SpaceX's Grasshopper VTVL takes a 40 meter hop

Squeaky the Squirrel

http://www.gizmag.com/spacex-grasshopper-vtvl-test/25562/

The SpaceX Grasshopper vertical takeoff vertical landing (VTVL) testbed has successfully flown to a height of 40 meters (131 ft), hovered for a bit and subsequently landed in a picture perfect test on December 17, 2012.

Despite their seeming inefficiency, vertical takeoff vertical landing (VTVL) rockets have long been a fixture in the world of space flight. The first manned VTVL spacecraft was the Apollo Lunar Lander, which landed on and took off from the Moon vertically, a task made far easier by the Moon's one-sixth gravity.

Grasshopper is also distinguished from most other VTVL craft in that it is the testbed of a project to convert an active commercial orbital medium-lift (10,000 kg to low earth orbit) launch vehicle into a recoverable launch system. Prior VTVL craft (aside from the Lunar Lander) were intended to be research vehicles or one-off demonstrators.

Nearly 2013...you'd think we'd be further along than messing around trying to make a reusable rocket...wheres the spaceships?

vonbarracuda

Impressive

nokia69

amazing it looks like the delta clipper

can't wait to see this thing go higher and faster

Mars and the moon get closer every day

nokia69

Squeaky the Squirrel wrote: »

Nearly 2013...you'd think we'd be further along than messing around trying to make a reusable rocket...wheres the spaceships?

give it a few years and spaceX will land their dragon spacecraft using rockets, when they do that my bet is the average man in the street will understand what they are trying to do

most people think the US are falling behind other countries in space technology, but they are about to move far ahead

Rubecula

vonbarracuda wrote: »

Impressive

Yes indeed it looks very impressive, I wonder on how much fuel it had on board and how much of it it used up?

Squeaky the Squirrel

Elon Musk on SpaceX’s Reusable Rocket Plans

AugustusMinimus

I hear that it's actually more efficient to use a rocket power to land a rocket than using a parachute and having a sea landing.

When you think about it, if you are going to land a dragon capsule, after aero braking, it will only be doing about 120-160mph in the lower atmosphere due to drag. At this point, it prob wouldn't take that much fuel to land it.

nokia69

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

I hear that it's actually more efficient to use a rocket power to land a rocket than using a parachute and having a sea landing.

When you think about it, if you are going to land a dragon capsule, after aero braking, it will only be doing about 120-160mph in the lower atmosphere due to drag. At this point, it prob wouldn't take that much fuel to land it.

they need to add a launch abort system and the plan to use the same rockets to land the capsule, far better than parachutes

the other good thing is they will be able to land the dragon almost anwhere they want, no runways needed

Squeaky the Squirrel

Under the Hood with the SpaceX Merlin Engine

nokia69

the DC-X was an attempt to do something like the spaceX grasshopper but it never got enough funding

some of engineers who worked on the DC-X now work for blue origin, so I don't see them running out of cash any time soon, I wish they put out more videos its hard to know how much progress they are making

I think it will be easier for spaceX because they can attack the problem from both ends

lord lucan

Squeaky the Squirrel wrote: »

Nearly 2013...you'd think we'd be further along than messing around trying to make a reusable rocket...wheres the spaceships?

2013 and NASA are using Apollo era technology to help them develop the next generation of launcher.

They've re-assembled an F-1 engine,the very same that powered the Saturn V's,from parts that have been left on display in museums and an unused F-1 at Marshall Space Flight Center. It was even hot fired just over a week ago.

http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-012113a.html

Squeaky the Squirrel

single angle

Capt'n Midnight

Squeaky the Squirrel wrote: »

Despite their seeming inefficiency, vertical takeoff vertical landing (VTVL) rockets have long been a fixture in the world of space flight. The first manned VTVL spacecraft was the Apollo Lunar Lander, which landed on and took off from the Moon vertically, a task made far easier by the Moon's one-sixth gravity.

[/qoute]Actually the Russians used retro rockets on the first manned space flight.
There is a lot of re-inventing the wheel in US space flight

Anyone remember this from the 90's ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzXcTFfV3Ls

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X

Despite all the hype it was just a normal rocket with better electronics.

