SpaceX gives names to its floating landing barges

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February 4, 2015 9:58 pm Robert Zimmerman

Elon Musk has named SpaceX’s two robotic landing platform boats after science fiction spacecraft created by Scottish sci-fi legend Iain M. Banks.

The drone boats, designed by SpaceX to act as automated landing platforms for the company’s first stage rocket return system, were given the quirky names “Just Read the Instructions” and “Of Course I Still Love You.”

6 comments

Phillip Morris
February 12, 2015 at 9:24 pm
Bob,
Why doesn’t Elon design an impact-actuated airbag deployment scheme and just let the primary stage land in the water. I don’t think a salt water deuching will harm the stage. Pass this along.
Phil
Phillip Morris
February 12, 2015 at 9:28 pm
Bob,
Why doesn’t Elon design an impact-actuated airbag deployment scheme into the Falcon 9 primary stage and just let it land in the ocean? I don’t think that a salt water bath will harm the stage. Please pass this on.
Phil
Robert Zimmerman
February 13, 2015 at 9:23 am
They have already discovered that the salt water does harm the stage significantly, even if they pull it from the water relatively quick.
PeterF
February 13, 2015 at 10:24 am
If I understand the overall concept correctly, the eventual plan is to let the booster stay on orbit until it can be brought down to its point of origin. Why can’t they perform proof of concept testing by landing it in a large flat natural location like the Bonneville salt flats? or the Mojave desert? or anywhere in west Texas? (Reese AFB)
Robert Zimmerman
February 13, 2015 at 11:09 am
The rocket does not have an endless supply of fuel to go all the places you suggest. Also, the first stage never reaches orbit, nor is there enough fuel to get it there.

The goal however is to bring it back to its point of origin, or close to the original launchpad. This will require it to come down immediately, as it does now. They will not do this, however, until they have achieved a proof of concept and reasonable reliability. Once they have landed a few times reliability on a barge, they will then consider returning the booster to land, where the risks are greater.
Edward
February 13, 2015 at 4:03 pm
Peter,

You may be thinking of the second stage. Several years ago, I went to a talk by a SpaceX engineer in which he told us that they intended to eventually bring back both the first and second stages for reuse. He presented the following 4-minute video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSF81yjVbJE

The second stage will be harder, because it will have to reenter from orbital speed, so it will need heat shielding. I have not heard much about it, since that talk, so I don’t know if the added complexity and the loss of payload capability is worth the potential cost savings. Most of the cost is in the first stage, rather than the second stage.

Getting the second stage back to the launch site could be interesting, as the launch site will have traveled more than 1,000 miles farther east during the first orbit of the stage. Maybe Mojave would be a good landing site for a Texas launched second stage and Texas a good landing site for one launched from Florida. Or if they wait 12 hours, then the launch site will line up with the orbital plane, again, but fuel and oxidizer boil-off could be a problem with waiting on orbit.

We will have to see what SpaceX comes up with. They are creative and willing to try new things.

SpaceX gives names to its floating landing barges

6 comments

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