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SpaceX--Spacecraft, rockets, and Mars


SpaceChampion

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It's possible to do a test run without going to the Moon, or without humans.  They just have to mimic the reentry profile of the Dragon capsule on return to Earth, go to a really high Earth orbit and reenter at a speed to match or exceed what it would be from a lunar free-return trajectory. 

The going around the Moon part is fairly easy, but I think they'll wait until the paying customers are flying, because presumably being the first since Apollo is what they're paying for.  The living in the capsule for a week part SpaceX can test in Earth orbit.  The engines of the Falcon Heavy they already have a lot of experience with through the Falcon 9.

I think since they have to fly the Block 5 version of Falcon 9 seven times (as ordered by NASA) before putting crew on it for ferrying people to ISS, they'll get a lot of opportunity to test everything out.

 

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Apparently this moon mission has been in the works for the past two years, so it's not a sudden idea.

Also, several companies, including SpaceX, have applied to the relevant spectrum regulatory agencies for approximately one gillion satellites in LEO for V-band (~37 to 50 GHz) internet constellations.  Even a small piece of this market would earn SpaceX the billions needed to build it's Mars colony ships.

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What's With All The Commercial Space News?

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A lot of people in the private space sector are annoyed (some are angry) with the Trump folks since they directed NASA to look into the government side (crew on SLS EM-1 flight) of a proposed government/commercial return to the Moon. Then the "Commercial" Spaceflight Federation sold its soul and jumped on board to support SLS. There was a handshake sort of deal in place between the Alabama mafia and the commercial space folks. Apparently that deal fell through.

Suddenly Elon Musk announces his trip to the Moon. Then Virgin Galactic reveals a major restructuring and expansion of its launch plans. Then Robert Bigelow starts talking about his lunar plans. And then someone at Jeff Bezo's Blue Origin leaks something to Jeff Bezos' Washington Post about Jeff Bezos' new Amazon-delivery-to-the-Moon service. Was all of this done (in part) out of annoyance with Trump's people (probably just a little) - or is this finally the break-out in commercial space that so many people have been hoping for?

Regardless of the motivation(s) or timing, a lot of very interesting and important things just happened in commercial space. Too bad their trade group, CSF, has sold out to the Dark Side.

The Alabama mafia mentioned is the congresscritters from that state plus the management of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, who have most at stake with making sure the overly expensive SLS rocket survives.

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Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin announces its first customer will be Eutelsat in 2021-2022 for the New Glenn rocket, which is comparable to Falcon Heavy (though entirely methalox propellant, and only ~75% of the thrust of a FH.  No definitive numbers of payload mass to LEO or GTO).  And released a video.  This will look familiar.

The main advantage of New Glenn is that it's 2nd stage is more powerful than FH's 2nd stage.

However, a third stage is being designed for New Glenn, potentially giving Blue Origin an advantage on maximum payload mass (~5 to 10 years from now by which time SpaceX would be well into testing of it gigantic ITS ship and booster).  There is rumours of 70mt-100mt range, while FH is 54mT.

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Bezos announced a second customer, satellite constellation OneWeb, for an initial five launches on the New Glenn rocket.  This is in addition or supplement to OneWeb's other contracts with Virgin Galactic and Arianespace (launching Russian Soyuz rockets from French Guiana as well as the future Ariane 6).

Not surprising Blue Origin would be booked, OneWeb's CEO hates Musk, and SpaceX's constellation would be a direct competitor.  Also SpaceX was a part of OneWeb sat project under a different name before Musk decided he could do it better.

 

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On 3/8/2017 at 8:28 PM, SpaceChampion said:

Bezos announced a second customer, satellite constellation OneWeb, for an initial five launches on the New Glenn rocket.  This is in addition or supplement to OneWeb's other contracts with Virgin Galactic and Arianespace (launching Russian Soyuz rockets from French Guiana as well as the future Ariane 6).

I'm baffled by these developments. C'mom their first methalox engine is just starting trials (who said it doesn't need any refinement). The rocket exists only in paper and they are hammering contracts!? Who is insuring OneWeb? Is Blue Origin offering the launches for free? I'm in the feeling we are in presence of some kind of bubble. Too much cheap money around, too much.

