SpaceX Updates (Thread 8)

[DocM]

Can you imagine what a Neuralink mind meld with him would be like? 

[Blue-Vision]

[DocM]

 

[Blue-Vision]

OldSpace is ######. Not even the Government wants to do business with them now. Not after the continuing debacle with SLS/Orion and Starliner and the constant political interference in Commercial Crew.

 

My, how fortunes change ... smell that breeze.  

 

 

[FloatingFatMan]

1 hour ago, Unobscured Vision said:

My, how fortunes change ... smell that breeze.

I'd rather not... I think someone at ULA soiled their pants...

 

[Blue-Vision]

1 hour ago, FloatingFatMan said:

I'd rather not... I think someone at ULA soiled their pants...

 

 They'd better watch that next prostate exam then. 

[Blue-Vision]

California seeks to tax rocket launches, which are already taxed

 

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/california-may-have-found-a-creative-new-revenue-stream-taxing-rocket-launches/

 

Quote

Home to the Mojave Air & Space Port and promising launch companies such as SpaceX and Virgin Orbit, California has a thriving rocket industry. Accordingly, the state is now looking into taxing this vibrant industry, and the Franchise Tax Board has issued a proposed regulation for public comment. The proposal says that California-based companies that launch spacecraft will have to pay a tax based upon "mileage" traveled by that spacecraft from California. (No, we're not exactly sure what this means, either). The proposed regulations were first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, and Thomas Lo Grossman, a tax attorney at the Franchise Tax Board, told the newspaper that the rules are designed to mirror the ways taxes are levied on terrestrial transportation and logistics firms operating in California, like trucking or train companies.

Well, well, well. Looks like the "let's do something completely dumb" award is gonna go to California if this passes. And it's already the most over-regulated (and over-taxed, if you're a Business Owner) state in the U.S. ...

[DocM]

What's hilarious about this is that taxation begins at the Karman Line, 100 km/62 miles, and that's where the highest tax is applied. The higher you go the less you pay, so it's the little guys like Masten Space, XCOR, Virgin Galactic etc. at Mojave that get the dagger in their neck.

 

They don't call it 'Califlakey' for nothing 

 

[Blue-Vision]

NOBODY will put up with that. Not even the U.S. Government. VAFB? They'll shut it down before paying one cent in tax to California. 

 

Consider SpaceX vacated from Los Angeles if this even makes it to the Legislature. And it'll be courtesy of the "Brain Trusts In Charge" in your State Capitol, California. Lease deal or no lease deal, y'all screwed up letting this get circulated openly. Heh ... whose bright idea was this?? Y'all just probably lost SpaceX. YOU DON'T UPSET SPACEX WHEN THEY ARE IN YOUR STATE.

 

DUMMIES.

[DocM]

SpaceX and ULA won't care that much because most of their payload are to GEO, BEO, SSO or a high LEO. High enough the tax will be chump change. But charge Masten etc. the top rate every time they hit 100km? Puh-lease.

 

On a lighter note,

 

Racing fans will know the name Dan Gurney. His All American Racers (AAR) team have built cars for and won Formula One, IndyCar, Sebring, Daytona etc. etc.  When SpaceX lands a rocket the AAR team is among those cheering the loudest.

 

Why?

 

Because AAR makes the landing legs for Falcon 9, and presumably for Falcon Heavy.

[Blue-Vision]

Oh, and the other NewSpace companies that are there because SpaceX (and Silicon Valley) are? They'll all move to Brownsville, Texas -- The NEW SpaceCenter. That's where everyone wants to go anyway. 

 

Twenty years from now Brownsville is gonna look like Orlando -- but someplace people will actually want to live. Actually, make that ten years. Cape Canaveral and Silicon Valley rolled into one. It'll be posh.  

[DocM]

 

Quote

Bulgarian satellite to launch on reused Falcon 9 in June

 

WASHINGTON  A communications satellite built for a Bulgarian operator will be the second payload to launch on a previously-flown Falcon 9, that operator announced May 5.

In a statement, BulgariaSat said its BulgariaSat-1 spacecraft is scheduled to launch in mid-June on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The first stage of that Falcon 9 will be the same one that launched 10 Iridium Next satellites from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in January.

Maxim Zayakov, chief executive of BulgariaSat, said the use of a reused first stage lowers the launch price and makes it possible for smaller countries and companies to launch their own satellites.

The company did not disclose the price it is paying for the launch, including what discount it is receiving for using a flight-proven first stage. The list price of a Falcon 9 is $62 million for a 2018 launch, according to SpaceXs web site.

The launch will be the second time SpaceX has used a previously-flown first stage on a mission. On March 30, a Falcon 9 launched the SES-10 satellite for global satellite operator SES, using a Falcon 9 first stage that first flew on a NASA cargo resupply mission in April 2016.
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Edited May 5, 2017 by DocM

[DocM]

Hiring 30 at KSC.

 

Link....

 

Sounds like they're ramping up for LC-40's return to flight ops and to get the stage refurb facility at Port Canaveral  going. 

 

The stage refurb facility will be in the 53,360 sq/ft former SpaceHab facility, where they also plan on adding another 44,000 sq/ft building. Busy, busy they plan to be.

 

Soon as LC-40 opens back up they can shut LC-39A down for the FH and Crew Dragon refits, a few weeks or so to add 4 more stage hold downs for FH and the crew access arm to the tower, then things get down to boogyin' 

[Blue-Vision]

Yep, looks to be around a 45-60 day stand-down for the remaining hardware to be installed. Then the boffins will want to test that hardware for any gremlins; but I wouldn't anticipate that being anywhere near the massive shakedown like it was when 39-A came back online. Should be a couple of days of clearing some vapor locks and tightening down the odd bolt here and there, then stress testing the system afterward. That first launch will likely see a couple of minor issues, but nothing too big.

