SpaceX launch schedule heats up
A close look at SpaceX’s launch schedule through the rest of 2014 calls for six Falcon 9 launches, including two before the end of August.
If the company is successfully in maintaining this schedule, they will end any doubts about their ability to transform the launch industry. Every other launch company will have to match their prices, or lose their customers.
One paragraph in the article does tell us that there are limits to the re-usability of the Falcon 9 first stage, even if they do succeed in bringing it back safely to a vertical landing on land.
With the upcoming ASIASAT missions involving heavy birds that require very high velocity transfers en-route to their geostationary destination, there won’t be enough residual propellant on the F9 v1.1 core for landing attempts.
This has not been a secret, but this quote drives the point home. Until they replace the Merlin engine with the more powerful Raptor engine and thus significantly increase the rocket’s efficiency, they will never be able to reuse any of it for geosynchronous commercial flights.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
A close look at SpaceX’s launch schedule through the rest of 2014 calls for six Falcon 9 launches, including two before the end of August.
If the company is successfully in maintaining this schedule, they will end any doubts about their ability to transform the launch industry. Every other launch company will have to match their prices, or lose their customers.
One paragraph in the article does tell us that there are limits to the re-usability of the Falcon 9 first stage, even if they do succeed in bringing it back safely to a vertical landing on land.
With the upcoming ASIASAT missions involving heavy birds that require very high velocity transfers en-route to their geostationary destination, there won’t be enough residual propellant on the F9 v1.1 core for landing attempts.
This has not been a secret, but this quote drives the point home. Until they replace the Merlin engine with the more powerful Raptor engine and thus significantly increase the rocket’s efficiency, they will never be able to reuse any of it for geosynchronous commercial flights.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
100% chance of their schedule slipping but how close they come should tell us something.
They acknowledge that large GeoSync payloads need to use Falcon Heavy. This is a case of a payload they can handle, but not with the 30% reserve for reuse on the regular F9.
The future is F-Heavy for big stuff, and for the large amount of smaller payloads, reuse with a F9. And they claim to plan to get all three cores back from a Falcon Heavy.
To get the full 53mT out of an FH they will have to sacrifice reusablility it looks like, but that is where Raptor comes in for a more powerful booster.
Whether the schedule slips (I agree that it will), or whether reusability is as advertised, or whether Falcon Heavy comes on line as scheduled, the fact is that Space X is launching real hardware with real payloads in real time, and doing so while maintaining an aggressive development program. They are the most dynamic outfit going, and I can’t imagine but that they are swamped with applications from every corner of the planet.
Virgin Galactic demonstrated an ability to loft (barely) man-rated vehicles to sub-orbital altitudes, but ten years on have not been able to capitalize. As much as I wanted (and would still like) to see them succeed, that eventuality seems ever more remote.
I would love Spacex to understand that the way to go is and always has been, to use wings on each component of the system, wheels and a jet engine or 2; so that the components [ first and second stages, etc.] can return back to the airports that they need to get back to without excessive use of fuel / weight. For those who wonder, calculate the weight of wings able to lift a 30 ton object and you will see that it is possible.
Another idea that is really needed is to increase the initial acceleration of the system through the use of launch boosters – get up to 3.5 g at the beginning and throughout the entire flight – except for the Max Q area, of course. In this way you can get to orbit in about 6.5 min. and are much more efficient in the use of the lifting ability of the craft. The boosters do not have to be light weight as they only boost for a short point in time before letting go and returning to the airport near thew launch sight.
Oh well, fuel for thought!
SpaceX is not going to sacrifice Falcon 9’s engine-out fault-tolerance and reusability by building a future version of it with a single Raptor engine. Besides being clustered on cores for SpaceX’s future BFR’s, single Raptors might well figure in a future high-thrust, high-energy upper stage for Falcon Heavy. As for GTO comsat missions and reusability, the trend line in comsats is toward less weight, not more as electric thrusters replace hypergolic thrusters. Even without any additional uprating of the Merlin 1-D, Falcon 9 will be able to put many future comsats into GTO and still retain reusability. The Falcon 9 also has a lift capacity growth path that includes a possible stretched upper stage with a pair of Merlin 1-D Vacuum engines instead of the current single one.