- Status
Are you sure about that?<br /><br />http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/a/atlasvct.jpg<br /><br />Seems the other way to me
um, With a mix ratio of 2.25, the LOX tank should be bigger, given their respective densities (.82 RP-1, 1.14 LOX), shouldn't it?
<font color="yellow">Are you sure about that? ...Seems the other way to me </font><br /><br />OK, so that was just a test to see if you guys were actually paying attention <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
Huh, are those feed lines or fill/vent lines? It looks like the one in question if it is a feed line, would be to drain from the upper tank, while the other one looks to be used to fill the 2nd stage tanks. <br /><br />It appears from this image attached here, that the lower tank is the LOX tank (see the access port in the bottom, used to clean the inside of the tank to handle LOX. If so, then the feed line coming down the side is the fuel line, so the question then is whether the LOX tank's contraction would have caused issues to the feed line at that point. It seems like we'd have to assume either fatigue damage from excessive testing on the pad without reinspection, or possibly sabotage (as that point should be accessible from the ground without ladders, etc.) Did SpaceX have cameras on the rocket 24-7?
SpaceX Falcon 1 Flight 1 Launch Update
It has been nearly four years since the first Falcon 1 vehicle fell back to earth near Omelek. To this day, SpaceX has not released any images or video that actually show the failure and the impact/explosion. The company has provided on-board video of the descent, but it cuts out near impact/explosion and it does not show the engine fire, how the engine shut down, whether the vehicle broke up during descent, etc.
No other launch services company has managed to quash video of a first stage failure so completely - none, at least, from a non "rouge" nation. SpaceX is clearly not required to release such information, but, I must ask, why, when all of its potential competitors have not acted this way, doesn't SpaceX release an equivalent video or videos?
- Ed Kyle
It has been nearly four years since the first Falcon 1 vehicle fell back to earth near Omelek. To this day, SpaceX has not released any images or video that actually show the failure and the impact/explosion. The company has provided on-board video of the descent, but it cuts out near impact/explosion and it does not show the engine fire, how the engine shut down, whether the vehicle broke up during descent, etc.
No other launch services company has managed to quash video of a first stage failure so completely - none, at least, from a non "rouge" nation. SpaceX is clearly not required to release such information, but, I must ask, why, when all of its potential competitors have not acted this way, doesn't SpaceX release an equivalent video or videos?
- Ed Kyle
Uhh, the videos that SpaceX did release before the mission failed were not possible during the many failures in the early days of the US space program. All the images of those spectacular explosions were taken from the ground. Back then, there were no cameras on the rockets themselves...particularly any that would survive a failure.
MeteorWayne":1fqwz71y said:
Right. I think you've misinterpreted me there, and that's my fault for not being clear. I'm asking for SpaceX to show the ground based videos of the Falcon 1 Flight 1 ascent, descent, and impact/explosion.
- Ed Kyle
I've always liked to look behind the scenes to get to the real motivations as to why people ask for things or do what they do. I have to ask myself, why would someone want a Falcon 1 launch failure video so close to the launch of a new launch vehicle, Falcon 9. Would that person want to discredit Spacex? Why the motivation to look at launch negatives when the current launch trend is toward the positive meaning the last two successful launches? It makes me wonder. :?
mr_mark":3apb2aq7 said:
The fourth anniversary coming up got me thinking about the Falcon 1 Flight 1 failure event. I'm in the business of failure analysis (not spaceflight related), so I'm curious.
I don't see how releasing ground video could "discredit" SpaceX. Everyone knows that Flight 1 failed, SpaceX provided a description of the failure investigation results, and the company persevered and went on to fly Falcon 1 successfully. To the contrary, it seems to me that *not* releasing (essentially hiding) information could do more harm to the company image over time.
- Ed Kyle
Ed, I understand your motivations but you have to realize that the general public and certain senators would use the related information for their own ends which would not be that good given the space related climate that we are in at the moment. I'm sure that given time, Spacex may release that information long after their program has reach a success rate where that video footage no longer matters.
mr_mark":prvitncv said:
My suggestion is that SpaceX has already reached that point. It has succeeded.
