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SpaceX--Spacecraft, rockets, and Mars


SpaceChampion

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From Ars Technica:

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In a series of tweets on Saturday, SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk said he personally called off the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket when the system was "green" for liftoff.

"All systems go, except the movement trace of an upper stage engine steering hydraulic piston was slightly odd," he tweeted. "If this is the only issue, flight would be fine, but need to make sure that it isn't symptomatic of a more significant upstream root cause. Btw, 99% likely to be fine (closed loop TVC wd overcome error), but that 1% chance isn't worth rolling the dice. Better to wait a day."

The "TVC" refers to thrust vector control, which helps steer the upper-stage engine. From these remarks it appears SpaceX will indeed try a second launch attempt on Sunday, during an instantaneous window that opens and closes at 9:38am ET.

 

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The thing is though, in terms of lift Falcon 9 today is better than the Falcon Heavy design from four years ago, and since the F9 is the basis for FH, the latter also has been more than doubled in capability.  They've been constantly improving the lift capacity of it with higher thrust and efficiency of the engines in these four years.  The whole reason for delaying FH isn't due to problems with the design.  It's entirely due to economics, because FH development is nearly "free" by focusing on improving F9, and right out the gate it'll be reusable and cheap.  Economically it made sense to wait until F9 was finalized and capabilities maximized before flying the first FH.  In terms of payloads, every mission requiring FH in the past is being done on F9 now -- and on the launch manifest they have shifted those flights from one to the other.  If they were aiming for neither reusability nor Mars, Falcon Heavy wouldn't be needed all that much any more.  But it does make Mars possible, and it does make heavy comm satellites possible to deliver to GEO while still recovering the boosters.

The alternative would have been to fly a FH version with half the payload capacity and thrust, expending the whole thing every single time.  SpaceX would have still improved the F9 in the mean time, but at a much slower rate due to cash flow being poorer, and then once F9 is finalized some time in 2020 (instead of mid-2017) or later, FH would then be upgraded with the reusable version of the boosters, arriving at a capability necessary for Mars some time post 2021 perhaps?

No, SpaceX did the economically smart thing, and I think with no real delay for getting a Dragon on Mars.  The first version of Falcon Heavy will be the final version as well, though minor improvement will still probably be made, and a Raptor engine might be tested on the upper stage.

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SpaceChampion, I was thinking much the same thing watching them stick the landing, again, with the 1st stage.  It's incredible what mankind has been able to do, and the future is going to be a fascinating thing so far as space exploration goes.  I wonder what those who first created rocket science, circa mostly German scientists in the 40s and then into the US/Russian programs of the 50s and 60s, Apollo etc, would think watching a rocket return to earth so accurately and then on top of that, land vertically into much the same position it was in when it launched. 

Until we create materials strong enough to sustain a cable which we can build a space elevator with, IMO reusable rockets is going to be the future, that and perhaps smaller lifting rockets lofted by airborne aircraft for smaller payloads and sats. 

Truly great what EM has done, considering all that he has had a hand in creating for this world, be it car tech, space tech, IT/online, and so on.  SpaceX and others like it are doing a fantastic job. 

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Since Boeing unveiled their new spacesuits recently (Stephen Colbert got to try one on), some people speculate SpaceX is going to reveal their spacesuits in this announcement tomorrow.  I don't know, that seems kind of petty to rush out a reveal just to one-up Boeing, and though Musk's ego likes to jab at others like Jeff Bezos for comparing Blue Origin's suborbital rocket with SpaceX's orbital rocket, seems like a silly step to take to go out of your way to do regarding the spacesuits.

Perhaps it's an announcement of a launch date and payload for Falcon Heavy.  Maybe one of the those DARPA space telescopes?  A Moon flyby?  Walt Disney's frozen corpse?  Whatever it is, one possibility is something just presented itself as an opportunity on short notice.

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I don't know what the livestream was suppose to be, but it still hasn't started yet.

SpaceX has reveals it's plan to send a crew to two astronauts around the Moon next year.

 

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We are excited to announce that SpaceX has been approached to fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon late next year. They have already paid a significant deposit to do a moon mission. Like the Apollo astronauts before them, these individuals will travel into space carrying the hopes and dreams of all humankind, driven by the universal human spirit of exploration. We expect to conduct health and fitness tests, as well as begin initial training later this year. Other flight teams have also expressed strong interest and we expect more to follow. Additional information will be released about the flight teams, contingent upon their approval and confirmation of the health and fitness test results.

 

Most importantly, we would like to thank NASA, without whom this would not be possible. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which provided most of the funding for Dragon 2 development, is a key enabler for this mission. In addition, this will make use of the Falcon Heavy rocket, which was developed with internal SpaceX funding. Falcon Heavy is due to launch its first test flight this summer and, once successful, will be the most powerful vehicle to reach orbit after the Saturn V moon rocket. At 5 million pounds of liftoff thrust, Falcon Heavy is two-thirds the thrust of Saturn V and more than double the thrust of the next largest launch vehicle currently flying.

 

Later this year, as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, we will launch our Crew Dragon (Dragon Version 2) spacecraft to the International Space Station. This first demonstration mission will be in automatic mode, without people on board. A subsequent mission with crew is expected to fly in the second quarter of 2018. SpaceX is currently contracted to perform an average of four Dragon 2 missions to the ISS per year, three carrying cargo and one carrying crew. By also flying privately crewed missions, which NASA has encouraged, long-term costs to the government decline and more flight reliability history is gained, benefiting both government and private missions.

 

Once operational Crew Dragon missions are underway for NASA, SpaceX will launch the private mission on a journey to circumnavigate the moon and return to Earth. Lift-off will be from Kennedy Space Center’s historic Pad 39A near Cape Canaveral – the same launch pad used by the Apollo program for its lunar missions. This presents an opportunity for humans to return to deep space for the first time in 45 years and they will travel faster and further into the Solar System than any before them.

Designed from the beginning to carry humans, the Dragon spacecraft already has a long flight heritage. These missions will build upon that heritage, extending it to deep space mission operations, an important milestone as we work towards our ultimate goal of transporting humans to Mars.

 

My bet is on James Cameron being the paying customer.

Musk has said it'll cost paying customers approximately the same as going to the ISS.  So about ~$30million/person.

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2 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

My bet is on James Cameron being the paying customer.

I wouldn't have been surprised if it was, but according to the BBC story I was just reading Musk said the customers were not from Hollywood which seems to rule out Cameron.

Musk has said it'll cost paying customers approximately the same as going to the ISS.  So about ~$30million/person

It might be a lot of money, but I imagine he could get quite a few people willing to pay that.

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I wonder if Musk's comment of the price was misunderstood.  If the cost of going to the ISS is $30M per seat, with 7 seats, then a whole flight costs $210M.  The same price to the Moon for two seats would be $105M per seat.  On the other hand, I thought the ISS seat was only $20 million per seat, so that changes the equation.  $140 million to ISS, is in line with what I've seen before.  So $70 million per seat to the Moon.

Guardian link.

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Dragon 2 has SuperDraco thrusters for supersonic retropulsion, so it can land on ground, probably the landing pad at KSC.  It does have parachutes as back-up.  It has a heat shield made from a material called PICA-X, which is based on the PICA material NASA invented but improved by SpaceX.  It's fully capable for atmospheric re-entry from Mars, Moon, or anywhere else in the solar system.

The only modification Dragon 2 will need is a communications system.  Other than that, it's base design is ready for a Moon flight, including enough protection from radiation and life support for a week in space.

 

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