All due respect, but SRB's are simply not a useful reuse economics model
for soft-landing recovered liquid booster stages. As I recall, between
the effects of double-digit-G's water impact and salt immersion, the
only part of the SRB's NASA was actually willing to reuse were the
stripped steel casings, after they were scoured out then checked for cracks.
So, it was essentially built-from-scratch SRB's every time, save for
steel casings that even new were a fraction of the overall cost.
Agreed, the economics of that were never likely to make sense.
It remains to be seen what level of teardown and refurb Blue's and
SpaceX's boosters will require, but the equivalent of an SRB "refurb" is
way over at the far end of the range of probabilities.
Further, the amount of refurb needed is NOT some fixed constant. I
believe both Blue and SpaceX are treating this as an opportunity to
discover what parts of their boosters do or don't need beefing up to
reliably survive multiple flight cycles without refurb. IOW, the
results from these first recoveries are the start of an improvement
process, not some final result they'll have to build an economical reuse
operation from.
Looking at these operations from a traditional industry perspective can
lead one to assume the designs are largely fixed and very difficult to
change, and thus must be factored into economic calculations largely
as-is. But SpaceX in particular has made it very clear they're not
following this traditional frozen-design model at all, but rather one of
continuous incremental improvement. Assuming such incremental
improvement won't be part of the process of bringing reuse into the
routine operation strikes me as very likely to be a significant error.
Henry
On 12/22/2015 6:28 AM, William Claybaugh wrote:
Marcus:
As I recall, two SRB's sank. The remainder were recovered and reused.
There is enough remaining hardware to do the first couple of SLS
launches; I believe the pacing item is rear fulcrum's.
In our enthusiasm for SpaceX's impressive achievement we should not
overlook that reuse of the SRB's never made economic sense: flight rates
needed to hit about 18 per year to reach break even. While the recovery
costs were around $300k per SRB, refurbishment cost many millions--more
than the cost of a new motor. That is the issue SpaceX--and Blue
Origin--now confront.
Bill
On Monday, December 21, 2015, Marcus D. Leech <mleech@xxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:mleech@xxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
On 12/21/2015 09:51 PM, Paul Breed wrote:
The space shuttle tossed most of the hardware and required aYes, STS is a hard one to pigeonhole in terms of flight regimes.
billion dollars of refurb between flights, I've heard it called a
100Ton payload fairing. ;-)
They ditch the LOX/H2 tankage, which is a bit like throwing an
apartment building away on every launch.
They did recover the SRBs, a useful fraction of the time. How often
were SRBs actually reusable? Anyone have stats?
But the Shuttle itself, yeah, is payload that comes back.
I think a boost-back scheme, that SpaceX has successfully
demonstrated tonight, is in a noticeably-different category, and one
that deserves
much celebration, even in the context of historical machines like
STS.
On Mon, Dec 21, 2015 at 6:42 PM, Monroe L. King Jr.
<monroe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','monroe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx');>> wrote:
For some reason the Space Shuttle just didn't seem as real to
me as
this. I put it right up there with Niel landing on the moon.
I'm not
even sure why it feels that good.
That felt GOOD!
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [AR] Re: SpaceX F9 Launch/Update -- Live Link
> From: "Tim Wilson" <timwilson3@xxxxxxx
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','timwilson3@xxxxxxx');>>
> Date: Mon, December 21, 2015 7:34 pm
> To: <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx');>>
>
>
> You missed the whole Space Shuttle thing, right? ;)
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Henry Vanderbilt" <hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx');>>
> To: <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx');>>
> Sent: Monday, December 21, 2015 9:26 PM
> Subject: [AR] Re: SpaceX F9 Launch/Update -- Live Link
>
>
> Nothing wrong with being excited and showing it. I'm pretty
pumped
> myself... I'm coming up on thirty years pushing these
ideas, though, so
> I tend to remember to also answer the question "did what?"
for anyone
> who had other work to do and hadn't been paying as close
attention this
> evening.
>
> Plenty of hard work yet to do there. But, dang! Between
Blue Origin's
> booster recovery a few weeks ago and this, it's pretty
clear it's not
> just luck, or a stunt - we really are finally well down the
road to
> learning how to reuse actual useful space-launch rockets.
>
> Henry
>
>
>
> On 12/21/2015 6:53 PM, Monroe L. King Jr. wrote:
> > So awesome! Please forgive my excitement in my last
post. UNBELIEVABLE!
> > They really did it! I cried and I'm not ashamed about one bit.
> >
> > GO SPACE-X! GO!
> >
> >> -------- Original Message --------
> >> Subject: [AR] Re: SpaceX F9 Launch/Update -- Live Link
> >> From: Henry Vanderbilt <hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx');>>
> >> Date: Mon, December 21, 2015 6:41 pm
> >> To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx');>
> >>
> >>
> >> It's a twofer - the second stage and payload is in orbit,
and the first
> >> stage is upright back on the landing pad with engine off.
> >>
> >>
> >> On 12/21/2015 3:09 PM, Henry Vanderbilt wrote:
> >>> (twitter)
> >>> ORBCOMM
> >>> @ORBCOMM_Inc
> >>>
> >>> "UPDATE: A 5 minute launch window opens at 8:29pm ET
this evening for
> >>> the #OG2 Mission 2 launch..."
> >>>
> >>> On 12/20/2015 7:37 PM, Henry Vanderbilt wrote:
> >>>> New launch window is 8:33 pm ET Monday.
> >>>>
> >>>> On 12/20/2015 3:15 PM, Henry Vanderbilt wrote:
> >>>>> And Elon Musk's twitter feed now shows this:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> "Just reviewed mission params w SpaceX team. Monte
Carlo runs show
> >>>>> tmrw
> >>>>> night has a 10% higher chance of a good landing.
Punting 24 hrs."
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Hmm. Winds? FWIW, the Canaveral weather includes a
"beach hazard
> >>>>> bulletin" warning of rough surf and strong offshore
winds this
> >>>>> evening.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On 12/20/2015 11:30 AM, (Redacted sender monsieurboo
for DMARC) wrote:
> >>>>>> And the SpaceX link for live video of the action is
quite simply
> >>>>>> their
> >>>>>> current home page:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> http://www.spacex.com/
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Cheers,
> >>>>>> Mark L.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Subject: [AR] Re: F9 Launch/Update Thread
> >>>>>> From: Henry Vanderbilt <hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx');>
> >>>>>> <mailto:hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx');>>>
> >>>>>> Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2015 09:51:19 -0700
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> SpaceX worked through the issues and got their static
fire test done
> >>>>>> late Friday. They currently hope to launch in a brief
window at 8:29
> >>>>>> pm
> >>>>>> eastern Sunday. (Next window would be Tuesday.) Best
wishes to their
> >>>>>> operations crew for a successful flight in time for
all to be home
> >>>>>> for
> >>>>>> Christmas.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >
> >