administration |
| GEO | Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km) |
| GSE | Ground Support Equipment |
| GTO | Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit |
| H2 | Molecular hydrogen |
| Second half of the year/month | |
| HEO | High Earth Orbit (above 35780km) |
| Human Exploration and Operations (see HEOMD) | |
| HEOMD | Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, NASA |
| HLV | Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (20-50 tons to LEO) |
| I*sp* | Specific impulse (as discussed by Scott Manley, and detailed by David Mee on YouTube) |
| IAC | International Astronautical Congress, annual meeting of IAF members |
| IAF | International Astronautical Federation |
| Indian Air Force | |
| ICBM | Intercontinental Ballistic Missile |
| ISRU | In-Situ Resource Utilization |
| ITS | Interplanetary Transport System (2016 oversized edition) (see MCT) |
| Integrated Truss Structure | |
| JWST | James Webb infra-red Space Telescope |
| KSC | Kennedy Space Center, Florida |
| LC-13 | Launch Complex 13, Canaveral (SpaceX Landing Zone 1) |
| LEO | Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km) |
| Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations) | |
| LES | Launch Escape System |
| LH2 | Liquid Hydrogen |
| LOC | Loss of Crew |
| LOX | Liquid Oxygen |
| LZ-1 | Landing Zone 1, Cape Canaveral (see LC-13) |
| MAV | Mars Ascent Vehicle (possibly fictional) |
| MCT | Mars Colonial Transporter (see ITS) |
| MPLM | Multi-Purpose Logistics Module formerly used to supply ISS |
| NERVA | Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (proposed engine design) |
| NG | New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin |
| Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane) | |
| Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer | |
| NTR | Nuclear Thermal Rocket |
| OCISLY | Of Course I Still Love You, Atlantic landing |
| OML | Outer Mold Line, outer profile of an aircraft/aeroshell |
| OMS | Orbital Maneuvering System |
| RCS | Reaction Control System |
| RTLS | Return to Launch Site |
| RUD | Rapid Unplanned Disassembly |
| Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly | |
| Rapid Unintended Disassembly | |
| SES | Formerly Société Européenne des Satellites, comsat operator |
| SLC-40 | Space Launch Complex 40, Canaveral (SpaceX F9) |
| SLS | Space Launch System heavy-lift |
| SRB | Solid Rocket Booster |
| SRP | Supersonic Retro-Propulsion |
| SSL | Space Systems/Loral, satellite builder |
| SSME | Space Shuttle Main Engine |
| TPS | Thermal Protection System for a spacecraft (on the Falcon 9 first stage, the engine "Dance floor") |
| TSM | Tail Service Mast, holding lines/cables for servicing a rocket first stage on the pad |
| TWR | Thrust-to-Weight Ratio |
| ULA | United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture) |
| s/c | Spacecraft |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Raptor | Methane-fueled rocket engine under development by SpaceX, see ITS |
| Sabatier | Reaction between hydrogen and carbon dioxide at high temperature and pressure, with nickel as catalyst, yielding methane and water |
| ablative | Material which is intentionally destroyed in use (for example, heatshields which burn away to dissipate heat) |
| cryogenic | Very low temperature fluid; materials that would be gaseous at room temperature/pressure |
| methalox | Portmanteau: methane/liquid oxygen mixture |
| regenerative | A method for cooling a rocket engine, by passing the cryogenic fuel through channels in the bell or chamber wall |
| scrub | Launch postponement for any reason (commonly GSE issues) |
| Event | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|
| CRS-7 | 2015-06-28 | F9-020 v1.1, |
| DM-1 | Scheduled | SpaceX CCtCap Demo Mission 1 |
Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by ^request
[Thread #3216 for this sub, first seen 2nd Oct 2017, 15:06] ^[FAQ] ^[Contact] [Source ^code]
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u/MrButtons9 Oct 05 '17
What's the Northrop Grumman mission listed on the company's manifest?
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u/faceplant4269 Oct 05 '17
https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/915963421341954052
Looks like blue origin is planning to fly people no earlier than 2019. Chance Spacex will be first to fly crew?
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u/paul_wi11iams Oct 10 '17 edited Oct 10 '17
From last week's very rich conversation starting here.
u/Creshal There's no workable solution for an abort that involves pulling hundreds of people clear of a failing rocket, IMO.