Nearly 2013...you'd think we'd be further along than messing around trying to make a reusable rocket...wheres the spaceships?

Why do we need a reusable rocket ?

The other way of making something cheap is to have long production runs so you get economies of scale and constant improvements.

With short production runs everything is more or less at what would have earlier been called the pre-production prototype stage , you don't get a chance to improve the design much.


In the West there is far too much engineering to add lightness on the bottom stages. Rocket fuel is cheap - it takes a lot of flights to save the fuel used in testing.

Reliability is key. And a simple way of adding reliability is to overengineer because the addition strength may prove useful for failure modes that aren't understood.


Yes a reusable rocket would be nice, but not if it costs more , or isn't reliable

Capt'n Midnight

lord lucan wrote: »

2013 and NASA are using Apollo era technology to help them develop the next generation of launcher.

At some time in the future NASA won't have to keep relying on 1950s Soviet era technology for all their manned launches.

Rockets haven't changed much, all the gains since the 1950's are in the order of a few %

Rocket fuel hasn't gotten better because there are only a finite number of low molecular weight compounds. Though ALICE is interesting for first stage boosters.

The big improvements include
- staged combustion so you don't loose the turbopump output
- better control of fuel / oxidiser ratio , there's a nice article about control system maths allowing over 4000lbs more payload on the Saturn V
- lighter materials , the reduction of the weight of the shuttle external tank being the big one here. Over the life of the shuttle they saved 9 tons. Of course the savings would have been much lower if it had been a second stage tank, and it's still less than 0.3% of the launch mass.
- better electronics, lighter , cheaper , it all helps especially when it can do stuff on the fly that would have taken weeks and hundreds of thousand dollars back in the 60's
- shuttle engines (for example) can run at over 100% of the designed rating, this saves a little on gravity drag



It's all about tweaking that last little bit of performance out of the system
SCHEMES FOR ENHANCING THE SATURN V MOON ROCKET’S TRANSLUNAR PAYLOAD CAPABILITY http://www.aticourses.com/enhancing_saturn_v_moon_rocket.htm



I don't understand why there aren't more high altitude launch sites as this would reduce atmospheric friction / pressure , and also mean you could use lighter shrouding and it would make the engines more efficient than at sea level. It also saves you a small amount of climbing.

nokia69

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Squeaky the Squirrel wrote: »

[/qoute]Actually the Russians used retro rockets on the first manned space flight.
There is a lot of re-inventing the wheel in US space flight

Anyone remember this from the 90's ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzXcTFfV3Ls

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X

Despite all the hype it was just a normal rocket with better electronics.



Why do we need a reusable rocket ?

The other way of making something cheap is to have long production runs so you get economies of scale and constant improvements.

With short production runs everything is more or less at what would have earlier been called the pre-production prototype stage , you don't get a chance to improve the design much.


In the West there is far too much engineering to add lightness on the bottom stages. Rocket fuel is cheap - it takes a lot of flights to save the fuel used in testing.

Reliability is key. And a simple way of adding reliability is to overengineer because the addition strength may prove useful for failure modes that aren't understood.


Yes a reusable rocket would be nice, but not if it costs more , or isn't reliable

it depends what you mean by costs more

if you mean cost more to launch then I agree, the shuttle was reuseable but in the end it was a waste of money because the launch cost was far too high

but if the reuseable rocket costs 10 times as much to build but gets used 1000 times then that would see launch costs fall far below what we have today, it needs to work like air travel, the rocket lands gets more fuel then launches again

even if spaceX can only make the first stage reuseable it will result in lower launch costs

the next falcon 9 launch should be interesting, its the new version of the falcon 9 and they are going to try to restart the first stage and land it at sea

Capt'n Midnight

nokia69 wrote: »

it depends what you mean by costs more
...
but if the reuseable rocket costs 10 times as much to build but gets used 1000 times then that would see launch costs fall far below what we have today, it needs to work like air travel, the rocket lands gets more fuel then launches again

You have to remember that especially for the first stage rocket fuel is cheap and fuel tanks are cheap.

Your payload is only a few % of the launch mass. Carrying a fuel tank to orbit seriously affects payload. The shuttle external tank was 26.5 tons compared to a payload of 24 tons, (for polar orbit it was just 12.7 tons). Because the tank was external it was actually a lot lighter than the original 35 tons. If you were to try and land the tank then you'd need extra structure and shielding so I'd nearly guess that your payload to polar orbit would be negligible.



