SpaceX Updates (Thread 8)

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Grand Master

DocM

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Nawwww....The Imperial March from Star Wars!!

 

Florida Today....

 

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SpaceX signs lease with Port Canaveral for booster refurbishing

SpaceX has signed a five-year lease for a warehouse and office facility at Port Canaveral, where it plans to process, refurbish and store rocket boosters for future reuse.

The commercial space company has occupied the 53,360-square-foot former SpaceHab building on the north side of the port since August, under a month-to-month lease, and has been renovating the facility, located at 620 Magellan Road.

Now, with the signed lease agreement, "they can forge ahead" with their plans, Port Canaveral Chief Executive Officer John Murray said.

The company also plans to build an adjacent 44,000-square-foot hangar on the 4-acre parcel.

Canaveral Port Authority commissioners are scheduled to vote Wednesday on the lease, which will take effect April 1.

Under terms of the lease, SpaceX will pay monthly rent to the port of $35,181 in Year 1, increasing to $50,639 a month by Year 5.

"It's a unique opportunity for our port to participate in the space industry," Murray said. "It's just great to be part of it. It's great to be in a strategic location that will be part of making history" for the space program.

SpaceX  formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp.  will be responsible for paying for and completing improvements to the complex. The port agreed to partially reimburse SpaceX for improvements, up to a maximum of $280,000 by deducting up to $10,000 a month in rent for the first 28 months of the lease.

SpaceX will have use of a nearby roadway for transporting SpaceX rocket boosters from a cargo dock to its facility, and will get exclusive use of the road for up to six hours while the rocket booster transport is taking place.

Murray said the port also has had "numerous inquiries from numerous companies" in the space industry interested in leasing at the port.

The agreement between SpaceX and the port includes two options to extend the lease by five years each time.

 

SpaceX_refurb_port_canaveral.thumb.jpg.ae4e42321a7f71e8e3a51ab1dd401a68.jpg

 

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Grand Master

Unobscured Vision

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That infographic really illustrates how crappy (expletive/descriptive removed) the current-gen ULA rockets are, and how unimaginative their ambitions down the road are. The only one worth anything will be Vulcan Block-2/ACES, and it'll likely be at 3x the cost/launch of a Falcon Heavy which is more capable by a factor of almost 2 -- before the switchover to the Raptor S2.

 

And the infographic hasn't taken into account a possible "mini-ITS" which is still a possibility (Saturn-V levels of capability -- 105~120T to LEO) or even ITS itself which could be used as a gargantuan SHLV, or even SLS for that matter. Vulcan/Centaur won't even FLY until 2021 at the earliest unless something changes at ULA to speed up the timetable. That line isn't even cutting metal yet, and the BE-4 won't start testing for a few weeks.

 

Nor does the infographic show New Glenn or anything else from Blue Origin; but there's been no stated timetable for Blue's next iteration.

 

Also absent is Orbital's name in the lineup anywhere ... but I don't think we're surprised at all by that little development, are we?

 

SpaceX will already be cutting metal on ITS by 2021 and doing Raptor testing for any sign of various anomalies (acoustic, etc) when adding groups of them together in the arrangements needed for ITS' first stage. :yes: ULA will be way, WAY behind the curve by then if their ambitions are merely on Vulcan/ACES .... and we don't exactly see Space X sitting on their laurels with the Falcon Heavy platform, do we? Expect improvements to that one over time. The best ULA can hope for is Second Place at this point. Once Falcon Heavy debuts, they're hosed. SLS is going to cost waaaaay too much to be allowed to fly often -- much to the annoyance of Shelby and the other OldSpace proponents who seem to think it was a good idea to keep funding it.

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Grand Master

DocM

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Yup. Falcon 9 alone is giving ULA a migrane, and Falcon Heavy will be murder once EELV and NASA certified.

 

Add New Glenn, both the 2 and 3 stage versions, a mini-ITS cargo vehicle as a potential Falcon replacement, the ITS and New Armstrong and there isn't much left - all markets covered.

 

Some business for Vulcan to be sure, and Antares 300 could also be competitive at the lower mass to orbit end Falcon 9 v-1.0 covered.

 

I think OrbitalATK will abandon their Ares 1/Liberty clone, and Rocket Lab may well be the up and coming dark horse in the mix. 

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Grand Master

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Yep. :yes:

 

This time next year we'll be reflecting on how much has gone on in the past 12 months, and what the next 18 months will have in store for us.

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PaulRocket

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Since Block 5 will have 'improved' legs, do we know if they will be able to automatically fold them up again, similarly to what Blue Origin is doing or will it still be the same old design where you have to manually detach the legs while processing the stage?

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Grand Master

DocM

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No idea, though easier removal seems obvious. Not likely foldable as that would put legs where the transporter stage clamps for the Octaweb are. Earlier opening and using (part of?) them as airfoils was mentioned. 

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Grand Master

DocM

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CBS report covers the launch insurance angle of stage wise,

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-launches-comsat-in-historic-flight-with-used-booster/

 

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But [SES's] Halliwell said insurers were convinced the stage was virtually as good as new.

