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Next Falcon 9 to Attempt Soft Splashdown

posted by Dopefish on Friday February 21 2014, @01:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the rocket-kits-are-awesome-these-days dept.

WildWombat writes:

"nasaspaceflight.com reports that the next Falcon 9 flight will attempt a soft splashdown off the coast of Florida to test its newly installed landing legs. If successful, this will be a major step along the path to a reusable rocket.

The flight, CRS-3, is an ISS resupply mission scheduled for March 16th. The pace of SpaceX technology development is truly impressive."

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by WildWombat on Friday February 21 2014, @04:29PM

    by WildWombat (1428) on Friday February 21 2014, @04:29PM (#4524)

    I think it rather unlikely that SpaceX made their design decisions for first stage return based on off Earth conditions. Its extremely unlikely that we would see an F9 first stage attempting a landing elsewhere in the solar system.

    I think the main reasons are complexity, a helicopter type system adds huge amounts of complexity and lots more things that can go wrong. SpaceX is also aiming for return to launch site capability. Helicopter type systems would require a downrange barge on which to land because you're not boosting back. This adds more cost and complexity. SpaceX is optimizing the entire system for cost. The helicopter system would probably also have a significant mass penalty, possibly more than the mass penalty for the fuel the F9 needs for the current system.

    Cheers,
    -WW

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by kanisae on Friday February 21 2014, @05:58PM

    by kanisae (1908) on Friday February 21 2014, @05:58PM (#4567)

    Elon keeps talking about going to Mars, so I would see this as a direct ancestor to the descent stages used for a Mars landing. I mean, if you can land your rocket on a planet with 1 bar atmosphere and a 1G of surface gravity that gets you a good way to doing it on Mars with less atmosphere and less gravity.

    I would say you are correct in that this is a cost cutting measure at the moment. Liquid H2 / kerosene and LOX account for only a small part of the actual cost of a launch. Anything to get multiple uses out of the ascent stages will show a dramatic decrease in the per launch costs.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Kell on Friday February 21 2014, @10:30PM

      by Kell (292) on Friday February 21 2014, @10:30PM (#4658)

      "If you can land your rocket on a planet with 1 bar atmosphere and a 1G of surface gravity that gets you a good way to doing it on Mars with less atmosphere and less gravity."

      Except you have to lug all that landing system mass to Mars, which is terribly expensive. That's why (almost) everything landing on another planet has used parachutes and passive landing devices. It's lightweight and it's cheap.

      --
      Scientists point out problems. Engineers fix them.