As for Senators etc. - if the U.S. really is entering a "commercial" launch era, what some Senator or the "general public" thinks isn't going to matter as much as it once did. The competitive marketplace is the new Congress. If SpaceX doesn't show the video, someone at some other company might find a way to show it first, at a time of *their* choosing.
- Ed Kyle
Notice how SpaceX has built the hangar with the F-9 Heavy in mind (the covered tracks along each side of the F-9). Makes one wonder how soon we will see an F9-H. Within a couple years, I'd bet.mr_mark":361ona1g said:
Well, if the initial rockets are successful (and I do hope they are), a Heavy should not be too very hard as a follow on.
This is just one of the lessons of the Delta IV and the Atlas V, and that would be that a Heavy can just be extra units tied together of the normal launch vehicle. With a strengthened center vehicle and a larger payload fairing. However, I do think that they would then have to go with fewer and higher thrust engines. But they do seem to be working on that even now anyway. So yes, I would give a true Heavy (or even a super Heavy) a great chance of a launch in the 2 to 3 year time frame, depending on the success of these current vehicles. But, hopefully that will become a given!!
And at least spacex is doing this the right way, with liquid engines, so that the vehicle weight is kept reasonable regardless of the payload. This is because with liquids you can just have the dry weight of such a large vehicle on the way to the launch pad, and then fueled there, instead of with very large solids being put together before it even goes to the pad.
Heck, with some four such units arraigned around a central unit, and larger thrust engines, you could have a vehicles easily in the Saturn V class, capable of placing some 250,000 or more pound into LEO for less than $1,000 per pound!!
Now THAT would be such a vehicle that we could not only go back to the moon with (for a permanent base with manufacturing), but even on to Mars and beyond!!
So, just perhaps dropping the current moon program for such, would not be such a bad idea after all?
This is just one of the lessons of the Delta IV and the Atlas V, and that would be that a Heavy can just be extra units tied together of the normal launch vehicle. With a strengthened center vehicle and a larger payload fairing. However, I do think that they would then have to go with fewer and higher thrust engines. But they do seem to be working on that even now anyway. So yes, I would give a true Heavy (or even a super Heavy) a great chance of a launch in the 2 to 3 year time frame, depending on the success of these current vehicles. But, hopefully that will become a given!!
And at least spacex is doing this the right way, with liquid engines, so that the vehicle weight is kept reasonable regardless of the payload. This is because with liquids you can just have the dry weight of such a large vehicle on the way to the launch pad, and then fueled there, instead of with very large solids being put together before it even goes to the pad.
Heck, with some four such units arraigned around a central unit, and larger thrust engines, you could have a vehicles easily in the Saturn V class, capable of placing some 250,000 or more pound into LEO for less than $1,000 per pound!!
Now THAT would be such a vehicle that we could not only go back to the moon with (for a permanent base with manufacturing), but even on to Mars and beyond!!
So, just perhaps dropping the current moon program for such, would not be such a bad idea after all?
On top of that Frod, the F9-H or an F9-SH booster will be online at least 10 years before NASA would have had a Ares V, or maybe even an Ares I available, meaning that manned trips to the moon or deeper space could easily become a reality by 2020. The smart thing that SpaceX has done is to design the F-9 in a modular fashion, so all that needs to be done is to strap on additional boosters to a standard F-9 to make it an F9-H or F9-SH. In the case of NASA, the Ares I and Ares V would have been completely different rockets and multiples of billions of dollars more expensive than the Falcon rockets.frodo1008":shmwq0zw said:Well, if the initial rockets are successful (and I do hope they are), a Heavy should not be too very hard as a follow on.
