SpaceX – how to catch a falling rocket.

AMAZING!!

HTF can people be so clever to work out how to nail the return to the launch tower basically to perfection?

I am in absolute awe …. And a little disappointed there was no massive RUD which I thought was pretty much guaranteed!

Like catching a fly with chopsticks just on a much much larger scale!

I feel conflicted over SpaceX. They do some incredible science and engineering but are owned and led by a grade A ****.

I can’t believe That just happened, absolutely amazing.

Proper bonkers

Link of just the catch:

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1845442658397049011

Very impressive.

Missed it live but I’ll remember that I was driving home from work on the m66 when it happened for the rest of my life. Winky eye emoji.

Hopefully the ship has an equally impressive landing.

HTF can people be so clever to work out how to nail the return to the launch tower basically to perfection?

Meh, Blofeld did basically the same thing but from inside a super secret hollowed-out volcano. 😉

I can’t believe That just happened, absolutely amazing.

Yeah, AI-generated video is pretty impressive sometimes! 😉

feel conflicted over SpaceX. They do some incredible science and engineering but are owned and led by a grade A ****.

I ignore the latter and just focus on the former!!

End of the day he has the basic idea but he’s not the one doing the physics, maths and coding.

its not that impressive. Gerry Anderson was doing it in the ’60s

Meh, Blofeld did basically the same thing but from inside a super secret hollowed-out volcano. 😉

Makes you think…

Clever stuff, just saw it !

It’s brilliant. The Saturn 5 rockets cost the equivalent of 2.2billion dollars per launch. The cost was one of the main reasons, along with the dodgy decisions leading to fatalities, the US  cut back on funding space exploration and why we haven’t been back to the moon since 1972. If they can make it more affordable then it’s got to help the space exploration cause.

Roll on moonbase alpha and a mission to Mars. If I live to see it.

Roll on moonbase alpha

Moon Unit Alpha and Moon Unit Zappa.

#austinpowers

but are owned and led by a grade A ****.

I dont think its just Musk. Ego driven and they achieve a lot, and you’ll probably find most at that level are complete 4r5eholes. I think narcissism probably comes with the territory.

The science, engineering and ambition is incredible!  I do agree though,  Elon = weapons grade ?

It’s good stuff, but thrust vector control has been moving in leaps and bounds over the past generation due to computing advances, it’s opening up a lot of design improvements across many fields.

I was expecting a near-failure, and tbh thought that was what we were getting right up til the last moments, really impressed. I love how <unconvincing> it is. Like, it’s real but it looks fake as ****, just like the falcon landings (and especialyl the twinned ones)

I wonder what the environmental consequences are?

There was a massive cloud of crap hanging around in the air after it took off which it then added to on the way back down, plus it was venting something after it landed

Are they planning on landing crewed rockets like this, or is it ‘just’ the boosters? Previous results and the margin for error/time from detecting a problem to a massive explosion don’t seem compatible with having people balanced on the top. But maybe it’s no worse than the launch once they’ve tested enough? I suppose you have to do something like that for mars/moon missions or no one’s getting back to orbit, but they at least have lower gravity.

The cost was one of the main reasons, along with the dodgy decisions leading to fatalities, the US  cut back on funding space exploration and why we haven’t been back to the moon since 1972.

We haven’t been back to the moon because the entire reason for going there in the first place was political.  In short, there’s no point.

What fatalities are you referring to?  Apollo 1?

My main problem with musk is that the spacemen look like they are going to a fancy dress party and have had to use a pair of wellies for space boots.

Spacemen should look **** epic.

There was a massive cloud of crap hanging around in the air after it took off which it then added to on the way back down, plus it was venting something after it landed

It burns methane if that’s any help.

Apparently it’s environmental impact is miniscule compared to other modes of transport…. Such as shipping and cruise liners.

Dunno.

I think Muskrat is allowed to play with toy rockets and look at all the whizzy equipment and gloat about his company, while being kept as far away from the real things that might fall down, go boom as is humanly possible!

The ability to actually catch a descending rocket stage, with what is effectively a giant pair of kitchen tongs is astonishing, certainly not something I ever expected to see happen. Synchronised rocket stages landing on a floating platform, hmm, maybe not beyond the realm of possibility, but using giant tweezers, nope!

It is impressive, but the rocket had pretty much landed anyway* and the tongs just seemed to kind grap/guide it that last bit.

*Which is a hell of a feat in itself, it was pretty much just hovering in the right place before it was ‘grabbed’.

But also it’s Musk… the guy is a proper **** loony, and not in a good way.

FunkyDunc
Free Member

I wonder what the environmental consequences are?

I mean, not great, they burn a load of hydrocarbons and occasionally blow one up. And the local damage around boca chica has been pretty bad (it is barking mad that they were allowed to build there tbf). In particular some of the emissions are high atmosphere which is believed to have a more significant and lasting effect.

But in the grand scheme of things, the commercial aviation industry emits more in a few hours than all our space launches do in a year. I hereby donate my reduced air travel emissions since 2019 to cool rockets.

