Posted on 12/21/2015 8:08:25 PM PST by Jack Hydrazine
The third attempt at a historic reusable-rocket milestone was the charm for SpaceX.
The private spaceflight company brought the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket back to Earth for a soft touchdown tonight (Dec. 21), pulling off history's first-ever rocket landing during an orbital launch. (Blue Origin, the company led by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, landed its New Shepard booster successfully last month, but that occurred during a suborbital test.)
The Falcon 9 blasted off at 8:29 p.m. EST today (0129 GMT on Dec. 22) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, tasked with delivering to orbit 11 spacecraft for the satellite-communications company Orbcomm. The two-stage Falcon 9 separated, and then the rocket's first stage performed a series three "boostback burns," coming down for a pinpoint touchdown at Cape Canaveral. [SpaceX's Epic Falcon 9 Rocket Landing in Pictures]
SpaceX's mission control in Hawthorne, California, erupted in raucous cheers when the first stage came into view of a camera near the landing site — then went even more nuts as the booster stage slowed and touched down successfully at SpaceX's "Landing Zone 1," a facility previously used by the Air Force for rocket and missile testing.
SpaceX had tried to land Falcon 9 first stages twice before, both times on an uncrewed "drone ship" hundreds of miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean. On each occasion — once in January 2015, and then again in April — the booster stage hit its target but came in a little too hard and crashed on the ship's deck.
Today's landing was a milestone moment for SpaceX, which aims to develop fully and rapidly reusable rockets as a way to open the heavens to exploration. Such technology could slash the cost of spaceflight by a factor of 100, potentially making Mars colonies economically feasible, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has said.
Mars settlement is no idle dream for Musk; he established SpaceX back in 2002 primarily because he wants to help humanity become a multiplanetary species, Musk has repeatedly said.
Today's launch was the first for SpaceX since June 28, when a Falcon 9 broke apart less than three minutes after blasting off from Cape Canaveral, scuttling the seventh uncrewed cargo mission the company is flying to the International Space Station for NASA. (SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion deal to make at least 12 such flights with the Falcon 9 and its robotic Dragon capsule.)
The June failure was likely caused by a faulty steel strut in the Falcon 9 upper stage. Musk has said that, going forward, the company will test every one of the hundreds of such struts that go into each Falcon 9.
SpaceX has also been revamping the Falcon 9 since the accident, adjusting its stage-separation system and electronics, among other features, Musk said.
"I think it's a significantly improved rocket from the last one," he said on Dec. 15 during a talk at the annual winter meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
Today's launch was originally scheduled for Sunday night (Dec. 20), but analyses showed that lifting off tonight provided a 10 percent better chance of landing success, Musk said.
The 11 satellites that launched aboard the Falcon 9 all deployed successfully, and will complete a 17-spacecraft Orbcomm network in low-Earth orbit.
Good catch -- I'm not in favor of *this* human going to Mars, but had you asked me when I was in my 20s, you would have to leave a message on my machine because I'd have been camped out in line to get on the rocket. The conditions are such that colonists will wind up losing their marbles like the original bubble boy did, and nothing they do will turn Mars Earthlike. An atmosphere needs to be added via artificial bombardment, using frozen nitrogen and oxygen from the outer Solar System. Musk's colony will be like living in Spitzbergen, but without the two month paid vacation somewhere else.
That’s a lot of trash to clean up!
LOL!
From what I understand Musk paid back the government loans.
The booster doesn’t really have enough horizontal velocity to make it to LEO. If they have a launch azimuth to the SE they could possibly land it on an island in the Bahamas maybe.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/background/facts/astp.html_prt.htm
Today, it costs $10,000 to put a pound of payload in Earth orbit. NASA’s goal is to reduce the cost of getting to space to hundreds of dollars per pound within 25 years and tens of dollars per pound within 40 years.
http://www.polaris.iastate.edu/EveningStar/Unit7/unit7_sub2.htm
By current day space prices it costs about $10,000 for a pound of material to reach LEO (or $22,000 per kg).
https://books.google.com/books?id=M1s2bfYlPQcC&pg=PA59&lpg=PA59&dq=cost+per+pound+to+reach+orbit&source=bl&ots=uriwIE5YaB&sig=kFH9-GdyobG9liWOUFDdGowyhkE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjYivCaifHJAhVHzWMKHWZBAzw4FBDoAQgtMAM#v=onepage&q=cost%20per%20pound%20to%20reach%20orbit&f=false
Launch costs currently range from $3,000 to $12,000 per pound to reach low Earth orbit (LEO), depending on payload weight and the launch system employed.
Launching communications satellites in geosynchronous transfer orbit costs between $11,000 to $20,000 per pound.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_Heavy
At an appearance in May 2004 before the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Elon Musk testified, “Long term plans call for development of a heavy lift product and even a super-heavy, if there is customer demand. We expect that each size increase would result in a meaningful decrease in cost per pound to orbit. ... Ultimately, I believe $500 per pound or less is very achievable.”[41] This $500 per pound goal stated by Musk in 2011 is 35 percent of the cost of the lowest-cost-per-pound LEO-capable launch system in a circa-2000 study, referenced by spaceref.com in 2001, the Zenit, a medium-lift launch vehicle that can carry 14,000 kilograms (30,000 lb) into LEO.[42]
As of March 2013, Falcon Heavy launch prices are below $1,000 per pound ($2,200/kg) to low-Earth orbit when the launch vehicle is transporting its maximum delivered cargo weight.[43] The published prices for Falcon Heavy launches have moved some from year to year, with announced prices for the various versions of Falcon Heavy priced at US$80-125 million in 2011,[14] US$83-128 million in 2012,[15] US$77.1-135 million in 2013,[44] and US$85 million for up to 6,400 kg to GTO (with no published price for heavier GTO or any LEO payload) in 2014.[45] Launch contracts typically reflect launch prices at the time the contract is signed.