This is just one of the lessons of the Delta IV and the Atlas V, and that would be that a Heavy can just be extra units tied together of the normal launch vehicle. With a strengthened center vehicle and a larger payload fairing. However, I do think that they would then have to go with fewer and higher thrust engines. But they do seem to be working on that even now anyway. So yes, I would give a true Heavy (or even a super Heavy) a great chance of a launch in the 2 to 3 year time frame, depending on the success of these current vehicles. But, hopefully that will become a given!!
And at least spacex is doing this the right way, with liquid engines, so that the vehicle weight is kept reasonable regardless of the payload. This is because with liquids you can just have the dry weight of such a large vehicle on the way to the launch pad, and then fueled there, instead of with very large solids being put together before it even goes to the pad.
Heck, with some four such units arraigned around a central unit, and larger thrust engines, you could have a vehicles easily in the Saturn V class, capable of placing some 250,000 or more pound into LEO for less than $1,000 per pound!!
Now THAT would be such a vehicle that we could not only go back to the moon with (for a permanent base with manufacturing), but even on to Mars and beyond!!
So, just perhaps dropping the current moon program for such, would not be such a bad idea after all?
If this has been asked and answered I apologize, but I couldn’t find it:
Why is Orbital Sciences getting 1.9 Billion for 8 flights for the Taurus 2 rocket, when that rocket isn't even built yet, but SpaceX is getting 1.6 Billion for 12 flights for the Falcon 9, when that rocket is fully assembled and on the launch bad?
Why is Orbital Sciences getting 1.9 Billion for 8 flights for the Taurus 2 rocket, when that rocket isn't even built yet, but SpaceX is getting 1.6 Billion for 12 flights for the Falcon 9, when that rocket is fully assembled and on the launch bad?
Gravity_Ray":35jryzdt said:
Orbital Sciences and SpaceX have asked for a different price. (And they don't compete on price yet.)
One reason is that Orbital are specially building there rockets for the purpose to bring cargo to ISS.
Where SpaceX on the other hand where going to build Falcon 9 no mather what, and had already other customers for it.
An other reason why Orbital's solution is more expensive is that they are getting many subsystems from subcontractors, where SpaceX is building almost everthing themself.
Mj1, you are correct, it is indeed better to build a system in such a modular manner, but remember that spacex is not the only rocket launch company with this particular idea. All of the other experienced NASA contractors in Boeing and LM, and now with the joining of those two very experienced companies in the current ULA have been doing this type of modular launch systems all along.
For instance the Delta IV has many different regular versions with different numbers of strap on solids giving the basic configuration great flexibility. And the Delta IV Heavy with three Common Booster Cores (CBC's) could relatively easily take more CBC's to become a truly Very Heavy Weight launch vehicle. The biggest advantage of the CBC type of approach (which I also think that spacex will be following with the Falcon 9) is that the CBC's are all the same, and are built on a production type of line, reducing costs by a very large amount!
Even just the current Delta IV Heavy has lifted some 56,800 pounds to LEO, and is currently getting an engine upgrade of its RS68 engines that should enable it to lift some 62,000 to 65,000 pounds to LEO (which is easily as much as the space shuttle can lift).
In fact ULA has a list of many such incremental upgrades to the Delta IV that take it all the way up to well above the weight that the Saturn V was capable of getting to LEO (some 250,000+ pounds to LEO).
However, having another company in the system is well to the good as far as I am concerned, and many of us here have thought all along that the Orion (or Dragon) capsules for going back to the moon could just as easily use ANY particular Heavy Lift vehicle, even those of other countries for that matter!
Many of we space geeks realized that NASA was not being too smart in its Constellation plans. One thing alone that was brought up was that the Crawlers and the ways that they used to transport the systems to the launch pads would not long stand the very heavy weights of the increased sized Large Solid Motors needed for the Ares V. To have upgraded even that handling system would have cost at least some $10 billion or more alone.
