A FAA waiver granted to SpaceX for its next launch outlines details on the company’s effort to recover the first stage for reuse.
The competition heats up: A FAA waiver granted to SpaceX for its next launch outlines the details of the company’s effort to recover the first stage for reuse.
The first stage will coast after stage separation, and then perform an experimental burn with three engines to reduce the entry velocity just prior to entry. Prior to landing in the water, it will perform a second experimental burn with one engine to impact the water with minimal velocity. The second stage will coast and then perform an experimental burn to depletion.
Elon Musk has said that they will be experimenting with bringing the first stage back safely with each launch of the upgraded Falcon 9 rocket. This waiver now gives us the plan for the first launch. It also shows that they are also considering recovery of the second stage as well.
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The competition heats up: A FAA waiver granted to SpaceX for its next launch outlines the details of the company’s effort to recover the first stage for reuse.
The first stage will coast after stage separation, and then perform an experimental burn with three engines to reduce the entry velocity just prior to entry. Prior to landing in the water, it will perform a second experimental burn with one engine to impact the water with minimal velocity. The second stage will coast and then perform an experimental burn to depletion.
Elon Musk has said that they will be experimenting with bringing the first stage back safely with each launch of the upgraded Falcon 9 rocket. This waiver now gives us the plan for the first launch. It also shows that they are also considering recovery of the second stage as well.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
So, does an inversion layer cause an increased risk to the rocket or is this just a function of if the rocket explodes that there is more collateral damage on the ground?, very interesting, I never realized that something as simple as an inversion layer would have an impact on a launch!
At a guess, this is not because of the Falcon 9, which burns LOX and Kerosene, but because the Dragon still uses the old Nitrogen Tetroxide/Hydrazine combination for its attitude control thrusters. Hydrazine is a deadly poison that kills people when Protons crash in Kazahkstan too near a village. Nitrogen Tetroxide cleverly settles on the mucous membranes of your throat and lungs, and reacts with the water there to make nitric acid.
Anything with several hundred kilos of that combo is cause for worrying about an inversion layer getting the vapors from an explosion trapped near the ground. They are hypergolic, and react so fast that 2 large volumes of them smacked together will react at the surface hard and fast enough to blow the vast bulk of it into two separate clouds, both of them deeply unfriendly to anything living.
I could really wish the newer NOFBX monopropellants with performance equal to Hydrazine/Nitrogen Tet. were certified when the design of the Dragon started.
Tom,
You might be right in general, but the waiver was specifically for the next Falcon 9 launch, which will not have Dragon on board.
Yup! Gotta watch that more carefully. Shrouds are *not capsules! :-)