Video of recovered Falcon 9 first stage on the road
The competition heats up: SpaceX’s recovered Falcon 9 first stage was moved by road back to the company’s testing facility in Florida yesterday, a journey that was recorded by bystanders, including people in a Kennedy Space Center tour bus.
I have embedded the longest video below the fold, because it provides the best closeup view of the booster. Look especially at the booster’s top, where you can see practically no damage. This thing looks ready to fly.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. 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.
The competition heats up: SpaceX’s recovered Falcon 9 first stage was moved by road back to the company’s testing facility in Florida yesterday, a journey that was recorded by bystanders, including people in a Kennedy Space Center tour bus.
I have embedded the longest video below the fold, because it provides the best closeup view of the booster. Look especially at the booster’s top, where you can see practically no damage. This thing looks ready to fly.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. 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.
Cool video.
Gives a better perspective of how big the first stage is in reality.
Wonder how the reliability of the Merlin engines is affected by multiple firings, with the engines having been disposable for all of those launches, realizing that the stresses on a rocket engine are staggering, the metallurgy must be a high priority.
Joe,
The Merlin 1D, which they are using on the current Falcon 9 first stages, is made for reusability. Some engines are made to be reusable, such as the Space Shuttle’s main engines. However, just because they can be used more than once, does not mean that they cannot be expended at the end of the first and only use, and that is what Space X has been doing, so far, and what SLS will do with the Space Shuttle’s left over main engines.
The Merlin 1C, Vacuum engine, need not be designed for reuse, as it is used only on the upper stages, which are intended as one-use rockets, at least so far.
I agree that metallurgy is a high priority. Merlin 1D rocket engines burn fuel at an equivalent rate of around 5 gigawatts, each. A modern US power plant produces about 1 gigawatt of electricity, meaning that each (relatively small) Merlin engine is the equivalent of five (large) power plants. Merlin 1D engines run at high temperature, high pressure (~60 atmospheres), in a vibrating environment, and generate forces of around 150,000 pounds each. Plus, the lightweight fuel tank is located about a meter from the nine engines.
The turbopumps that feed each engine burn fuel in order to generate the power to pump the cryogenic oxygen or the room temperature(ish) RP1, so each turbopump operates at high AND low temperatures, higher pressures, with vibrations and a high speed spinning pump impeller.
My understanding is that the bell of the Merlin 1D is a niobium alloy.
Although it does not talk much about the materials, the following shows the complexity of the Space Shuttle’s main engines, probably more than you wanted to know:
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph240/nguyen1/docs/SSME_PRESENTATION.pdf