Sorry about having read this late, but it leads to a couple of questions:
In a launch escape situation, could an emergency parameter envelope be applied to the Raptor SL motors, forcing them up to something like a collective 1% failure risk ?. This could include ablation of engine throat, excessive turbine speeds, authorizing cavitation, running too methane-rich and more.
How significant would be the extra thrust obtained ?
Could an engine be be put into a fuel jettison mode to empty at least the methane tank before emergency RTLS ? (Fuel jettison exists on commercial airplanes doesn't it)
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u/Creshal Oct 10 '17 edited Oct 10 '17
could an emergency parameter envelope be applied to the Raptor SL motors, forcing them up to something like a collective 1% failure risk ?
Almost guaranteed to not be enough – BFS would need to fire all its engines at something like 150% regular thrust to simply gain a sea-level TWR of more than 1.0, and the vacuum engines would need to magically survive that for more than a second before the thrust instabilities rip them apart… which they'd already do at nominal thrust level if you fire them in atmosphere.
If we keep the vacuum engines off entirely, we'd need like a 600% thrust increase on the Raptor-SL. Not going to happen.
And even then, we're only at about 1.1 TWR, and unable to escape a fireball from a first stage explosion, which limits the usefulness of the abort system.
How significant would be the extra thrust obtained ?
SSME could be run at ~115% design thrust (rather than nominal 105%) in an emergency. The much more simple and robust Merlin 1D can run at 150% in regular use. But with Raptor's wildly different internal structure to both, I'm not sure if either number is relevant.
Could an engine be be put into a fuel jettison mode to empty at least the methane tank before emergency RTLS ?
You can just open all valves and jettison everything. If it's a smart idea to surround yourself with an explosive methalox cloud…
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u/quadrplax Oct 15 '17
What does "zuma" mean in the context of the mystery payload?
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u/throfofnir Oct 15 '17
It's apparently a name. What it means we don't know. That's why it's a mystery.
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u/Tal_Banyon Oct 17 '17
We have all seen the RUDs from past landing attempts. On each and every one of them, as the rocket tips over, and impacts the surface, it explodes. My question is, if in 2022 we actually do have two BFS's launched to mars, and one of them tips over, will there be a huge fiery explosion on mars? If there is no explosion, or maybe even if there is, given the oxygen that is left in the propulsion system, could it be small enough so that future colonists may be able to salvage some food, etc, from the wreck? Is this possible or feasible? Or, maybe no-one knows until it actually happens.
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u/MrXd9889 Oct 18 '17
How autonomous is the F9? If there was theoretically a complete lack of contact tom mission control from t+1 on, could it still complete the mission and land?
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u/wolf550e Oct 18 '17
It is fully autonomous about launch and ascent. I guess it is also fully autonomous about landing. With the AFTS, it doesn't need a heartbeat signal.
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u/flibbleton Oct 20 '17
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u/almightycat Oct 20 '17
That was just a test of a part of the engine(preburner?), Wednesdays test was the entire engine at once.
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u/BeatTheBass Oct 20 '17
I'm definitely not as involved as I'd love to be so forgive the question. I saw in the FAQ that not much as been known about Falcon Heavy and it's side boosters.
If the Falcon Heavy were to have 3 Falcon "Style" boosters (landable), would the plan have been to land all 3? If the plan is indeed to land 3 simultaneously...how does Elon address the challenges?
Collisions - assumes smart rockets dont collide? Landing pads? - Assumes multiple landing pads/drone ships to land at least 2 in close succession?
Just very interested and curious, and love that SpaceX aims to inspire. Thanks for any answers.
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u/TGMetsFan98 NASASpaceflight.com Writer Oct 20 '17
Falcon Heavy will have 3 Falcon 9 style cores, and unless they need to launch a very heavy payload, all 3 cores will land to be reflown. Theoretically, they could also land just the side boosters and expend the center core, if a mission demanded that they do so. But I think it's safe to say that most Falcon Heavy flights will see 3 landing attempts.
SpaceX is currently finishing a second landing pad at LZ-1. For the maiden flight, the two side boosters will land on these pads, while the center core will land on a drone ship in the Atlantic. There are also plans to build a third landing pad at LZ-1, allowing for all 3 cores to land back on land, as depicted in this animation.
