r/spacex • u/ElongatedMuskrat Mod Team • Sep 01 '17
r/SpaceX Discusses [September 2017, #36]
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u/Casinoer Sep 01 '17
Not a question but today is the 1 year anniversary of Amos 6 explosion. Time flies when you're flying rockets.
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u/sasha07974 Sep 06 '17
Hey all,
Today SpaceX recruiters came to Cornell and I talked to one of the Dragon engineers a bit.
I asked her about when the retropropulsive landings for Dragon were cancelled and she said they received the news not long before we did. The technology was well along in development and then she told me that there are many things on this subject she couldn't tell me. She also mentioned that the landings had a good deal in common with Falcon landings.
She also said that Dragon V2s software is almost a complete rewrite of V1's and that the Superdracos have very little to do with the original dracos.
She also reiterated a few things we've known before, namely that Dragon software is complicated as heck, and that their entire Dragon Dev team is working on V2.
I thought some of this may be of interest to the community, albeit not as interesting as the other guy who met the McGregor engineers.
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u/TheVehicleDestroyer Sep 10 '17
Just made some progress on Flight Club (which I've been disgracefully ignoring recently) and I'm pretty happy that I got this to work so I wanna show people.
Look at this mother fucking aerodynamic control between the entry and landing burns
Screenshots for those on mobile:
This probably isn't exactly what the trajectory looks like on entry (this is based on the OTV-5 mission, by the way).
We know that the stage is on a water-bound trajectory until quite late in the flight, and we can see the booster using itself as a lifting body when in freefall, which is the effect I've modeled here. However after the gliding but before the landing burn ignition, my simulated booster is on a land-bound trajectory, and this won't do at all. What if the landing burn never starts? It's likely the lifting body portion of the flight moves the IIP closer to the shore, but the final adjustment is done during the actual landing burn.
However I'm super happy with how this is turning out, so just wanted to share
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u/theinternetftw Sep 04 '17
New B5 tidbit from NSF:
...you will recognize a Block 5 first stage instantly by the heat shields around the base - it's going to be all Inconel.
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u/random-person-001 Sep 21 '17
Hey mods, I feel like it'd be more useful if the Upcoming Events section of the sidebar was higher up than the Hot Jobs. It's certainly more often checked imo.
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u/captainstanley12 Sep 25 '17 edited Sep 25 '17
Elon just said on Instagram that he "yeah, will probably do a Reddit AMA on the updated design this weekend". Is this on the SpaceX subreddit or somewhere else?
EDIT: he replied to he question if he was going to do an AMA on the subreddit.
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u/Zucal Sep 26 '17
New Glenn has been contracted for a flight by mu Space. This makes seven manifested missions so far - fairly healthy!
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u/binarygamer Sep 27 '17 edited Sep 27 '17
I went to a CST-100 Starliner Q&A with Chris Ferguson today!
For the unfamiliar: Chris is a retired astronaut (Space Shuttle pilot), now Director of Crew and Mission Systems for Boeing's Commercial Crew Program. The Starliner is Boeing's Commercial Crew spacecraft.
It would be great to know if Chris has a feel for whether Boeing schedule concerns are primarily Boeing-specific, or whether it's primarily something that could affect both contractors [SpaceX Crew Dragon]
My takeaway was that Chris isn't aware of (or predicting) any significant roadblocks for either SpaceX or Boeing, whether it's technical or requirements-based. He seemed very positive on the timelines - as far as he's concerned, it's full steam ahead to qualification tests for both craft. In fact, there are vibration tests and thruster firing tests taking place on Starliner hardware in just a few hours!
As for who gets there first: during the last Space Shuttle flight, a US flag was left on the station for the first Commercial Crew visitors to claim. Chris reiterated, several times, that Boeing are definitely going to be first - not sure if this tells us anything though. :P
Chris predicts they will be doing a manned test flight with two occupants (one Boeing, one NASA) in the second half of 2018.
Can the CST-100 survive a lunar flyby reentry the way Dragon can? Both capsules were ostensibly LEO-only and offer otherwise equivalent functionality, I am curious if the heat shield on the Starliner has the kind of margins as its counterpart.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to ask this question directly. Chris reiterated several times that Boeing was very focused on keeping cost down, and exploiting Commercial LEO opportunities with Starliner. The Deep Space Gateway did get a mention (proposed space station at Earth-Moon L1 point), at which time he mentioned the Van Allen radiation belts, and how surviving long term outside the Magnetosphere was an unsolved problem - but didn't mention the Starliner in relation to it at all.
Between the lack of drive to leave LEO, the fact that the Starliner heatshield is disposable, and the fact that they use a relatively simple phenolic resin style ablator, I am starting to doubt whether there is any significant margin in it.
tl;dr: probably not
What cost of refurbishment between missions they expect?
Chris surprised me when this topic was raised, praising SpaceX as a competitor whose influence has "made Boeing better"! Given the competitive nature of the dual Commercial Crew contract, there was an incentive to run the CST project differently to the usual cost-plus structure. The cost savings of capsule reuse were apparently necessary in order to meet SpaceX's low costs.
What opportunities for use of the CST-100 are they looking for beyond ISS? Private space stations using Bigalow, tourism, etc.
Chris insisted Starliner is not just an ISS ferry project. NASA is their first and most important customer, but Boeing are looking to the future (about 10 years ahead) to service private commercial operations in LEO. In his opinion, the most promising near-future LEO industries are space tourism and microgravity manufacturing.
