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SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch: SES-10. Reusability is here.

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blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
This is not the way a concept for *all" rocks. We are moving liquid propulsion modules like for the Ariane 6 which will reduce the costs for a single rocket to one million. There isn't much money to save with resuable rockets if it also means increased human labour costs for all the safety checks after landing.

The only true reason to follow that resuable rocket concept is if your production capacities can't meet demand, which isn't the case for any space company or agency.

People need to put things in context instead of doing that fanboy thing.
And then my opinion was nonsense.. Oh, the irony.
 

suedester

Banned
This is not the way a concept for *all" rocks. We are moving liquid propulsion modules like for the Ariane 6 which will reduce the costs for a single rocket to one million. There isn't much money to save with resuable rockets if it also means increased human labour costs for all the safety checks after landing.

The only true reason to follow that resuable rocket concept is if your production capacities can't meet demand, which isn't the case for any space company or agency.

People need to put things in context instead of doing that fanboy thing.

Yeah, you need to do a little more reading on this subject.
 
If they can get it down to a million per rocket then of course, but have they? I don't think you can compare savings that actual payload providers can get right now with some theoretical saving that may occur in the future and say that, therefore, the current savings aren't worth pursuing.

Besides, it's not accurate to say that no space companies are constrained when it comes to production. Right now the majority of rocket producers are enormous aerospace companies or little start ups without much production need, but there will be more and more companies like SpaceX (and Blue Origin will likely get there too) who are moving from one to the other and have to care about not over extending themselves re: infrastructure to build Vs actual revenue from launches. You can always build more factories but it's not always financially viable to.

Arianespace has like 12 starts every year. There is no gigantic untapped international commercial market out there.

SpaceX has the additional NASA and US Defence missions, so having a resuable booster (at least for the lower stage) helps to avoid to etablish a risky large production infrastructure.

Yeah, you need to do a little more reading on this subject.

Instead of your shitposting you could just google it.
 

Staab

Member
Arianespace has like 12 starts every year. There is no gigantic untapped international commercial market out there.

Are you even aware of the fact that currently what is holding back businesses from entering the space economy is the prohibitive upfront cost of bringing things out of the earth's atmosphere and the inherent risks to it ?

When you create a low-cost alternative to existing solutions, opportunities are being created and it spurs growth and competition in the sector (see airlines).

That is what it's all about, Musk counts on that to finance his Mars dream.
It isn't about competition with Boeing, Aerobus or whatever, he creates interest for the field and attracts potential new customers, thus bringing space colonization back to the forefront.
Full re usability of rockets is just one way of achieving those lower costs.
 
Are you even aware of the fact that currently what is holding back businesses from entering the space economy is the prohibitive upfront cost of bringing things out of the earth's atmosphere and the inherent risks to it ?

When you create a low-cost alternative to existing solutions, opportunities are being created and it spurs growth and competition in the sector (see airlines).

That is what it's all about, Musk counts on that to finance his Mars dream.
It isn't about competition with Boeing, Aerobus or whatever, he creates interest for the field and attracts potential new customers, thus bringing space colonization back to the forefront.
Full re usability of rockets is just one way of achieving those lower costs.

We are talking about different things now.

And even SpaceX stepped down on the claims of potential cost reduction of reusable launch systems to now 30% - with upper stage resuable systems being scrapped due to cost and weight issues of such a system.
 

suedester

Banned
We are talking about different things now.

And even SpaceX stepped down on the claims of potential cost reduction of reusable launch systems to now 30% - with upper stage resuable systems being scrapped due to cost and weight issues of such a system.

Cost reductions of 30% to the client. The rest of the savings pays for R&D. Upper stage reusability to be tested soon as per a Musk tweet yesterday. Their next target is 24 hour turnaround for a relaunch.
 
Cost reductions of 30% to the client. The rest of the savings pays for R&D. Upper stage reusability to be tested soon as per a Musk tweet yesterday. Their next target is 24 hour turnaround for a relaunch.

"Considering trying to bring upper stage back on Falcon Heavy demo flight for full reusability. Odds of success low, but maybe worth a shot."

It's not a design goal anymore.
 

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Spew some nonsense, then demand people to google it. How inventive of you.

Here, let me help you: http://spacenews.com/meet-adeline-airbus-response-to-reusable-spacex-rocket/

Their Adeline estimates are for up to 30% savings. I'll leave you to follow your own advice and google what Arianespace's current launch expenses are.

Not sure what your problem is when I even stated that other companies like Airbus have also a history of looking for resuable boosters for a long time.

It's also not the same concept as the SpaceX because only the crucial parts of the boosters are supposed to get saved and not the entire booster, which means the cost and weight penalty of the system is lower but it can't provide the fast rate of starts like SpaceX's concept.
It's also not something that went over the idea/concept phase right now.

But yeah... reading and stuff.
 

zeshakag

Member
Where did you get 1m per rocket figure from?

Does that involve labour for building it and time/resources to build it?

What's the turn around time for the next launch?

SpaceX said cost just for the FAIRINGS is around 2-3 mil. And they just tested recovery.

You would need significant advances in metallurgy, reusability or massive economies of scale to get even the fairing sub 1 mill.