NASA lost a shuttle because the solid boosters were reusable. Other wise they wouldn't have needed O rings because there would have been no joints. I'm fairly sure that they didn't save the cost of an orbiter by refurbishing the boosters. unintended consequences and pork barrelling


You should only reuse the bits it's worth reusing.

Reusing the second stage eats into your payload
Reusing the first stage doesn't save you a lot of money

Having a spaceplane instead of a capsule gives you more options but development costs would be fairly high. Reusing a capsule kinda makes sense if only because you have to return the crew.

That said I'd like to see skylon working

http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2012/04/18/5-horrifying-facts-you-didnt-know-about-the-space-shuttle/2/

On the other hand, the Soyuz, the vehicle of choice of the Russian Space Agency (RSA), is less expensive by an order of magnitude. So how much does it cost to launch?

Watson said, “That number has never been publicized by the RSA, but it’s rumored to be as low as $45 million. Of course, in accordance with supply & demand, they’re now selling seats for $63 million a piece: initially “tickets” were selling for around $20 million.

nokia69

the grasshopper made another flight a few days ago

nokia69

another flight for the grasshopper, this time 325m, I think they will be doing the next tests in new mexico because they will be going higher and faster

Leader of the Furlings

It goes sideways to.:eek:

http://www.spacex.com/news/2013/08/14/grasshopper-100m-lateral-divert-test



:P

nokia69

Leader of the Furlings wrote: »

It goes sideways to.:eek:

it needs to if they want to land in the right place

the next falcon 9 launch should be interesting, they want to try and land the first stage at sea, sept 5 I think

and since its more or less a new rocket the chance of launch failure is higher than normal

Leader of the Furlings

nokia69 wrote: »

it needs to if they want to land in the right place

only kidding

nokia69

the grasshopper went higher

and the attempt to restart the first stage of the new falcon 9 worked

Mars is getting closer every day

nokia69

Rubecula

Any idea what the next step is?

nokia69

try to recover a first stage from the sea, this might be hard depending on the weather, but it went well on the last flight

then land a first stage on land and fly it again

AugustusMinimus

What sort of savings are SpaceX expecting to be made ?

Have they stated how many teams they expect each first stage to be reused ?

nokia69

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

What sort of savings are SpaceX expecting to be made ?

Have they stated how many teams they expect each first stage to be reused ?

well the first stage makes up 70% of the rocket cost

they said a while back that they hoped to get the falcon 9 price down to 7 or eight million

they never said how many times the same first stage could be reused, my guess is they want to be able to reuse it hundreds of times, thats the goal

Capt'n Midnight

nokia69 wrote: »

well the first stage makes up 70% of the rocket cost

they said a while back that they hoped to get the falcon 9 price down to 7 or eight million

they never said how many times the same first stage could be reused, my guess is they want to be able to reuse it hundreds of times, thats the goal

70% is crazy unless it's human rated.

First stage is where things like specific impulse aren't that important. And there is no multiplier effect like on upper stages. You just want a big dumb booster, rocket fuel is cheap.


Space Shuttle "reusable" solid boosters consisted sections joined by O rings. A few sections were reused 7 times. So it's doubtful if they saved any money , factor in the loss of a shuttle and the attempt at reuse was a total waste of resources and lives.


The way to reduce costs is volume. With wind turbines every time global capacity doubles costs drop by 14%. The Soyuz family has over 1,700 launches at this stage.


The US shot themselves in the foot with the SST. Boeing went through more money designing a Mach 3 airliner than it cost to get Concorde built.

Several problems with the SST, one was noise, but another was an inability to do basic maths. A Mach 3 airliner would cost more. But it could do three times as many journeys per day than existing airliners. So the airlines would only need to order 1/3rd as many. Lower volume means R&D costs spread over fewer aircraft which raises the price and the whole thing spirals.

Don't forget that most of the cost of getting the Shuttle ready was for refurbishing rather than the fuel.

nokia69

well spaceX have said the the first stage costs 70% I don't see how being man rated or not would change that

the goal for the falcon 9R is to have zero refurbishing thats the whole point

Capt'n Midnight

Here's the thing. Russia launch about half of all commercial satellites.