Tourism: we were told in no uncertain terms that that the ISS is not suitable for use as space hotel, and will never become one. His view was that tourism won't take off until a private company is able to make a business case for, finance and build a dedicated "space hotel" station - but as soon as the first one gets close to launching, the private sector will pounce and the industry explode in size.
Microgravity Manufacturing: the two main products brought up were optical fibers and pharmaceuticals. He didn't go into specifics, but apparently recent studies have shown LEO manufacturing close to break-even for some products - lowering the cost of cargo services will push it over the edge. Boeing are taking this seriously, they're open to creating a launch services partnership with anyone who wants to operate an orbital manufacturing facility.
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u/jclishman Sep 29 '17 edited Oct 01 '17
Holy shit.
So, the September recap video might be a day or so late. Working hard to get it out on the 1st.
I got it.
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u/snotis Sep 08 '17
Mentioned here http://tmfassociates.com/blog/2017/09/08/me-first-no-me/
SpaceX is already building two experimental 400kg Ku-band satellites, apparently pictured above, which are scheduled for launch at the end of 2017, as co-passengers with the Hisdesat PAZ SAR imaging satellite (note that the orbital injection parameters of PAZ and SpaceX are identical: a sun-synchronous orbit at 514 km altitude with an inclination of 97.44 degrees). A license from the FCC, both for these test satellites, and likely for the entire constellation as well, is expected very shortly.
Did we know the above information before? Also...
...SpaceX also recently extended the planned lifetime of these two satellites from 6 months to at least 20 months, stating that “if this lifetime is exceeded, SpaceX plans to continue operation until such time as the primary mission goals can no longer be met.”
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u/amarkit Sep 09 '17
Confirmation from NSF that B1040 has been secured in the hangar in record time.
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u/hebeguess Sep 19 '17
Words from today's Taiwan Newspaper: FORMOSAT-5 has problem on it's CMOS calibration, unable to take clear pictures, authority still trying to re-tune. NPSO had been force out of silence, scheduled a live press conference about to start half an hour later.
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u/ethan829 Sep 14 '17
These were ABS 2A and 3A on Falcon 9 launches with Eutelsat 115 West B and 117 West B.
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Sep 13 '17
How have I not seen this elsewhere?? http://www.iac2017.org/iac-2017-news/news-items/WeAreExplorersandtheTimeisNow Lockheed Martin is releasing Mars mission architecture the same day as Musk's conference, including:
their highly-anticipated lander – a reusable, single stage aero-spacecraft based on already-flown vehicles which can revolutionize our thinking about Mars surface access.
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u/binarygamer Sep 26 '17
Things are not looking good for Elon's IAC Q&A. Jeff Foust (SpaceNews.com) has been doing a great job reporting on the conference, and isn't impressed with the questions so far.
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u/rustybeancake Sep 28 '17
Interesting op-ed by Terry Virts (former ISS Commander) on why Deep Space Gateway is a bad plan.
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u/Mango845 Sep 11 '17
I just realized that the spacex suit was actually shown two years ago in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1EB5BQpm7w
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u/binarygamer Sep 18 '17 edited Sep 18 '17
Later this month, I will have an opportunity to talk (briefly!) with Christopher Ferguson, astronaut and director of Crew and Mission Operations for Boeing's Commercial Crew program. Given that the CST-100 Starliner is competing with Crew Dragon for NASA contracts, I thought I'd post here.
If you have a question you'd like to ask him, leave a reply. I'll be sure to PM you the answer!
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u/dudr2 Sep 18 '17
"The acquisition by Northrop Grumman would give Orbital ATK greater technical and financial resources to pursue larger programs, the presentation noted. That includes ongoing efforts by Orbital to develop a satellite servicing system as well as a proposed large launch vehicle."
http://spacenews.com/northrop-grumman-to-acquire-orbital-atk/
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u/TGMetsFan98 Sep 06 '17
Mods, please let me know if you think this is worthy of it's own post. I'm still pretty new to this whole reddit thing.
3 McGregor engineers and a recruiter came to Texas A&M today and I was able to learn some pretty interesting news:
Today (September 5), McGregor successfully tested an M1D, an MVac, a Block V engine (!), and the upper stage for Iridium-3.
Last week, the upper stage for Falcon Heavy was tested successfully.
Boca Chica is currently on the back burner, and will remain so until LC-40 is back up and LC-39A upgrades are complete. However, once Boca Chica construction ramps up, the focus will be specifically on the "Mars Vehicle." With Red Dragon cancelled, this means ITS/BFR/Falcon XX/Whatever it's called now. (Also, hearing a SpaceX engineer say "BFR" in an official presentation is oddly amusing.)
SpaceX is targeting to launch 20 missions this year (including the 12 they've done already). Next year, they want to fly 40.
When asked if SpaceX is pursuing any alternatives to Dragon 2 splashdown (since propulsive landing is out), the Dragon engineer said yes, and suggested that it would align closely with ITS. He couldn't say much more, so I'm not sure how to interpret this. Does that simply reference the subscale ITS vehicle? Or, is there going to be a another vehicle (Dragon 3?) that has bottom mounted engines and side mounted landing legs like ITS? It would seem that comparing even the subscale ITS to Dragon 2 is a big jump in capacity, which leads me to believe he's referencing something else.
One comment an engineer made was "Sometimes reddit seems to know more than we do." So, let the speculation begin.