And ALL of the other Heavy Weight designs in the world (let alone the US) are liquid engined. Only NASA has ever used such large solids for its Heavy Weight vehicles. It is a whole lot easier to fuel the launch vehicle with its liquid propellants AFTER it gets to the launch pad and is lifted into a vertical position. No less a truly great rocket launch expert that Wherner Von Braun wanted absolutely nothing to do with such large solid motors!
The decision to eventually rely upon such large solids was to a great extent a purely political one on the part of NASA. Not because NASA wanted it , but because its funding masters in Congress wanted it!! :x
I am indeed sorry to see any of our great aerospace employees laid off, such as the now inevitable lay offs of such in Utah by ATK. But hey, I was there when Rocketdyne went from some 25,000 to less than 2,500 right after Apollo in the early 1970's (and personally suffered with my own family from such a situation), and I managed somehow to even continue in the industry itself.
If we were to spend just 10% of what we spend on our military to fight wars that NEVER seem to resolve ANYTHING, and put it into getting humanity into space, then just perhaps we would have such a future civilization that all reasons for such a horrible and destructive activity as warfare would no longer be viable, and humanity could actually make some real progress for the first time in its long an sordid history!!!!!!! :x :x :x :x
Oh well.............
For instance the Delta IV has many different regular versions with different numbers of strap on solids giving the basic configuration great flexibility. And the Delta IV Heavy with three Common Booster Cores (CBC's) could relatively easily take more CBC's to become a truly Very Heavy Weight launch vehicle. The biggest advantage of the CBC type of approach (which I also think that spacex will be following with the Falcon 9) is that the CBC's are all the same, and are built on a production type of line, reducing costs by a very large amount!
Even just the current Delta IV Heavy has lifted some 56,800 pounds to LEO, and is currently getting an engine upgrade of its RS68 engines that should enable it to lift some 62,000 to 65,000 pounds to LEO (which is easily as much as the space shuttle can lift).
In fact ULA has a list of many such incremental upgrades to the Delta IV that take it all the way up to well above the weight that the Saturn V was capable of getting to LEO (some 250,000+ pounds to LEO).
However, having another company in the system is well to the good as far as I am concerned, and many of us here have thought all along that the Orion (or Dragon) capsules for going back to the moon could just as easily use ANY particular Heavy Lift vehicle, even those of other countries for that matter!
Many of we space geeks realized that NASA was not being too smart in its Constellation plans. One thing alone that was brought up was that the Crawlers and the ways that they used to transport the systems to the launch pads would not long stand the very heavy weights of the increased sized Large Solid Motors needed for the Ares V. To have upgraded even that handling system would have cost at least some $10 billion or more alone.
And ALL of the other Heavy Weight designs in the world (let alone the US) are liquid engined. Only NASA has ever used such large solids for its Heavy Weight vehicles. It is a whole lot easier to fuel the launch vehicle with its liquid propellants AFTER it gets to the launch pad and is lifted into a vertical position. No less a truly great rocket launch expert that Wherner Von Braun wanted absolutely nothing to do with such large solid motors!
The decision to eventually rely upon such large solids was to a great extent a purely political one on the part of NASA. Not because NASA wanted it , but because its funding masters in Congress wanted it!! :x
I am indeed sorry to see any of our great aerospace employees laid off, such as the now inevitable lay offs of such in Utah by ATK. But hey, I was there when Rocketdyne went from some 25,000 to less than 2,500 right after Apollo in the early 1970's (and personally suffered with my own family from such a situation), and I managed somehow to even continue in the industry itself.
If we were to spend just 10% of what we spend on our military to fight wars that NEVER seem to resolve ANYTHING, and put it into getting humanity into space, then just perhaps we would have such a future civilization that all reasons for such a horrible and destructive activity as warfare would no longer be viable, and humanity could actually make some real progress for the first time in its long an sordid history!!!!!!! :x :x :x :x
Oh well.............
frodo1008":36sh0asn said:
Von Braun supported the solid propellant SRB choice for Shuttle when he was still working at NASA Headquarters just before he retired. That fact is mentioned in the Ordway biography by quoting one of von Braun's letters.