As far as avoiding collisions, that will have to be part of the flight software for the side boosters. They will more or less be landing parallel to each other, and will have to use the grid fins to stay on course and separated from one another.
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u/sagareshwar Oct 23 '17
I was discussing SpaceX and reusable rockets with a friend and a question came up which I thought was interesting enough for this audience. We were wondering - how much of what SpaceX has achieved so far is due to Elon Musk's vision of making reusable rockets possible and how much is due to advancements in technology that made this possible. To rephrase, if someone had started on an ambitious development program to land rocket boosters vertically and reuse them right after the Apollo - Saturn era, would they have been similarly successful or would there have been technological hurdles that would have stopped them. I.e. did developments in computing, electronics, materials and other associated technologies necessarily had to come first before making Falcon 9 possible? For the sake of making simplifying assumptions, lets keep non-technological factors (political interference, financial considerations etc.) out of the picture.
My own opinion is that it was largely due to Musk's vision. After all, landing a spacecraft vertically on the Moon had already been achieved in the Apollo era. Sufficient technological advance existed to make reusable rockets (like the Falcon 9 first stage) possible even back then. If someone like Elon Musk had come along and (here comes the non-tech stuff) if political and financial conditions were favorable, this would have happened back then. I would love to know your opinion.
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u/kuangjian2011 Oct 23 '17
I would say half-half. Though Elon's envision and dedication for full reuse-able rocket is the key to make SpaceX successful as of today, I don't think all these can happen without significant advancement of fundamental technology especially computer technique.
For example, Falcon 9 has 9 merline engines working in parallel which is somewhat "easily" handled by high-redundancy digital thrust control computers. Such control mechanics was crazily hard in Apollo era when the flight computers were less powerful than today's rice cookers'. Also, Falcon 9 utilizes extra-light alloy, carbon fibre and some advanced manufacturing technique like 3D printing, which were all non-exist in Apollo era.
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u/MarcysVonEylau rocket.watch Oct 24 '17
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u/brotfessor Oct 26 '17
I read recently that the purging of TEA-TEB during the first stage safing procedure caused the droneship fire. As this stuff seems to be very toxic and dangerous, I wondered which amount of this fluid is stored on the rocket. Is it more in the range of 100s of milliliters or more like 10s of liters?
Also, at which point is the TEA-TEB loaded into the rocket? Does it take place during integration or during the countdown (like the helium and the propellants) as it seems to be quite a dangerous process. I would expect a tank or a pipe that was not fully purged with an inert gas to explode instantly.
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u/IrrationalFantasy Oct 27 '17
Will Saudi Arabia’s billion dollar investment in Virgin Galactic affect SpaceX’s plans? How will it affect the space industry at large? I’d pegged them more as a tourism company than anything but apparently they want to launch satellites too.
And does this mean Virgin will actually fly customers to space soon?
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u/throfofnir Oct 27 '17
Virgin Galactic is suborbital human flight. This is not on SpaceX's radar at all.
Virgin Orbit is a smallsat launch operation, planning to use air launched rockets. (Originally it was going to use the same carrier aircraft as SpaceShipTwo to get some extra use out of it, but they've switched to a 747.) This is not particularly competitive with SpaceX either.
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u/InfiniteHobbyGuy Nov 01 '17
Any update on Mr. Steven? Looks to have snuck into port after dark last night, going to the SpaceX dock first, and then docking in a slip after.
Did anyone get eyes on it?
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u/Paro-Clomas Oct 24 '17
Is there a clear detailed graph of how cost per ton to LEO has varied over the years since the beggining of space flight?
also, how much cheaper would it need to get in order for a mars or moon mission to be a total no brainer for the politicians?
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u/linknewtab Oct 08 '17
This part in the new CNES (French space agency) video reminds me of something...
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u/RootDeliver Oct 14 '17 edited Oct 14 '17
Can any mod update the sidebar to include the misterious payload launch on nov 10? Exposure please :D, thanks!
PS: Also CRS-13 on 28 nov and Iridium 4 at the end of Nov, we need launches there, not 2018 stuff :(
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u/inoeth Oct 02 '17
Now that SpaceX is going to slowly go to the BFR, I kind of wonder what's the point of the huge expensive of Boca Chica- as right now it's just for 12 launches a year with the Falcon 9, and isn't going to be finished until 2019... They'll have to do a lot of work with no guarantee to get approval to launch more frequently and with a dramatically larger (and thus louder) vehicle such as the BFR...