SpaceX has accomplished reusability, and are moving towards rapidity. Plus, they're already aiming for (IIRC) zero required component replacement for the first 10 flights of a core. Assuming they eventually meet that goal, that's $200,000 of fuel plus maintenance to get back out. To me, SpaceX is way way closer to the $1m per launch goal.

$1 M per flight cost is very VERY far down the road. SpaceX is already driving on that road though, trying to get to the end.
 

cebri.one

Member
This is not the way a concept for *all" rocks. We are moving liquid propulsion modules like for the Ariane 6 which will reduce the costs for a single rocket to one million. There isn't much money to save with resuable rockets if it also means increased human labour costs for all the safety checks after landing.

The only true reason to follow that resuable rocket concept is if your production capacities can't meet demand, which isn't the case for any space company or agency.

People need to put things in context instead of doing that fanboy thing.

This is total nonsense. I suggest you read a little about the topic before making false claims.
 
This is total nonsense. I suggest you read a little about the topic before making false claims.

That there are more than enough articles about why SpaceX does thing the way they do and Arianespace/Airbus and other companies doing things differently are sure nonsense.

Can we please act even more fanboyish about fucking rockets?
 
SpaceX are going to become their own biggest customer soon. They aren't kidding around about this satellite internet stuff, their own revenue growth projections demonstrate that. In order to get their constellation up and then maintained they'll need tens and tens of flights a year, without even thinking about their other customers.

As Staab says though, this is only possible because - if they can get the reuse down - the cost of each launch is so relatively little for them. The cost of entry going down is going to massively increase the number of profit seeking ventures that become viable, and they're going to be their own best example of that.
 

danthefan

Member
That there are more than enough articles about why SpaceX does thing the way they do and Arianespace/Airbus and other companies doing things differently are sure nonsense.

Can we please act even more fanboyish about fucking rockets?

Can you post any of these articles?
 

cebri.one

Member
That there are more than enough articles about why SpaceX does thing the way they do and Arianespace/Airbus and other companies doing things differently are sure nonsense.

Can we please act even more fanboyish about fucking rockets?

fanboy? I'm not the one making assertions based on nothing.

First of all you claim Ariane 6 will cost 1M/flight. I'm not going to even try to refute that for obvious reasons. Not to mention that Adeline is just a concept, no serious efforts are being put into its development because is a stupid idea. A marketing stunt pulled by Airbus trying to grab attention when they realized SpaceX was close to landing a rocket, and make reusability something feasible.

ULA is in the same position, they have a new rocket "Vulcan" which is still 4 years away and today we already know it will not be competitive with SpaceX in some segments of the market (LEO and under 6T payload GTO). So they unveiled a plan to recover the engines, and make them reusable. As happens with Airbus, this plan came just when they too realized that SpaceX was close to achieving their goals. ULA has already stated that they do not plan to recover their engines until 2023/24 at earliest.

So yeah, i'm pretty aware about what other companies are doing. The only one with a serious plan is Blue Origin, with tested hardware. No concepts, no beautiful CGIs, no powerpoints, real rockets and engines.

ULA and Airbus are in a very difficult position, not only their currents rockets are way more expensive than Falcon9/Heavy, but also the ones they are developing. They still beat SpaceX in capacity and reliability, but with Falcon Heavy around the corner and SpaceX closing major design changes later this year with Block5 that gap may fill up pretty quickly.

Secondly, you affirm there is no money to be made on reusability because human labor cost are going to eat up the margin. The simple truth is you don't know that, you don't know how many people worked on the Core 1021 or their salaries. We only know that took 4 months and that no major parts of the core were changed (same engines, sayou me fuel tanks). According to a reddit user who claims to have been an intern working on the reused core they added new components, as the core was built in 2015 and the design of the F9 had changed since then. The only thing we know is that SES got a discount of about 10%, probably between 6-7 million.

So yeah, I'm pretty sure you are talking nonsense.

Can you post any of these articles?

I'm not sure about what articles he is talking about but i can give you some info about both approaches.

Basically we have two plans to achieve reusability:

1. Full first stage recovery

SpaceX:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYmQQn_ZSys
Blue Origin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTEhohh6eYk , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pillaOxGCo

Pros:

- Recover the full stage (Engine + Fuel Tank + Avionics), around 60-70% of the total cost of the rocket.

Cons:

- You need to sacrifice capacity to orbit, as you need to save fuel to return the stage to the earth and land it.

2. Engines recovery

ULA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lftGq6QVFFI
AIRBUS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV29pEvZvZw

Pros:

- No need to sacrifice payload capacity.

Cons

- You only recover the engines, the fuel tanks and other components are lost. Cost saving reduced to 50-60% of the total rocket cost.
 

Volimar

Member
I have to imagine that most of the fake comments aren't sincere, just an attempt at humor because of the cut away.
 

Donos

Member
I have to imagine that most of the fake comments aren't sincere, just an attempt at humor because of the cut away.
Some surely are but others not, I'm pretty sure (if you read more comments from some of them, it's clear they are serious).
 

Doikor

Member
So many "FAKE"/conspiracy comments on that on youtube vid (from the day it landed) where the actual landing was cut out. Hope this puts it to rest.

It was quite hilarious as the guy on the broadcast just started to talk about how they only had a satellite link to the barge this time and thus the gas cloud from the engine most likely blocking the satellite connection during the landing. And the exact thing happened before he could finish his sentence.
 

orava

Member
Nice landing
fveKw7e.gif
 
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