Comments on: A FAA waiver granted to SpaceX for its next launch outlines details on the company’s effort to recover the first stage for reuse. https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/a-faa-waiver-granted-to-spacex-for-its-next-launch-outlines-details-on-the-companys-effort-to-recover-the-first-stage-for-reuse/ Thu, 29 Aug 2013 01:50:05 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Tom Billings https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/a-faa-waiver-granted-to-spacex-for-its-next-launch-outlines-details-on-the-companys-effort-to-recover-the-first-stage-for-reuse/#comment-104510 Thu, 29 Aug 2013 01:50:05 +0000 http://behindtheblack.com/?p=24491#comment-104510 Yup! Gotta watch that more carefully. Shrouds are *not capsules! :-)

]]> By: Robert Zimmerman https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/a-faa-waiver-granted-to-spacex-for-its-next-launch-outlines-details-on-the-companys-effort-to-recover-the-first-stage-for-reuse/#comment-104407 Wed, 28 Aug 2013 15:27:45 +0000 http://behindtheblack.com/?p=24491#comment-104407 In reply to Tom Billings.

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.

]]> By: Tom Billings https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/a-faa-waiver-granted-to-spacex-for-its-next-launch-outlines-details-on-the-companys-effort-to-recover-the-first-stage-for-reuse/#comment-104333 Wed, 28 Aug 2013 06:17:03 +0000 http://behindtheblack.com/?p=24491#comment-104333 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.

]]> By: joe https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/a-faa-waiver-granted-to-spacex-for-its-next-launch-outlines-details-on-the-companys-effort-to-recover-the-first-stage-for-reuse/#comment-104325 Wed, 28 Aug 2013 03:47:17 +0000 http://behindtheblack.com/?p=24491#comment-104325 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!

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