On March 01 2016 03:00 JimmyJRaynor wrote: I'll clarify my exact comments even though its in the post directly above mine and my comment is related and interacts with the post above mine on several different points. Furthermore, its in the link i provided. That aside...
For maximum clarity:
The cryogenic propellant is new. its never been used before. Thus i state, the cryogenic propellant must be usable before it can ever be re-usable.
or as i stated previously. before something is re-usable.. it first must be usable.
On March 01 2016 03:00 JimmyJRaynor wrote: I'll clarify my exact comments even though its in the post directly above mine and my comment is related and interacts with the post above mine on several different points. Furthermore, its in the link i provided. That aside...
For maximum clarity:
The cryogenic propellant is new. its never been used before. Thus i state, the cryogenic propellant must be usable before it can ever be re-usable.
or as i stated previously. before something is re-usable.. it first must be usable.
There's no such thing as reusable liquid oxygen.
you want more clarity? here goes. the cryogenic propellant must be successful once before it can be successful twice. if it never works the Falcon9 never leaves the launch pad. and hence the Falcon9 with cryogenic propellant can never be re-used.
and if u want me to keep going .. just for fun.. the Falcon9 doesnt get completely reused. approximately 70% of the rocket is re-used. if you want tofill in more details about what portions get re-used and what parts don't get re-used it can be educational for the readers ( and me ) .
you want more clarity? here goes. the cryogenic propellant must be successful once before it can be successful twice. if it never works the Falcon9 never leaves the launch pad. and hence the Falcon9 with cryogenic propellant can never be re-used.
and if u want me to keep going .. just for fun.. the Falcon9 doesnt get completely reused. approximately 70% of the rocket is re-used. if you want tofill in more details about what portions get re-used and what parts don't get re-used it can be educational for the readers ( and me ) .
The Falcon 9 Full Thrust (with cryogenic cooling) was successfully launched and landed on 22nd December 2015, so it has been used once. Until Ariane 6 and ULA's Vulcan are completed (probably in 2020), SpaceX are the only launcher that reuses any part of their rocket.
The next launch attempt will probably be tomorrow (approx 23.30 UTC).
you want more clarity? here goes. the cryogenic propellant must be successful once before it can be successful twice. if it never works the Falcon9 never leaves the launch pad. and hence the Falcon9 with cryogenic propellant can never be re-used.
and if u want me to keep going .. just for fun.. the Falcon9 doesnt get completely reused. approximately 70% of the rocket is re-used. if you want tofill in more details about what portions get re-used and what parts don't get re-used it can be educational for the readers ( and me ) .
The Falcon 9 Full Thrust (with cryogenic cooling) was successfully launched and landed on 22nd December 2015, so it has been used once. Until Ariane 6 and ULA's Vulcan are completed (probably in 2020), SpaceX are the only launcher that reuses any part of their rocket.
The next launch attempt will probably be tomorrow (approx 23.30 UTC).
and upon a deeper inspection SpaceX themselves is not expecting the rocket to land. `SpaceX has said "a successful landing is not expected," and predicted its fourth at-sea landing attempt would end much like the previous three`. So much for re-use i guess. Looks like its a long way off.
in decades past NASA would just delay anything they felt like delaying and really .. nothing seemed to happen .. its like they were operating in a vacuum. not so with private sector companies.
"This mission, on behalf of the European satellite giant SES, was originally scheduled for last fall. The company could be an important source of business for SpaceX, but its executives have told their shareholders that the delay of SES-9 will affect their earnings."
it'll be interesting seeing the shit hit the fan financially in a way that it never did with NASA. The flipside is, if SpaceX pulls off amazing stuff the shareholders will have a celebration party instead of a meeting.
and upon a deeper inspection SpaceX themselves is not expecting the rocket to land. `SpaceX has said "a successful landing is not expected," and predicted its fourth at-sea landing attempt would end much like the previous three`. So much for re-use i guess. Looks like its a long way off.
The SES-9 satellite masses 5.3 tons (0.6 tons heavier than SpaceX's previous heaviest satellite) and is being boosted to a high GTO orbit. For this reason, every last efficiency is being squeezed out of the Falcon 9 and is the reason why the launch was aborted when the LOX had warmed up slightly.
This landing will have a lower chance of success due to the rocket travelling further down range than normal (to save fuel on the boost back burn) and attempting to land on the barge using 2 engines instead of 1, for a harsher suicide burn.
United Launch Alliance (ULA) and Blue Origin LLC, a privately-funded aerospace company owned by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, entered into a public-private partnership with the U.S. Air Force to develop a new rocket propulsion system to power Vulcan -- ULA's next-generation launch system.
"While the RD-180 engine has been a remarkable success with more than 60 successful launches, we believe now is the right time for American investment in a domestic engine," said Tory Bruno, president and chief executive officer. "As America's ride to space, we continue to meet our goal of delivering the most reliable launch systems at the most affordable cost, while developing a new rocket which enables brand new opportunities for the nation's use of space."