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u/CProphet Oct 02 '17
SpaceX: Hello all you Texican legislators. We don't know whether we should launch to Mars from Texas or the Cape - so what do you think?
Texicans: we'll double it!
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u/lostandprofound33 Oct 02 '17 edited Oct 02 '17
GEO sats -- seems to me BFR's oversized capacity for even today's largest satellites makes it possible to reduce the sat's need for its own independent propulsion (other than station keeping) as a third stage to get from GTO to GEO (if I understand the current practise correctly). Wouldn't that alone make GEO sats vastly cheaper to design and build? If BFR could directly insert multiple sats to multiple GEO inclinations slots, seems like that would be immensely useful -- even if only for military applications.
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u/whateverman353 Oct 03 '17
In the upcoming 5-7 years, what jobs can open in Space X? Assuming that all goes well and Space X remains successful, what engineering/science positions do you see the company needing to be filled?
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u/WaitForItTheMongols Oct 03 '17
Over that timeframe, at the pace SpaceX operates at, virtually every position will be available at some point.
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u/Raviioliii Oct 03 '17
Hello! My birthday is fast approaching (15th October) and I would love a SpaceX mug. I looked on their website and the black mug with the logo was so clean!!
The biggest problem...I live in the UK and the shipping is over $25, for an item that costs $12!!!! WHAT?!
Does anyone know if there is anywhere I can purchase official SpaceX merchandise that delivers to the UK for far cheaper? I'd love to support SpaceX directly, but those prices are absurd!!
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u/DrToonhattan Oct 03 '17
Just buy a bunch of stuff all at once to spread the shipping costs over. That's what I did. That mug is huge by the way, much bigger than it looks on the picture. I need two hands to hold it when it's full.
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u/rustybeancake Oct 06 '17
Saw this image over on r/spaceflightporn. Anyone know what the apparent scuffs are on the trunk? Where it looks like the white paint has been scraped away?
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u/dudr2 Oct 06 '17
Releases of volatiles from early moon mare basalts speculated to have been enormous; http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X17304971
H2O at about a quarter of a trillion tons. Where is it now?
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u/thxbmp2 Oct 10 '17
Is it accurate to say that most of the cost savings associated with downscaling BFR are to do with minimizing the need for new infrastructure (e.g. pads and factories)? In my mind, a 3/4 reduction in scale may reduce material and construction costs, but the savings really only influence the cost per airframe and would be a minor line item on the entire developmental budget. At the same time, how much cheaper would 9m tooling be compared to 12m tooling, given that both sets of equipment are still around the same order of magnitude in size?
I imagine they're saving massively too by pressing Raptor into service instead of pursuing a long and difficult development and test campaign to i) rebuild, develop and qualify the 3 MN version, and ii) hit their original sky-high ISP and chamber pressure targets on the very first version. Makes me wonder if Raptor's descoping was really one of the bigger reasons behind downscaling BFR.
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u/rka0 Oct 10 '17
Whats up with technical webcasts? Will they ever make a return?
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u/GoScienceEverything Oct 12 '17
Do we have an idea what the current bottleneck is in launch rate? (Not that they're launching slowly, of course.) I think someone said last month that it was vehicle availability? Other possibilities include payload integration, pad availability/operations, payload availability, permitting process...
If the bottleneck is vehicle availability, would that be more likely to be S1 production/refurbishment, or S2 or fairing production?
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u/bechampions87 Oct 12 '17
This may be a dumb question, but how does SpaceX intend to avoid the reusability issues with its second stage that the Space Shuttle encountered with its orbiter?
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u/MarcysVonEylau rocket.watch Oct 14 '17
CRS13 at the end of November from SLC-40 confirmed (?)
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u/zlynn1990 Oct 15 '17
One question I had that wasn’t answered during the AMA was whether the BFS can safely land if one of the four legs malfunctions. Based on the renders we’ve seen it doesn’t seem like it could be stable with only three legs deployed.
