SpaceX to soft land Falcon 9

[dragon]

So they plan to land the rocket instead of ditching it in the ocean. Here's to hoping it goes good as thei would be good for the cost of getting things to orbit.

SpaceX, Elon Musk’s poster child of the commercial space travel revolution, is about to attempt the first ever soft landing of a heavy space launch vehicle. On March 16, SpaceX mission CRS-3 will lift off from Cape Canaveral on a resupply mission to the International Space Station. Usually, the massive primary stage of the rocket would fall into the Atlantic ocean after launch — but in this case, it will sprout some metal legs and use what’s left of its rocket fuel to slowly return to Earth. This is perhaps the single most important step in SpaceX’s stated goal of reducing the cost of space travel by a factor of 10, eventually leading to the human colonization of Mars.
The Falcon 9 is very large. Simply throwing them away into the ocean is rather wasteful.

The Falcon 9 is very large. Simply throwing them away into the ocean is rather wasteful.

One of the primary reasons that the human exploration of space is moving so slowly is cost. Yes, you can argue that space agencies like NASA and ESA should receive more funding, but at the end of the day it’s still excruciatingly expensive for humanity to send stuff into space. For heavy lift vehicles, which are required to lift large satellites, equipment, and supplies into space, it costs somewhere in the region of $10,000 to lift a single pound ($22,000/kg) into orbit around the Earth. It costs even more if you want to propel that mass out of the Earth’s gravity and over to Mars. For sending astronauts into space, though, NASA currently pays around $70 million per seat aboard the Soyuz space capsule. (A crewed version of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, DragonRider, is in development, which will reduce the cost per seat to $20 million — but it won’t launch until 2015 at the earliest.)

Now, it’s always going to be expensive to lift stuff off the Earth’s surface (blame gravity!), but there are some big changes we can make that will reduce the cost significantly — such as re-using the launch vehicle. Currently, for all space launch vehicles, the initial rockets and fuel tanks are jettisoned — usually into the ocean, never to be seen again. This is incredibly wasteful; according to the Space Development Steering Committee, those rockets cost in the region of $100 million, and we throw them away after a single use. Enter SpaceX’s reusable launch vehicle (RLV) technology.

SpaceX originally debuted its RLV tech on the suborbital Grasshopper rocket in 2013 (video above). If the tests were successful — which they were — the plan was to take the same tech and scale it up to the full-size Falcon rocket. Basically, after the first stage detaches from CRS-3, it will use its Merlin rocket engines to slowly return to Earth. For this flight, the first stage will still land in the water — but once SpaceX is confident that it can do so safely, future launches will see the first stage fly all the way back to to the launchpad. After that, SpaceX will start bringing the second stage back to the launchpad, too.

The eventual goal, according to SpaceX, is to create a launch system that is reusable within “single-digit hours.” Basically, SpaceX would give these rockets a quick once-over, fill them back up with fuel… and off they go again. The fuel is still very expensive, but it’s nothing compared to the cost of the hardware. If everything goes to plan, the total cost per pound to launch into Earth orbit could drop to $500 or less — one twentieth of what today’s unreusable rockets cost. Suffice it to say, if SpaceX manages to undercut every other space launch company in the world — including the Russian and Chinese governments — it could suddenly find itself in a very powerful and lucrative position.

The launch of CRS-3 will take place on March 16 at 04:41 EDT (early Sunday morning). There will be a live NASA feed, which will hopefully show the first stage’s powered descent into the ocean.

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[Borgholio]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't the Russians been landing their capsules on solid land since Yuri Gagarin?

[dragon]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't the Russians been landing their capsules on solid land since Yuri Gagarin?

The capsules lands by parachute and the Falcon 9 is going to land by thrust. Granted only part of the rocket this time is going to be landing this time. And the part landing is a lot larger than the capsule

A Soyuz capsule carrying a U.S.-Russian crew returning after spending nearly six months on the International Space Station landed safely on the steppes of Kazakhstan
snip
After the Russian Soyuz TMA-10M capsule descended slowly by parachute

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[Simon_Jester]

I can't think of SpaceX's "balance her down" landing style without thinking of Steve Savitsky's The Stuff that Dreams are Made Of:

But the future that we lost is still someplace out there
Orion still rides hellfire toward the blue,
And rockets proudly land upon their tailfins,
As God and Robert Heinlein meant them to.

Yes, someplace there are old fans who remember
The way the future was when we were young,
And when the chains of space and time slip from me
I'll be part of the song that once was sung.

[Borgholio]

The capsules lands by parachute and the Falcon 9 is going to land by thrust. Granted only part of the rocket this time is going to be landing this time. And the part landing is a lot larger than the capsule

Sorry I misread that. I thought it was just the crew / cargo capsule. I didn't realize it was the whole damn rocket. That's a bit different....

[Sea Skimmer]

Hopefully it will at least work. As in not blowup. Grasshopper was tested a fair bit, but never the speeds involved in a real launch. The disadvantage is, while the first stage is reused, it needs so much fuel and other weight to land itself that its velocity at second stage release is almost cut in half. That means much less payload, as the upper stages need to be much more powerful. Then the first stage needs rehabilitation work for the next use. So its no given that even if the landing system works that its really going to save any money. SpaceX thinks the economics will work out, but they've proven unduly optimistic multiple times before.

[Beowulf]

Hopefully it will at least work. As in not blowup. Grasshopper was tested a fair bit, but never the speeds involved in a real launch. The disadvantage is, while the first stage is reused, it needs so much fuel and other weight to land itself that its velocity at second stage release is almost cut in half. That means much less payload, as the upper stages need to be much more powerful. Then the first stage needs rehabilitation work for the next use. So its no given that even if the landing system works that its really going to save any money. SpaceX thinks the economics will work out, but they've proven unduly optimistic multiple times before.

I think that's why they uprated the engines and enlarged the tanks for the F9 for V1.1. It's apparently 60% larger with 60% more powerful engines. They also increase ISP at the same time, resulting in a 10 second longer available burn time. Combined, this probably gives them the performance to be able to have the same stage velocity while still having fuel to land. Landing on land instead of water probably has significant benefits for the amount of rehabilitation required, as you don't have to worry about salt water intrusion into the engines. They've already had 3 launches with the V1.1, and so probably have a good idea of the actual performance of the rocket, and how much fuel margin is available after the normal stage seperation. They're testing including the landing legs on the next launch. Anyways, we'll see if they can manage. Even if it doesn't save money, they still seem to be the cheapest western launch company.

[Simon_Jester]

In that case, if the recovery option doesn't pan out they've still significantly upgraded the rocket's performance.

I'm envisioning a situation where they offer an 'expendable' version of the launch, if you want to pay extra for the increased lift capability...

[dragon]

Launch delayed till no earlier than March 30

Launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying an unmanned cargo ship bound for the International Space Station has been delayed from Sunday to no earlier than March 30, because of what sources described as apparent contamination that could pose problems for research hardware carried by the Dragon cargo craft.

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