NASA had been looking at large solids since the early 1960s because they cost less and were more reliable than liquids. This was proven without doubt by Titan IIIC, which turned out to be substantially more cost effective than NASA's own all-liquid Saturn IB.
Solids made Shuttle possible. Without them, Shuttle would not have been affordable. Interesting that the less reusable they made the Shuttle design, the more affordable it became.
- Ed Kyle
Von Braun knew that the space program of NASA was going nowhere, and he was retiring by that time anyway. It was the Saturn V that some wanted to be a very large solid motor, that he objected to.
Besides which, he also knew that the space shuttle system was a kluge at the time, and once again (despite its many magnificent achievements) it has remained a kluge to this very day!
It IS a myth that large (one could even say huge) solid rocket motors are safer than liquids! There are several reasons for this, one simply being that if they were so much more efficient, safe, and less expensive, then just why is NASA the ONLY rocket launch organization in the world to use such solids? Are all the others that careless and stupid?
I think not!!
It is true that solids are simpler, and it is also usually true that simpler is usually safer. The problem is in the testing of such motors. When you test such a motor, it is gone, never to return. So even if the test(s) are very successful, you MUST then depend totally upon your manufacturing process to maintain absolute quality to make sure that all of the other motors are exactly the same as the tested ones. There can obviously be no further tests as that would eliminate all the remaining rocket motors in a batch of same.
On the other hand, any liquid engines that you test can then go on to become the actual launch engines. At Rocketdyne every large liquid engine, even those to be used just for commercial satellites, such as the RS27A for the Delta II, are given at least a minute run at full power called a "Green Run". If the engine makes its specification(s) during such a run it is then accepted for use on the actual launch vehicle. And such high performance engines as the SSME's that will be used for human flight, are given many such runs to make absolutely certain they will indeed perform as they should!
Could this be why spacex is going to run such a full power test of the very engines that will power the upcoming flight of the Falcon 9? You had better bet your bippy that is why such a test is being made, and if spacex is as quality minded as I think they are such tests will be made for all future flights also!
By the way, the Titan series of launch vehicles was VERY expensive for the Air Force. And that was the reasoning behind the EELV program. The Titan III and IV were actually both more expensive per pound to LEO than even the space shuttle. And it would be actually somewhat impossible to compare the Titans to the Saturn IB, as the Saturn IB, like its much larger big brother the Saturn V, never had a failure, and the Titans were unfortunately noted for that, After the two man Gemini flights using the liquid engined Titan II, no human beings were ever launched into space by the Titan Series, but there were certainly many such launches of the Saturn IB, Including all the Skylab and the Apollo Soyuz mission!
The new EELV Delta IV and the Atlas V all liquid engined rocket launch vehicles are not only far more reliable, but they are less than half the cost per launch than the Titans were, and certainly far less than half the cost of a shuttle launch! Or didn't you realize that was why the Air Force paid for the EELV program in the first place???
One launch of the Delta IV Heavy put some 56,800 pounds into LEO for a governmental cost of $254 million. This comes out to some $4,472 per pound, and while still not the CATS that we all desire is still far less expensive than just about any any other comparable launch vehicle, anywhere in the world.
Further, if there were enough such launches to make the mass production techniques of the Delta IV work as they should, that cost would drop to less that half of even that cost.
ULA has already stated that a Very Heavy Lift version of the Delta or the Atlas (say 200,0000 pounds to LEO) that launched an average of once a month could bring the per pound cost down to less than $1,000 per pound to LEO.
That may not be the eventual goal of CATS, but it would be low enough to kick start a true space faring civilization!!!
At any rate, do have an excellent day!!
Besides which, he also knew that the space shuttle system was a kluge at the time, and once again (despite its many magnificent achievements) it has remained a kluge to this very day!