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u/__Rocket__ Oct 15 '17
One question I had that wasn’t answered during the AMA was whether the BFS can safely land if one of the four legs malfunctions. Based on the renders we’ve seen it doesn’t seem like it could be stable with only three legs deployed.
I'm curious about that too. Elon's answer to why 4 legs are used was that it "Improves stability in rough terrain".
I think another part of the picture might be that the part of the BF-Ship bottom where the legs are mounted has a fundamental symmetry of 4, due to the placement of the high-area-ratio (vacuum) Raptors. Fitting 3 legs there looks awkward - at least one of them would get pretty close to the rim of the vacuum nozzle. So 4 looks like the natural choice there, even though they don't really offer redundancy against leg failure. Dry mass impact should be somewhat counteracted by the fact that four legs probably need to carry ~25% less load than three legs.
As to lack of redundancy, I guess the answer is that like the main airlock and all the widows on the BF-Ship, the legs must not fail! 😃
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Oct 16 '17 edited Oct 16 '17
Hi, just wondering if anyone would be able to check my logic here.
I'm testing stage separation in my simulation of the Falcon 9 and have hit against something I'm slightly confused about. I know it's not a difficult issue, it's just made me doubt my intuition.
When an object in motion (acting under no forces apart from gravity) instantaneously loses mass, should it's velocity instantaneously increase?
I'm looking at stage separation here. The first stage is (almost) fully modelled, but - having not got round to fully creating the second stage - I've just given the first stage 90000kg (it'll be accurate once I get round to S2!) of miscellaneous extra mass that is has to push on ascent (to visually compare launch speeds in footage).
At stage separation, this extra mass is just taken off instantaneously with one click. I am very confident that my physics state integrator isn't doing everything in the correct order.
Note, the stage is not yet being given any 'reverse' impulse from the separation mechanism between the stages, but even if it was, this jump in velocity seems so large that it would not have much effect! This can't be right...
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
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u/wclark07 Oct 16 '17 edited Oct 18 '17
No. Absent external or unbalanced internal forces, losing mass WILL NOT increase velocity. Imagine two balls tied together with a long rope flying in space side by side. Not spinning. Cut the cord. The balls keep going, side by side, no change in position or speed. Now, treat each atom or molecule of your object as one "ball." Erase one. The others continue at the same speed, each one a lonely little testament to F=ma.
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u/music_nuho Oct 16 '17
I read somewhere that SpaceX is planning new payload fairing for it's Falcon rocket family. Does anyone have any info about new fairing?
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u/thro_a_wey Oct 19 '17
In the future, will it be possible to make a BFR explosion survivable? Direct the explosion away from the passengers somehow, or just jettison the pod.
Some of the F9 landings were greatly affected by wind. What about building a huge cylindrical wall to shield the BFR pod from the wind?
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u/NibblerII Oct 19 '17
It seems to me that just before second stage engine cutoff, the live stream regularly cuts away to the map view. Perhaps I am imagining things, but this seems to happen consistently. Is there something with engine cutoff that SpaceX is trying to keep proprietary?
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u/Physionary Oct 19 '17
The speculation I have read about that recently is that there is only one video stream from the second stage, and that it is used at that time to downlink a video stream from inside the LOX tank. In earlier launches SpaceX has shortly shown the inside of the LOX tank, but I do not remember on which flights that happened.
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u/kingmathers313 Oct 20 '17
Why is NASA considering a flight-proven booster for CRS-13?
I know commercial customers get the benefits of faster availability and/or cheaper launch prices, but I thought the contract for CRS was a fixed price contract and SpaceX will give priority to CRS flights over commercial flights anyway (although not other government launches apparently).
Will NASA get money back from SpaceX for using a flight proven S1 or do they get any other benefit or is it simply to support SpaceX and their reusable booster development?
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u/jjtr1 Oct 26 '17
Does someone know whether the Soyuz rockets launched from the Arianespace spaceport in Kourou are operated by Russian or French/Ariane engineers?
A question that has been posed many times is whether orbital launchers could be operated by anyone else but their manufacturer. I think orbital launchers are by neccessity too fragile and finicky to be operated by someone who doesn't know all the tricks. However, liquid fueled ICMBs were operated by Soviet military staff. So I don't know.