"There was essentially no change in the insurance premium," he said. "That is, I think, the key criteria in the confidence level the (insurance) community sees in the integrity of this mission and the booster itself."

One [insurance] underwriter, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Spaceflight Now that "reused rockets are here to stay."

"It's an interesting balance for us," he said. "It's here to stay. Pretty soon, it's going to be routine. We've had some some very in-depth conversations with SpaceX about their process for re-qualifying, and their process for refurbishment. We're convinced that, number one, they're committed to it, and number two, they're serious about it. So they've done what we wanted them to do."

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Grand Master

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There was some talk also about emotion coming into play more than actual risk being involved .. which I completely agree with. People were super nervous for all the wrong reasons, and now they can find their safe spaces somewhere else. 

 

[Expletive/descriptive] naysayers ... where are they now ?! Likely looking for their legos and pointy blankets so they can feel their emotions elsewhere. And I'm supportive of that. Let the adults who actually TRY to think outside of the box get our work done. :D 

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Grand Master

DocM

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This is going to put serious heat on ULA/Boeing/LockMart as regards Vulcan "reuse" by way of parachuting the engine bay & engines, catching it with a chopper. This design still needs solid boosters.

 

With Vulcan being being [optimistically] due in 2019 and New Glenn penciled in for 2020/21, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if Vulcan quietly morphs into ULA using a New Glenn first stage under a Centaur. ACES changes to fit. No solid boosters required.

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Grand Master

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Yep. And the ship date of Vulcan will continue to slip right as ULA demonstrates its' ability to miss R&D Milestone targets. I agree with you, @DocM -- 2019 was an extremely optimistic date for Vulcan's debut. They haven't even started cutting metal yet. SLS is 2018 and it's already half-built, so that kinda puts things into perspective doesn't it ...

 

My guess is that they're pushing NASA to sign off on the RD-180 without the extra data and it's taking longer than they want. Atlas V isn't going anywhere, methinks ... and if/when we see Vulcan, it'll be the most underwhelming debut ever and the state of Aerospace Engineering will be such that they'll be laughed out of the room for even bothering to build it.

 

SpaceX, meanwhile, will be right in the middle of building the Boca Launch Complex and the ITS build team will be seeing the first shipments of the structural hardware at Hawthorne (?). Things will be happening quickly. :yes: 

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Doesn't second stage landing require a fairly significant redesign, with heat shield and other new systems?
I thought they would still be years from the first attempt for that.

They are really speeding up now, so cool!

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Grand Master

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28 minutes ago, SALSN said:

Doesn't second stage landing require a fairly significant redesign, with heat shield and other new systems?
I thought they would still be years from the first attempt for that.

They are really speeding up now, so cool!

Well ... depends on how they approach it. If they come in "hot", like a Dragon capsule would, then yeah. It'd require heat shielding and a significant overhaul to be anything more than a melted lump.

 

IF they handle it like the S1, where they do a retrofire burn to slow down a LOT and then do the S1 procedures, then it's gonna be just about the same deal but from a significantly higher altitude and with a lot less fuel to work with (but easier since the S2 weighs far less than the S1 does). This is the scenario I think they'll go with, personally.

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Grand Master

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Heh ... something that occurs to me. SuperDracos on the S2. :yes: Not that large of a weight gain but they have some serious grunt and better yet they are throttleable. That way the S2 doesn't have to be bothered to save all that much fuel in the main tanks.

 

And it already does a deorbit burn to minimize space junk ... that part is already factored in. The SuperDracos are to help the process along and even let it land. 

 

Get some grid fins and landing legs on it, an S1 landing computer with the software and other bits to make it all work, patch the software so that it'll work on an S2 ... refine it after some simulations ... give her a real-life trial and see what's what. :D 

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Grand Master

DocM

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2 hours ago, SALSN said:

Doesn't second stage landing require a fairly significant redesign, with heat shield and other new systems?
I thought they would still be years from the first attempt for that.

They are really speeding up now, so cool!

 

Thought about this, and the key is Falcon Heavy's ridiculous mass to orbit margin for any payload other than BEO or a GEO commsat the size of a city bus. This let's them play, a lot.

 

A dummy payload could be sized to leave enough propellant for a modest re-entry burn, and given that S2 weighs far less than a Dragon 1 which uses  the small 100 lbf Draco thrusters for this job....that's a pretty modest job.

 

Coat the stage in PICA-X, which in 1.0 trim was just 0.31 grams/cc. Dragon 2's PICA-X 3 is good for about 30,000 mph re-entries from Mars, a much higher heat load which scales with the cube of velocity, so an LEO or GTO re-entry should be duck soup. 

 

Keeping it pointed in the right direction may need thrusters, but if it's not too difficult cold gas should be the lightest option. Those are already on the parts shelf for the booster.

 

Once in the atmosphere deploy a drogue to bleed speed, then deploy a larger version of the fairings GPS parafoil. Those are COTS for up to 10 tonnes and S2 barely weighs 5 tonnes.

 

They've already mentioned landing fairings on what sounds like a giant inflatable raft of some kind, so use one of those to catch it. 

 

360° 4K video of the news conference

 

 

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