It IS a myth that large (one could even say huge) solid rocket motors are safer than liquids! There are several reasons for this, one simply being that if they were so much more efficient, safe, and less expensive, then just why is NASA the ONLY rocket launch organization in the world to use such solids? Are all the others that careless and stupid?
I think not!!
It is true that solids are simpler, and it is also usually true that simpler is usually safer. The problem is in the testing of such motors. When you test such a motor, it is gone, never to return. So even if the test(s) are very successful, you MUST then depend totally upon your manufacturing process to maintain absolute quality to make sure that all of the other motors are exactly the same as the tested ones. There can obviously be no further tests as that would eliminate all the remaining rocket motors in a batch of same.
On the other hand, any liquid engines that you test can then go on to become the actual launch engines. At Rocketdyne every large liquid engine, even those to be used just for commercial satellites, such as the RS27A for the Delta II, are given at least a minute run at full power called a "Green Run". If the engine makes its specification(s) during such a run it is then accepted for use on the actual launch vehicle. And such high performance engines as the SSME's that will be used for human flight, are given many such runs to make absolutely certain they will indeed perform as they should!
Could this be why spacex is going to run such a full power test of the very engines that will power the upcoming flight of the Falcon 9? You had better bet your bippy that is why such a test is being made, and if spacex is as quality minded as I think they are such tests will be made for all future flights also!
By the way, the Titan series of launch vehicles was VERY expensive for the Air Force. And that was the reasoning behind the EELV program. The Titan III and IV were actually both more expensive per pound to LEO than even the space shuttle. And it would be actually somewhat impossible to compare the Titans to the Saturn IB, as the Saturn IB, like its much larger big brother the Saturn V, never had a failure, and the Titans were unfortunately noted for that, After the two man Gemini flights using the liquid engined Titan II, no human beings were ever launched into space by the Titan Series, but there were certainly many such launches of the Saturn IB, Including all the Skylab and the Apollo Soyuz mission!
The new EELV Delta IV and the Atlas V all liquid engined rocket launch vehicles are not only far more reliable, but they are less than half the cost per launch than the Titans were, and certainly far less than half the cost of a shuttle launch! Or didn't you realize that was why the Air Force paid for the EELV program in the first place???
One launch of the Delta IV Heavy put some 56,800 pounds into LEO for a governmental cost of $254 million. This comes out to some $4,472 per pound, and while still not the CATS that we all desire is still far less expensive than just about any any other comparable launch vehicle, anywhere in the world.
Further, if there were enough such launches to make the mass production techniques of the Delta IV work as they should, that cost would drop to less that half of even that cost.
ULA has already stated that a Very Heavy Lift version of the Delta or the Atlas (say 200,0000 pounds to LEO) that launched an average of once a month could bring the per pound cost down to less than $1,000 per pound to LEO.
That may not be the eventual goal of CATS, but it would be low enough to kick start a true space faring civilization!!!
At any rate, do have an excellent day!!
If what you say is the case, then it sounds to me like Orbital is actually getting more funding from the US Govt for being less innovative than SpaceX. This brings up another subject that I have discussed in the past:voyager4d":2yczi580 said:
SpaceX and Orbital, both being private companies, can do business with whomever pays them right? Do they HAVE to launch in the US? If I'm say the government South Africa and I want my country to have an in house space program, could I offer funding and land in my country to a SpaceX or Orbital to bring in a sub-contracted space program to launch satelites and eventually South African astronauts into space? Is that kind of thing allowed for these private companies? I think kind of thing will become a bigger and bigger issue as time goes on.
Supposedly, the technology involved in building and flying rockets is no longer prohibited from export, seeing as many countries are building them. However, the fancy electronics in the avionics bay might be restricted.
If we want to be leaders, we have to be willing to make the effort. Space x has been preparing for the launch of the Falcon 9 for months and months. Do they work around the clock? On weekends?
If we want to be leaders, we have to be willing to make the effort. Space x has been preparing for the launch of the Falcon 9 for months and months. Do they work around the clock? On weekends?
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