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A legless (since it's expendable) Falcon 9 is set to fly tonight 1:34 AM out at KSC LC-39A.  No landing, first stage goes straight into the ocean after lofting the upper stage carrying the Echostar-23 sat to GEO for South American internet and TV.   This will be one of last Block 3 rockets SpaceX flies.  A couple more in the pipeline though.  The improved Block 5 version, probably ready in the summer, will have sufficient thrust to make landing the first stage for this type of mission possible.

Next launch is a reusable booster, in fact first time a booster will be reflown, to deliver the SES 10 sat later this month, scheduled for March 27th.

 

Update: Launch scrubbed due to weather.  Snowpocalypse strikes again!  (high winds)

 

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Apparently the autonomous drone ships that serve as landing platforms for F9 first stages will soon have a robot that will roll out after a landing, and clamp on to the engines to fix the rocket in position for shipping back to port.  That robot is a Roomba like autonomous machine that, consistent with SpaceX's delightfully geeky naming style, will be called the Optimus Prime.  Click on the link to see it partially constructed aboard the Of Course I Still Love You.

 

The next launch, of the SES-10 commercial sat, is targeted for March 29th, using a F9 first stage previously flown to launch the CRS-8 mission to the ISS.  Should this be safely landed a second time, the most important milestone in reusuability will have been achieved, validating SpaceX's economic model.
 

The Dragon v1 spacecraft used on the CRS-10 mission to ferry cargo to the ISS returned to Earth and splashed down in the ocean on Sunday.  On April 9th this year a Dragon v1 capsule will be reflown for the CRS-11 mission.  Another milestone, proving to NASA that Dragons can be reused, and saving SpaceX the cost of building new copies of each capsule for all future cargo missions, of which there's another 9 contracted.  The company should have about 10 used Dragons available to refurbish, though not all will due to saltwater damage to electrical components of some of the early capsules.  Word is SpaceX has 3 or 4 set aside for reflight.

Successful reuse of the Dragon v1 will allow SpaceX to speed up manufacturing of the Dragon v2 capsule for crew ferrying services to ISS... and around the Moon!  Dragon v2's will also be used for cargo missions everywhere from LEO to Mars.

 

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8 hours ago, Theda Baratheon said:

I don't know why I've never read this thread before - whenever I feel like the world is a bit shit now I'm going to read about space because it always makes me feel better 

I haven't contributed much to this thread but it's my favourite one to read because, like you say, it always cheers me up. Can't take the sky from me.

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20 minutes ago, Liffguard said:

I haven't contributed much to this thread but it's my favourite one to read because, like you say, it always cheers me up. Can't take the sky from me.

Definitely will be reading this thread a lot now - just love space and everything about it - makes the earth and everything that happens here feel tiny and insignificant in comparison 

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I'm glad you both and others like it.  Do we need another thread to cover non-rocket stuff such as space science, astrophysics, exoplanets and other cool space news?  If so, someone else would have to start it and maintain it, but I'd certainly read and contribute.

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1 hour ago, SpaceChampion said:

News came out that 72% of costs for the SLS rocket contractors are building on a cost-plus basis for NASA is overhead / administrative costs.

They're including development in overhead. What are they supposed to do - just say "hey, build us an SLS - it's some kind of rocket thing" instead of providing detailed design specifications? All the article is saying is NASA gets a bigger share of the funds if it does more of the work. Oh, and it also compares the costs unfavourably to the Apollo project, which is like complaining about a 747 costing more to make than a Spitfire.

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Yes, that's exactly what they should be doing -- but not build us an SLS.  Provide us with a service of flights to get X many tons of payload to Moon or Mars.  NASA doing the development eats up 72% of the budget without building anything, and costing 100's of times more.  It's vastly inefficient.  The same article points out the commercial crew and cargo programs seeing only 14% of the budget going to NASA overhead, while costing vastly less in gross numbers.  NASA's own analysis of what it would take to build the Falcon 9 rocket would take spending 20-25 times the amount SpaceX spent.

If SLS is just a Spitfire compared to the Apollo program being a 747, then why does the Spitfire cost half the amount of the 747?

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