(stuff like this test should actively reduce the environmental impact, we can reuse more stuff rather than burning it up or throwing it in the sea… On the other hand of course is there’s a cost saving too so we’ll probably fly more launches. Starship if it realises even half its potential basically makes it possible to launch stuff that we just wouldn’t today so that’ll be impactful. On the other, third hand, it will also enable us to launch more stuff in a single launch. Complicated. Without a doubt our space emissions are going up but there’s tweaking in there)

I wonder how much money is saved by having these reusable rockets. Probably millions but it surely must be peanuts compared to the total cost of R&D and all the non reusable elements.

Cougar2 I was referring to the space shuttle Challenger and the dodgy decision to launch in cold conditions with a known issue with the o rings on the solid boosters. NASA had a Boeing moment and although more shuttle missions were flown the funding was gradually reduced.

The political will to beat the commies fizzled out in 1972 with Apollo 17 but the scientific will still remains. Now we are in the private/ public era with Space X and others at least things are moving again. It’s amazing that man hasn’t travelled out of earth orbit since 1972. What happened to our George Malllory spirit of adventure.

dc1988Full Member
I wonder how much money is saved by having these reusable rockets. Probably millions but it surely must be peanuts compared to the total cost of R&D and all the non reusable elements

These are properly reusable rather than the pretend resuable Shuttle SRBs. Many active boosters have now done over 20 missions each. Seems like production/service will be making an increasing impact against the R&D figures

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_first-stage_boosters#Presumed_active

What happened to our George Malllory spirit of adventure.

We’ve ticked off the moon (sort of), and after that choices become rather limited.

The R&D has already been spent, if the plan is to do this activity a lot, then reusing components is always good to do, but safety then comes into it with appropriate lifing of these components.

The SpaceX development reminds me a bit of the Harrier vs the F35B, both had Thrust Vector Control, but the harrier was mandrolic, compared to F35, which has 21st century technology running the TVC and monitoring everything, so is amazingly precise.

Nothing special. Autopark unit, duct tape and soldering is all. Reverse parallel parking has been a feature of Tesla cars for a while 🙂

The US X-37B automated space plane is on its seventh flight, its elliptical orbit dips into the earth’s atmosphere to either burn up some unwanted modules or act as a brake to change its orbit. It does that without using extra fuel, which is handy when you launched it last year and need to watch your mpg 🙂

Landing means you need a landing system, this is just reinforced gridfins for capture.  In essence, you’ve move the landing system to the toward which saves weight.  Every kg of weight launched needs around 150kg of fuel to LEO.

Cost savings for reusability are only a small part of it.  ASL believe that the cost savings vs disposal are 20-30% max as the reusable rocket is both more expensive and heavier and requires rework.  Launch cadence is the real benefit.  You can simply do more and it’s the cadence, not the cost which hammers your competitors.

Apparently it’s environmental impact is miniscule compared to other modes of transport…. Such as shipping and cruise liners.

Dunno.

Are they comparing 1,2 or 3 launches with the hundreds of thousands of flights made every year?

i refuse to beluieve that thing is more fuel economical than a passenger jet. isnt methane the worst greenhouse gas? i had pressumed it would be burning something like hydrogen.

and without wanting to be a naysayer, as its undoubtebly incredible, i wonder what the energy cost is to have the fuel to park it like that, and the fuel to take that extra fuel up, vs an unpowered splashdown, and recovery with a boat.

you are presuming this is all about landing somewhere where you have an ocean to splashdown in and for a boat to float in….

Are they comparing 1,2 or 3 launches with the hundreds of thousands of flights made every year?

Is the data available? The first methane-fuelled rocket to make earth orbit did so barely a year ago. Methane’s bonus is that it leaves a cleaner engine ready for re-use

i refuse to beluieve that thing is more fuel economical than a passenger jet. isnt methane the worst greenhouse gas? i had pressumed it would be burning something like hydrogen.

Methane is worse than CO2 (but far from the strongest greenhouse gas) but they will be aiming to burn it rather than release it unburned into the atmosphere. In which case you end up with CO2 and water.

(Water accounts for about 50% of the greenhouse effect – but its cycle is not really comparable to CO2, Methane etc).

You don’t need Thunderbirds or Jame Bond villains. Proving that nothing is really new or innovative, The US Navy were looking at vertical capture back in the 1950’s. Must be a bunch easier with computers doing all the thinking these days

Ryan X-13 Verti-jet. 

Landing means you need a landing system, this is just reinforced gridfins for capture.

It lands on itty-bitty little feet that stick out from the side, not the grid fins.

an unpowered splashdown, and recovery with a boat.

AFAIK that was a major cost with the SRBs, dropping a red hot rocket full of all sorts of corroding materials, electronics, hydraulics etc from several miles up into a huge salty sea, letting it sink and then recover, requires a *massive* clean up and refurbishment.

Not that the SpaceX refurbs are cheap. Just bugger all thermal shock and salt damage to deal with.

Superheavy is still supersonic when the engines relight.  An unpowered ‘splashdown’ would result in thousands of little bits.  alternatively, a HUGE set of parachutes with all the weight that entails.

But, what they really want is cadence, launch, land, fuel up, launch, land, and repeat.  That’s never going to happen if it lands in the sea.

Once you get over how crazy this is, it makes a lot of sense.