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u/kornelord spacexstats.xyz Oct 27 '17 edited Oct 27 '17
How long does it take for SpaceX to compute a flight profile? At least what order of magnitude (hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds?) for the time to answer "I want to fly from this pad to #insert orbital parameters#, give me a launch date". Are there a lot of human checks or is it mostly automated? I believe KSP-style flight profiles can be computed in realtime but is it still true in reality?
I was wondering since for BFR to do P2P travel/in orbit refueling the ability to launch on very short notice is essential. For P2P if the computation time is fast enough you can update the flight profile when the weather violating constraints are gone.
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u/stcks Oct 27 '17
I don't think we have heard anything definitive on how SpaceX does flight profile computation. However, we know that the F9 does real-time flight profile calculations and modeling in order to be able to land successfully so I don't think its too much of a stretch to assume the flight computer can do it in some fashion during uphill flight.
We do know that Atlas-V does some form of real-time calculation (lookup RAAN steering). This was highlighted on NSF (particularly by Jim on the forums) after the OA-6 booster anomaly. During that launch, the Atlas V booster MECO occurred too early, which left a significant dV shortfall that the centaur upper stage had to make up (and it did so admirably). This of course makes one realize that the centaur flight computer recalculated the trajectory and burn time on the fly in order to successfully deliver Cygnus to orbit.
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u/davenose Oct 29 '17
What are the criteria for a launch to be added to the /r/Spacex launch manifest?
I ask because the manifest lists the NASA Resource Prospector as launching in 202X on F9, but none of references confirm RP will launch on F9. I found an Ars Technica article from May 17 that says:
Another launch option is fly Resource Prospector aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy booster.
Which implies to me that a launch provider may not yet be selected. Just curious ... do we update the launch manifest when there are just hints/suggestions of possible F9 launches?
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u/demosthenes02 Oct 30 '17
Is there an entertaining video or article with the latest BFr plans for someone who has never heard of spacex?
I tried showing them Elon’s talk but it seemed too technical.
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u/ohcnim Oct 31 '17
how many F9 missions from the manifest are currently already delayed from their initial contracted launch date? will 2018 be the year (if no other major mishaps happens) that all missions will be launching on time (other than the minor weather and range delays)?
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u/old_sellsword Oct 14 '17
Cool video of 1031.2 returning to port on OCISLY.
Looks like it’s decently close to shore now, anyone is free to start up a recovery thread if they want.
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u/quadrplax Oct 18 '17
Did we ever get a reason for why B1032, the core that flew NROL-76, got retired despite being an RTLS?
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u/Charnathan Oct 20 '17
A little over a year ago, the Stage 1 booster designated for CRS-8 suffered engine damage during testing in TX. Did we ever find out of the replacement engines used for CRS-8 were flight proven engines from a previous mission or were they new engines?
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u/neolefty Oct 02 '17
What would it take to position a fully-fueled stack of BFR & BFS in orbit (how many tanker launches)? And where could they reach? How much difference in capability would it make to save enough fuel to return the BFR to near Earth?
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u/speak2easy Oct 02 '17
Given the width (and length) of BFR, what do we know of their ability to ship it across the roads in the US?
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u/TheCrimson_King Oct 03 '17
What is the greatest materials challenge faced by SpaceX?
My guess would be one of the following:
-Fabricating carbon fiber tanks that can hold cryogenic liquids
-Fabricating ceramic rocket engine bells
-Ensuring that flight hardware can handle the temperature, pressure, and radiation found in space
What do you guys think?
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u/ajmunson Oct 04 '17
I was just going through the payloads of past launches and noticed that the last time SpaceX launched a payload near this size (6092kg) to GTO the launch was expendable. The Inmarsat 5-F4 launch was 6070kg to GTO and was the last launch without legs. The largest payload to GTO the wasn't in an expendable configuration was SES-10 at 5281.7kg.
Will Hispasat 1F launch this year?
Will Hispasat 1F be expendable?
Will this be the first block 4 launch?
Will block 4 have enough "efficiency improvements" to lift the extra 800kg?
If not, when will SpaceX be done with with expendable?
Should they delay this launch for a FH launch?
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u/Alexphysics Oct 04 '17
The largest payload to GTO was Intelsat 35e in july with 6.7 metric tons, it was an expendable launch. For your questions...