 

LC-40's RTF will, however, be pretty involved like 39-A's was. Lots of fix-a-flat went into that one. 

[PaulRocket]

Quick question regarding Block 5, compare all rockets on this chart to the New Glenn and the ITS:

One thing that strikes me is that one cannot see the engines on either vehicles from the side. They are protected by the aero frame. I'm thinking both companies came to the same conclusion, SpaceX with the Falcon 9 landings and Blue Origin with their New Shepard vehicle, they must better protect the engines during reentry and this is one way. Could Falcon 9 Block 5 see a similar change to the Octaweb or is this too big of a change? 

[DocM]

The Raptor engine bells do protrude a bit from ITS's engine bay but with 42 of them, they're smaller than BE-4 and with the boosters massive scale they'd be about 1-2 pixels each.

 

Blue just chose to use a near full retraction, so far.

[PaulRocket]

23 hours ago, DocM said:

The Raptor engine bells do protrude a bit from ITS's engine bay but with 42 of them, they're smaller than BE-4 and with the boosters massive scale they'd be about 1-2 pixels each.

 

Blue just chose to use a near full retraction, so far.

So you don't think it has any protection benefit and we won't see it with Block 5?

[DocM]

I doubt major changes will be made to the Octaweb length because they recently redesigned the Octaweb from being a weld-up to a bolted together assembly. Why do all that only to repeat it in 4-5 months?

 

 

Edited May 10, 2017 by DocM

[Beittil]

I think the visual of the Falcon 9 base will pretty much stay as it is right now. In fact, there have barely been any visual changes in the rocket ever since the Octaweb was introduced in V1.1! I mean, other than the fact that it can appear with or without legs/grid fins of course it is visually the same since then.

[Blue-Vision]

No bones about it, folks .. we're in a whole other realm of Aerospace design and development nowadays. SpaceX, Bigelow and BO was just the fire that was needed to get the NewSpace revolution kicked off. Now (five years later) we've got two dozen more NewSpace companies doing all kinds of great things -- large and small -- and OldSpace has been left on the ground wondering what the hell happened.

 

Kinda reminds me of when Anderson Silva got KO'd out of nowhere by Weidman.

[DocM]

Block 5 info from CTO and Merlin/Raptor engine wizard Tom Mueller,

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/6b043z/tom_mueller_interview_speech_skype_call_02_may/dhiygzm/

 

Quote

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So you get the fuel [costs] down, and then you've gotta make the rocket completely reusable, which were still struggling with. When that rocket came back, like yesterday [with NROl-76], it's smoking, it's sitting there smoking; we burned a lot of the ablative [material] on it; we have to remove the legs in order to lower it, and reinstall them; it's not a quick turn. What we want is like an aircraft; you know, it pulls into the airport, the people get off, they fuel it up while the people are getting back on, they do some checks, you know; some inspections, and everything looks good and you go again. And that's where we want to get to.

The Block 5 Falcon rocket that were rolling out later this year is going to have a reusable thermal protection on it; so we don't burn up the heat shielding on it. And it's going to have a much better landing legs that just fold up and; just drop the rocket, fold the legs, ship it, fold the legs out when it lands. Making it turn very fast; our goal is; Elon asked us to do a twelve-hour turn. And we came back and said without some major redesigns to the rocket, with just the Block 5, we can get to a 24-hour turn, and he accepted that. A 24-hour turn time. And that doesn't mean we want to fly the rocket, you know, once a day; although we could, if we really pushed it. What it does is, limits how much labor, how much touch labor we can put into it. If we can turn a rocket in 24 hours with just a few people, you're nuts. <inaudible> low cost, low opportunity cost in getting the rocket to fly again.

So those were all the things we did; that were doing; to get the cost of access to space down. Hopefully by a factor of 100 when we do the Mars vehicle. We can't do that right now with the Falcon because we still throw away the upper stage. So maybe later, so maybe a third of the cost of the rocket is the upper stage. It has a single Merlin engine on it, but it's a fairly sophisticated version of the engine. It's also got the guidance computer, and a lot of <inaudible> avionics on it. So it's a significant cost with the marginal performance that <inaudible> gets returned <inaudible> reusability, able to throw some of the biggest satellites, we can't make it close, with that size of rocket, to recover the upper stage. We're gonna try in the next few years to start recovering the upper stage, but we won't be able to do it for all missions. That'll help reduce costs quite a bit.

[Blue-Vision]

Sweet. Put in work now to get the learning in for later.  I can dig it.

[DocM]

 

[DocM]

Starting with Inmarsat-5 F4

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Last year's anomaly was said to be caused by an accumulation of hyper-cooled liquid oxygen. Loading sooner decreases risk of LOX tank issues

7:54 PM - 15 May 2017

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The next two launches, #CRS11 and #BulgariaSat, will be the last two without this improved loading system.

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Edited May 16, 2017 by DocM

[DocM]

From Inmarsat's CEO

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-39929168

 

Quote

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Mr Pearce said he was delighted to fly SpaceX for the first time, and looked forward to the occasion when an Inmarsat satellite would go up on one of the American provider's "second-hand" rockets.

"I'd like to see a longer track record of refurbished rockets being launched successfully without problems," the CEO told BBC News.

"At the moment, we don't put up satellites in sufficient numbers to be relatively sanguine about losing one. But I'm very encouraged by what I've seen in recent months, and once we feel that refurbished rockets are essentially the same as new rockets - we'll jump onboard and extend our relationship with SpaceX."

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