Watch SpaceX retract one leg from used Block 5 booster
For geeks only! The video below the fold shows the new equipment that SpaceX has developed to retract the open legs of a used Block 5 booster. This video shows them attaching the booster in a secure vertical position, then attaching cables to the base of the first leg which are then used to retract it back into its launch position against the side of the booster. The design is quite clever.
The design also shows how primitive the art of reusable rockets remains. Though SpaceX has clearly succeeded in simplifying and automating this process, it remains slow and complex. In time this will get easier, but right now, this remains state of the art.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
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For geeks only! The video below the fold shows the new equipment that SpaceX has developed to retract the open legs of a used Block 5 booster. This video shows them attaching the booster in a secure vertical position, then attaching cables to the base of the first leg which are then used to retract it back into its launch position against the side of the booster. The design is quite clever.
The design also shows how primitive the art of reusable rockets remains. Though SpaceX has clearly succeeded in simplifying and automating this process, it remains slow and complex. In time this will get easier, but right now, this remains state of the art.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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.
Apparently this was only a test, as the leg was lowered and all four legs removed yesterday.
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=45842.msg1842074#msg1842074
Interesting. Makes you wonder if it was planned as just a test all along, or if something didn’t quite work right.
I had wondered if any manual intervention would be necessary to ensure that the pusher (the small pneumatic strut hinged just below the large leg strut) would require any manual intervention to ensure that it made proper contact with the folding leg. I see that at 8:55 in the video a worker in a cherry picker leans in and adjusts the pusher angle slightly.
What I couldn’t tell from the retraction video was whether they needed to do anything special to pusher (the smaller rod
Oops. Trailing partial sentence above is an editing error.
In other SpaceX news from the NSF forum, one member is reporting that last week’s ASAP meeting revealed that “some undesirable anomalies were observed” during the first two Block 5 engine tear downs, and that SpaceX is making “a couple short term fixes” prior to the DM1 uncrewed flight test. I believe that many core watchers had expected the DM1 core, # B1051, to have left Hawthorne for McGregor by now. Perhaps those engine modifications have delayed it a bit.
“Though SpaceX has clearly succeeded in simplifying and automating this process, it remains slow and complex. In time this will get easier, but right now, this remains state of the art.”
Indeed, this will be entirely disrupted, when the BFR Booster simply lands back in its cradle.
Back to the leg pusher, this Teslarati photo of the West Coast booster B1048 (from last Wednesday’s Iridium Next 7 launch) shows the stainless steel cup which the pusher bears against.
Kirk,
I’m going to go with the “planned as just a test” option. They did not seem set up to secure the leg to the body.
When they install the legs, it is almost certainly not in the open position but in the closed position, so this is probably new territory for them.
My guess is that they were there to prove the concept, to test the hoisting equipment, and to verify the methods and procedures. They may also be investigating what it takes to get that pusher to seat properly in the stainless cup during retraction.