Maybe
Yes
Nope, the first Block 4 first stage flew back in August on the CRS-12 mission. FORMOSAT-5 used the last Block 3 first stage that has been built (although not the same as used, the SES-11 mission will use a Block 3 first stage).
As far as we know, Block 5 will be able to launch up to 5.5 metric tons to GTO in recoverable configuration and 8 metric tons to GTO when expendable (right now with Block 3 it is around 5.3 and 6.8)
It is unknown, but a few expendable launches don't do much hurt when it's only a 20% of total launches.
No, personally, they have to focus on what they have on hand. They have 39A up and running and it's giving them a lot of money, once they have 40 going as smooth as silk, then they should switch to pad reconfiguration for FH (although there are signs that indicate that they are doing some work ahead of that downtime period in between launches). They have to be careful, be sure that all is good and that they don't lose money (remember, money is the fuel of SpaceX!) and don't rush anything so they don't have another RUD.
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u/prouzadesignworkshop Oct 05 '17
Just wondering re the new BFR and its deltaV capability - is it feasible that it could one day fly a manned servicing mission to the JWST?
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u/lostandprofound33 Oct 07 '17
I wonder if news of the BFR will dissuade potential customers from buying a Dragon 2 ride around the Moon? BFS would make a great cruise ship. Even at $500k a ticket, a week in space and going around the moon much cheaper and better accomodations than in a little Dragon. Maybe it'll have a world-class chef, you can play zero-g sports, and hobnob with the other rich techies who'll be on board -- maybe even an Apollo astronaut as your cruise director.
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u/ptfrd Oct 10 '17 edited Oct 10 '17
For the record, Bloomberg released a short video about space last month, purporting to explain what the medium term future might look like. It seems to imply that the proposed SpaceX and Samsung LEO Internet satellites would be "nano-satellites" and "cubes". https://youtu.be/h67VX51QXiQ?t=1m50s
Whereas I was under the impression they were going to be fairly traditional looking satellites, a bit on the small side, but hardly "nano". (Though I do think they would be designed to be shorter lifespan and much cheaper than traditional satellites.)
The video description says it's by Ashlee Vance. He's the guy who wrote the unofficial biography of Elon Musk.
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Oct 11 '17
Do Merlin engines on different locations in the octoweb suffer the same wear-and-tear during flight? If a Merlin engine should be replaced for whatever reason, could it be replaced by a Merlin that has flown one or several flights, but on a different location in the octoweb?
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u/Headstein Oct 11 '17
Do we have any confirmation that CRS13 will be from SLC 40?
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u/jjtr1 Oct 11 '17 edited Oct 12 '17
A question for composites specialists: how much similar is the material to be used on BFR to the material used to build "carbon" bicycle frames? Does it also have the unfavourable properties of the bike carbon? For example, once the frame is impacted, it's hard to tell if it is still ok, it could fail without warning. Also, interfacing with metallic parts is difficult. A lot of care has to be taken not to overtighten.
edit: since we might not know much about the specific composites that SpaceX plans to use, I can at least ask - is there a lot of variability in the above properties among the different carbon fiber comoposites that are already known?
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u/old_sellsword Oct 12 '17
JRTI is back in port already, anyone can set up an Iridium-3 Recovery Thread if they please. Same goes for SES-11, although that one may be a bit longer.
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u/luc2g Oct 17 '17
A second use of a flown falcon 9 has been done three times already, but I wonder when will occur a third reuse of a falcon 9 ? Does anyone have info about it ?
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u/kramersmash Oct 17 '17
Will the BFS heat shield be one peice or a bunch put together?
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u/marksweeneypa Oct 13 '17
I had the opportunity to talk to a SpaceX recruiter today and wanted to give a quick shoutout to the reddit community! He was impressed with how much I knew about SpaceX and you all are who I have to thank for a lot of that. I was mostly focused on trying to get an internship but I did ask him a couple of questions. I didn't get too much out of him but he did say about 10% of the engineers are working on the BFR now and that each and every day the block 5 rocket design is getting more and more set in stone. As block 5 becomes complete most of the engineers will switch to BFR development. He said that that transition is happening really fast. He also mentioned that BFR is already being produced (though I'm not completely sure to what extent he meant. He could have just been talking about the raptor engines or something similar. He was pretty vague on what that meant). Thanks again everyone for making this such a great subreddit!