Well I'll chime in a bit on this. As I actually have a fair bit of
experience in the whole ocean going operations bit.
I used to be an Alaskan commercial fisherman from when I was about 14, and
my family has owned and operated a king crab fishing vessel my whole life.
I also now work at a launch range.
First thing, It is immensely more difficult, to tie up to or land on an
unmanned platform then one with people on the other side helping you. Being
able to tie up to and board your launch platform will likely be your main
limiting factor in your ability to perform your launch operations. It
doesn't really matter if the rocket will handle the trajectory perturbation
from the heavy seas if you can't get your personal on/off the platform.
Even if the barge is okay with the heavy seas, your support boat will have
a hard time tieing up to it, since the barge is moving in a much different
manner than your support boat will be. Our boat does occasionally tie up to
a floating processor in 20 ft seas. It almost always breaks somthing and is
very alarming; even with everything is set-up to do such a thing and people
helping on the processor.
If you don't require any people to do any operations after leaving port,
you can get around this issue. However, having worked on initial test
flights for new orbital vehicles, there will almost always be something
off-nominal and unexpected taking place right before you are trying to
launch; that would require a person on-site to fix. So you could do a bit
of both, with having the option of not having needing people to do final
prep on the rocket. Just know that if you head out in anything more than
4-6 ft seas you are probably going to have to end up returning to port if
anything goes wrong unless you have measures in place to safely get people
on there.
There are ways to get people on there in higher seas, but it is
exponentially increases the danger. Transferring between vessels at sea, is
almost without exception *the most dangerous operation on a vessel.*
Setting an anchor comes a very close second. If you fall in the water
between two vessels in any sort of sea state, you are pretty much dead.
It is very difficult to do any sort of operation in heavy seas, or even
just in motion. A lot more than you would imagine. I've on several
occasions fooled myself into going "oh I can finish working on that
underway", then actually going underway and going "well crap this sucks."
I'd plan on having most major and minor stuff done before you leave port.
The less you have to do at sea the more happy you will be. Though a large
enough barge can make this not such a big deal. Its mostly just when things
are rocking back and fourth or moving in general, it just makes everything
more difficult. For the record, I have cooked scrambled eggs in 25' seas,
that was a very hard won breakfast...
Costs of operating... the worst enemy of any marine vessel, is sitting
idle. Which is a problem for you as rockets do not yet fly every day and
there is likely to be plenty of downtime for the system. Things break
themselves at an astonishing rate just sitting there, and if stuff isn't
run regularly it probably isn't going to work next time you go to use it.
So you will get all the way out to your launch site, only to have to turn
around because some pump corroded some part and wouldn't turn on. Boats
require an unreasonable amount of upkeep to keep healthy in general. You
have to redo the anti-fouling paint on the hull every two years. For a 100'
vessel like ours that is about $40,000. The sacrificial zincs need to be
checked and replaced as needed every year. We replace about 10-30 of the
40 lb zincs each year. The hull also needs to be cleaned of seaweed,
barnacles, clams, and other growth even with the anti-fouling paint, every
year. If you don't want your boat to look like a rusty heap, you need to do
some remedial painting of the top coat (clearing rust boils and re-priming,
and then putting a top coat on) about every 6 months. A full blown paintjob
of the above water sections should be done every 2-4 years depending on
wear. Engines should have their oil changed for every 7 days to 14 days of
running. We go through about 250 gallons of engine oil in a month and a
half of operating. Everything has filters that need changed, there are
rubber belts and seals that rot out and need replaced. We burn about
250-300 gallons of diesel a day, and we are one of the most economical
boats that I know of in our size and capability.
Expect a lot of unexpected repairs. We lose a hydraulic line about once a
month. Winches wear out, seals go out on your engine, pumps ingest objects,
bearings wear out. For about every 100 feet you increase in size over 100
feet I would roughly expect an order of magnitude more maintenance costs.
I'd estimate it costs us about $75,000 to $200,000 a year on average to
keep the vessel in a good operating condition. Keep in mind this is for a
work boat, something like a freighter will have a different set of costs,
as they have a different set of equipment and use case. You also will be
based in hurricane country. So there is a significant chance you can get
substantial damage if a bit one comes through. The old adage of "Boats are
holes in the water that you pour money into" Is not much of an
exaggeration. Your problems are a bit worse with aerospace parts, as they
are already expensive and will only wear out faster with the salt
environment and the vibration.
My personal opinion, (which might be a bit biased as I work at a launch
site). It would very likely be a lot less expensive, and a lot faster
development in the long run, to do your initial launches off of a
terrestrial launch site, then once you get that part down pat transition to
an ocean launch platform. Or at the very least, leverage an existing
range's assets as much while still using your barge as you can to stagger
your development effort as much as possible. As I can almost promise the
ground support equipment has almost just as much of a developmental hurdle
as the rocket itself. Rocket development is hard enough, than to also have
scrubbed launch attempts from marine issues on top of that
Just do your best not to fall into the biggest rocket engineer pitfall and
try to reinvent the basics on how to operate on water. As things a seasoned
mariner does are usually there is a reason, even if it isn't immediately
obvious why. With the main result of ignoring existing experience, usually
just being that you find out why it was done that way later and at your
cost.