By late 2013, SpaceX prices for space launch were already the lowest in the industry.[49] If SpaceX is able to successfully complete development on its SpaceX reusable rocket technology and return booster stages to the launch pad for reuse—enabling even lower launch prices—a new economically-driven Space Age could result.[48][50]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9
In 2004, Elon Musk stated, “long term plans call for development of a heavy lift product and even a super-heavy, if there is customer demand. [...] Ultimately, I believe $500 per pound ($1100/kg) [of payload delivered to orbit] or less is very achievable.”[102] At its 2013 launch price and at full LEO payload capacity, the Falcon 9 v1.1 cost $1,864 per pound ($4,109/kg).[103]
http://www.airspacemag.com/space/is-spacex-changing-the-rocket-equation-132285884/?no-ist
Is SpaceX Changing the Rocket Equation?
All very impressive. But what really sets SpaceX apart, and has made it a magnet for controversy, are its prices: As advertised on the company’s Web site, a Falcon 9 launch costs an average of $57 million, which works out to less than $2,500 per pound to orbit. That’s significantly less than what other U.S. launch companies typically charge, and even the manufacturer of China’s low-cost Long March rocket (which the U.S. has banned importing) says it cannot beat SpaceX’s pricing. By 2014, the company’s next rocket, the Falcon Heavy, aims to lower the cost to $1,000 per pound. And Musk insists that’s just the beginning. “Our performance will increase and our prices will decline over time,†he writes on SpaceX’s Web site, “as is the case with every other technology.â€
That’s a little overstated, says Stern. Yes, rockets are expensive largely “because the system allows it.†But in today’s economy, ULA’s military customers are calling for prices to come down. “I know that they have an incentive to reduce their cost,†Stern says, “but it’s at the margin.†In other words, ULA’s cost-saving efforts are limited by the high overhead associated with traditional ways of building and launching rockets.
(I love this part right here in the story.)
Significantly, the Merlin engines—like roughly 80 percent of the components for Falcon and Dragon, including even the flight computers—are made in-house. That’s something SpaceX didn’t originally set out to do, but was driven to by suppliers’ high prices. Mueller recalls asking a vendor for an estimate on a particular engine valve. “They came back [requesting] like a year and a half in development and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Just way out of whack. And we’re like, ‘No, we need it by this summer, for much, much less money.’ They go, ‘Good luck with that,’ and kind of smirked and left.†Mueller’s people made the valve themselves, and by summer they had qualified it for use with cryogenic propellants.
“That vendor, they iced us for a couple of months,†Mueller says, “and then they called us back: ‘Hey, we’re willing to do that valve. You guys want to talk about it?’ And we’re like, ‘No, we’re done.’ He goes, ‘What do you mean you’re done?’ ‘We qualified it. We’re done.’ And there was just silence at the end of the line. They were in shock.†That scenario has been repeated to the point where, Mueller says, “we passionately avoid space vendors.â€
Very cool...
Currently Falcon Heavy is scheduled to lift off sometime in May 2016.
...
If they use the new core, the Falcon Heavy will have three fifths the thrust of the Saturn V.
That’s a heckuva rocket.
I can see that you have completely swallowed the Kool-Aid. Go ahead and believe anything Musk says and enjoy living in your fantasy space program.
I don’t work there, and I still went nuts. I really like that reaction when the engine shuts down and the smoke clears, showing it perfectly upright.
And again, after the landing, the orbital vehicle launched eleven satellites, about 379 pounds each; a twelfth dummy payload was aboard to balance the load during boost.
http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/spacex_orbcomm_press_kit_final2.pdf
I’m looking forward to seeing the Falcon X that will use nine Raptor engines each producing about a million pounds of thrust!
The $10K per lb. is the average for the satellite launchers to LEO. Some are more and some are less like ULA.
I did see an article back around 2011 or 2010 that the price per lb. to launch to LEO was $1,500. Of course, since then the price has gone up a little.
I’m watching what Musk says and so far he’s delivering the goods unlike everyone else. He has the lowest prices and the most leading edge technology. I’m sure you’ll be scoffing when he is landing on the Mars still saying...
“I can see that you have completely swallowed the Kool-Aid. Go ahead and believe anything Musk says and enjoy living in your fantasy space program.”
AMAZING accomplishment !
America and private sector have a chance !
You can't get to "stage 2" (economic viability) without passing "stage 1" (technical viability). And you need the "first" technical success before you can establish "technical viability". That has now been accomplished.
And the fact that it has been successfully done by TWO DIFFERENT organizations IS a "great accomplishment".
But there "is" carbon dioxide. All proposals to "bootstrap" up from the Martian surface call for the necessary methane to be synthesized from CO2. The "real" sticking point has been the availability of water, as the hydrogen for methane systhesis and the oxidizer (LOx) has to be derived from electrolysis of water.
I don’t know why, but I watched it and didn’t come away with that reaction. I was very happy and glad to see that it worked as hoped for, but it wasn’t a land mark event to me, even though it was.
Not sure why.
I love the space programs and appreciate what they accomplished. It just seemed to me the whoopy factor was off the charts in the video.
One great strength SpaceX has, and this can't be said for most other contractors in the launch biz, is that he doesn't subsidize our Russian enemy by buying engines from them. ALL launch system vendors make some percentage (koff koff) of their incomes off gubmint largesse. SpaceX's percentage is in fact the lowest. That doesn't stop MDS. Anyway, thanks again JH!
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