ULA has been investing in the development of the Vulcan rocket for more than a year. This agreement will enhance the company's progress integrating the BE-4 engine with the Vulcan launch vehicle.
Development of the BE-4 engine is fully funded by Blue Origin, with investment by ULA, and offers the fastest path to a domestic alternative to the RD-180. Development is on schedule to achieve qualification for flight in 2017 to support the first Vulcan flight in 2019.
The BE-4 is a liquid oxygen, liquefied natural gas (LNG) rocket engine that delivers 550,000-lbf of thrust at sea level. Two BE-4s would power each ULA Vulcan booster, providing 1,100,000-lbf thrust at liftoff. Vulcan will launch from Space Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and Space Launch Complex 3 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. ULA is teaming in the development of the BE-4 to enable availability for national security, civil, human and commercial missions. Development of the BE-4 engine has been underway for more than four years and testing of the BE-4 components is ongoing at Blue Origin's test facilities in West Texas.
The Air Force also awarded a separate development contract to an Aerojet Rocketdyne-ULA team for the AR1 engine.
The SpaceX falcon9 launch window opens up in 6 hours and 10 minutes. this will be their 4th attempt. its 6:45pm EDT so the sun will have just barely set by this time.
SpaceX failed to land a Falcon 9 rocket on a barge on Friday night, striking the robotic ship in the Atlantic Ocean and disappointing billionaire Elon Musk in his quest to perfect the reusable rocket.
“Didn’t expect this one to work (v hot reentry), but next flight has a good chance,” Musk later reported on Twitter.
The rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 6.35pm ET, under clear skies, but engineers long had doubts about the attempted rocket landing a few minutes later because of the rocket’s payload: an 11,000lb satellite, one of its heaviest ever.
Lifting such a heavy satellite into orbit cost the Falcon 9’s lighter flights, meaning it had less fuel for its thrusters , which slowed its descent back to Earth and reoriented it for landing.
KENT, Wash. -- Private space travel company Blue Origin expects to launch its first people in 2017, company founder Jeff Bezos said Tuesday during a tour of the venture's research and development site outside Seattle.
Those won't be paying customers, he said, but thousands have expressed interest in paying for a trip on a suborbital craft.
For now, the man who founded Amazon.com is spending some of the billions earned from the Seattle-based online retailer on high tech equipment and about 600 employees working in a former Boeing airplane parts facility. Bezos said he's convinced the company -- a vision of his childhood dreams--will eventually be profitable.
The company isn't taking deposits yet, so it's unclear whether thousands of interested space travelers will translate into sales.
Jeff Bezos has a vision for Blue Origin “This is about millions of people living and working in space," he said. "Humanity’s record after 50 years of space travel is 13 humans in space at the same time. As you can see, we have a long way to go. But you want to set things up so you can explore the whole Solar System, and that’s what we’re trying to do here.”
The first step toward that goal is the suborbital space tourism market. Blue Origin has been quieter than Virgin Galactic, XCOR and other companies in that field, but it is clearly making strides and may nonetheless be first to market. New Shepard could increase the number of people who fly into space from about 530 into the thousands.
The next step is a more powerful engine for a larger vehicle. About two years into the development of the BE-4 engine, in 2014, Blue Origin partnered with ULA, which wanted a larger engine. So Blue Origin scoped the BE-4 up from 400,000 pounds of thrust to 550,000. Another company, Orbital ATK, is also working with Blue Origin to develop engines for its upper stage, which proved incredibly validating for a company that, until a year ago, hadn’t ever flown a successful mission.
“It’s very gratifying that the world’s premiere launch companies are choosing our propulsion solutions, and I think it’s because what we did with the BE-3 engine for the suborbital vehicle was a very complex and sophisticated development of an engine,” Bezos said. “First of all, it was hydrogen, the hardest of all fuels to work with. And second of all, it’s highly throttleable, which is a big challenge.”
But Blue Origin also plans to build its own larger launch vehicle based around the BE-4 engine. This rocket, capable of reaching orbit, has a placeholder name, “Very Big Brother.” Pressed for information about this rocket, which the company hopes to launch from Florida in 2019, Bezos said the company would be ready to release more details later this year.
Why does the company want its own bigger vehicle? To launch satellites and take people into orbit. And that rocket, the Very Big Brother, is just the beginning. “To do the kinds of things we’re doing, I believe it’s going to be efficient to have very large orbital vehicles,” he said. “Bigger than anything we’ve ever built before. Our first orbital vehicle will not be our last, and it will be the smallest orbital vehicle we will ever build.”
Cool to see discussion here about the F9, ever since sc2 died to me all I do with my computer is SpaceX related. I'd like to say though that the issues with the Cryo prop was with the GSE (specifically the LOX tanks used to hold it before loading), it was a different iteration then the first successful flight and they had reverted before the 4th attempt.
Also, I wouldn't get too excited about re-usable boost stages yet, I'd be surprised to see one fly this year.
EPT
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/xircSYx.jpg)