Good luck with your vehicle, it is always cool to see sea launched systems!
On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 7:57 PM Monroe L. King Jr. <
monroe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Frying Pan Tower fractional ownership?"
Perhaps? I do know it cost millions to decommission rigs. What we need
is some government support that would allow the decommissioning to be
released to a non-profit. One that could afford insurance and
decommissioning in the future or allow the oil company to get a break
for allowing a non-profit to lease and maintain a platform until
decommissioning.
We would need a few high level people to actually care is really all.
It makes sense in a lot of ways. The only issue that needs to be worked
out is decommissioning because that's what everyone really cares about.
Monroe
-------- Original Message --------monroe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [AR] Re: FAA licencing a 20 mi offshore launch.
From: DH Barr <dhbarr@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, March 11, 2019 11:22 pm
To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Frying Pan Tower fractional ownership?
On Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 12:52 AM Monroe L. King Jr. <
wrote:in
Moderate seas are about 8ft with 80% of the highest swells being 22ft
personsrough seas. The nominal sea would be 4ft.
I would suggest you do some nominal rocket launches using large solids
to gain some experience with the FAA and sea launches.
Run some drills using a spar buoy in a bay or any calm body of water.
Mockup and just attempt your launch procedure.
You need to have some sea dogs on your team can't all be landlubbers.
(owning a yacht does not qualify anyone to be a sea dog) I'm talking
about men that work on the ocean every day.
It's very easy to use https://skyvector.com/ and see the flight paths
and vectors used by commercial aircraft. The sectional charts will
include everything such as military restrictions.
I would avoid working with the Navy under all circumstances if you
intend to do commercial launches.
That 12 mile rule was invented so gambling ships could make money. I
would not count on that to fly with the FAA. Last time a checked the
real line was 75 miles to reach international waters but I'm sure that
has changed by now. I believe they stagger several lines with different
rules. I'm not current with what they are.
I recently checked on the launch radius and it was the number of
Wewithin 50 miles. For insurance purposes.
I really wish an amateur group could obtain use of an offshore rig for
the purpose of facilitating and accommodating startups in the space
industry. I think that would be the ideal scenario. I'd be willing to
put a lot of time in on a project like that.
Good luck!
Monroe
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [AR] Re: FAA licencing a 20 mi offshore launch.
From: David Summers <dvidsum@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, March 11, 2019 6:52 pm
To: snyder@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: arocket <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
As Henry mentioned, no matter what you need to involve the FAA-AST.
grainhaven't gotten deep into discussions yet, so take all this with a
existingof
salt. We also started under the assumptions of a launch from an
alreadyrange (someone else was going to pay for that, so why not), so we
aren'thad a lot of the work done.
1. We are beyond the control of air traffic control officially.
Unofficially, we will obviously need to issue NOTAMS, etc. There
Frenchthat many flights to the south of the big island, though. (Only
study...Polynesia)
2. I have yet to experience the joy of the environmental impact
anyone, and3. Range safety is a lot easier when you launch 20 miles from
theaim away from everyone! The monte carlo simulation says that we meet
arelegal requirements without even a way to shut the engine down! (We
shipnot
doing that, of course. We have manual and automatic abort methods.)
4. We aren't exporting, as long as we don't land anywhere else. The
weis
a floating chunk of US Territory.
5. The FCC also claims jurisdiction even in international waters, so
youstill have to comply with the rules.
Keeping launch platforms stable is actually fairly straightforward -
foruse a spar bouy. It really helps to have a small and light vehicle
likelythat, though! Right now, we are planning on 15 ft waves. We can
gethandle bigger if needed, but I'm not sure I want to be on a boat to
weout
there in 15 ft waves, even if the platform handles it OK. (Maybe if
swayinvolve the Navy - I understand they have a few vessels that don't
bein
Pearl)south
Thanks!
-David Summers
On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 12:34 PM <snyder@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
David,
I am Curious on how the FAA licensing is going.
Since you are well beyond the 12 mile limit,
(but inside the 200 mi exclusive economic zone) I am wondering
how much easier that might be than being closer to shore or at
a conventional launch range.
I had heard a quote from the FAA that they didn't really have much
jurisdiction beyond 12 miles, but that may have been just in
air traffic control.
ATC ?
Environmental impact ?
Range safety ?
Export controls ?
Is it general FAA or the "Office" ?
Oddly enough, our satellite had big problems with the FCC, who
gives out , much delayed and crippled, licenses for satellite
launches. And sometime the radios on board.
Thanks for any information, and I understand if there are
proprietary limitations to what you can say.
-Gary.
PS: I suppose a comment on the waves and Swells and keeping
you launch platform stable would be interesting also.
From: David Summers <dvidsum@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2019 15:09:30 -0600
Subject: [AR] Re: What makes a useful launch vehicle?
Because of FAA licensing, we have just one launch point, 20 miles
of
the big island of Hawaii, in international waters. I'm going to
ofliving
there anyway, might as well launch there!
Eventually, we will likely be able to launch from any large body
water.
-David