Half the US launches last year relied on Russian Engines or First Stage sections.
ULA / Atlas / RD180 / Zenith based stuff.

Space X don't rely on this stuff.

nokia69

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Here's the thing. Russia launch about half of all commercial satellites.

Half the US launches last year relied on Russian Engines or First Stage sections.
ULA / Atlas / RD180 / Zenith based stuff.

Space X don't rely on this stuff.

I know

ULA are in serious trouble IMO the days of milking the US government are coming to an end

Capt'n Midnight

nokia69 wrote: »

well spaceX have said the the first stage costs 70% I don't see how being man rated or not would change that

the goal for the falcon 9R is to have zero refurbishing thats the whole point

man rated means it has to be more reliable, costs go up exponentially

commercial satellite insurance premium is about 10% of the cost, for a manned launch you want more than 99% reliability

there is a feedback loop with satellites, there is no point in spending €100m to launch €10m worth of satellite , it's cheaper to spend €30m on a lighter satellite that can be launched from a €60m rocket.

If they can get to orbit for €10m then it gets very interesting, you can reduce the money spent per satellite too by the same factor. Of course then there may be the Kessler syndrome problem.




In other news India are setting up a GPS , well the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS). So it'll join GPS, GLONASS , Galileo, and Beidou. Electronics are getting cheaper, if launchers get cheaper there will be more uses, Bolivia got it's first satellite last year. There is a market for low cost launches.

nokia69

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

man rated means it has to be more reliable, costs go up exponentially

commercial satellite insurance premium is about 10% of the cost, for a manned launch you want more than 99% reliability

there is a feedback loop with satellites, there is no point in spending €100m to launch €10m worth of satellite , it's cheaper to spend €30m on a lighter satellite that can be launched from a €60m rocket.

If they can get to orbit for €10m then it gets very interesting, you can reduce the money spent per satellite too by the same factor. Of course then there may be the Kessler syndrome problem.

AFAIK the falcon 9 has been man rated from the start so it won't add costs at this point

if launch costs drop as much as spaceX claim then all kinds of things will start to happen but it will take time

it will also be interesting to see what the russians ect do, with a bit of luck they will all copy spaceX

AugustusMinimus

While currently only being used for the 1st stage, I read somewhere SpaceX were also considering having the Dragon capsule also doing a powered landing.

If I was an astronaut, I think i'd still prefer some parachutes unfurling above me.

nokia69

yeah the crew dragon will use rockets for landing but it will carry parachutes as back up for a while

we get to see the new dragon on the 29th

AugustusMinimus

nokia69 wrote: »

yeah the crew dragon will use rockets for landing but it will carry parachutes as back up for a while

we get to see the new dragon on the 29th

I guess it makes sense. The weight of the extra fuel wouldn't be that much greater than the parachutes and it will allow a soft landing in land.

nokia69

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

I guess it makes sense. The weight of the extra fuel wouldn't be that much greater than the parachutes and it will allow a soft landing in land.

yeah thats the idea

also the landing fuel is also needed for the launch abort system so it has a dual use, kind of

and there is no need for a runway to land the dragon so in theory it can land anywhere on earth or the moon Mars ect

nokia69

nokia69

nokia69

Rucking_Fetard

SpaceX Soft Lands Falcon 9 Rocket First Stage

Following last week's successful launch of six ORBCOMM satellites, the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage reentered Earth’s atmosphere and soft landed in the Atlantic Ocean. This test confirms that the Falcon 9 booster is able consistently to reenter from space at hypersonic velocity, restart main engines twice, deploy landing legs and touch down at near zero velocity.

After landing, the vehicle tipped sideways as planned to its final water safing state in a nearly horizontal position. The water impact caused loss of hull integrity, but we received all the necessary data to achieve a successful landing on a future flight. Going forward, we are taking steps to minimize the build up of ice and spots on the camera housing in order to gather improved video on future launches.

At this point, we are highly confident of being able to land successfully on a floating launch pad or back at the launch site and refly the rocket with no required refurbishment. However, our next couple launches are for very high velocity geostationary satellite missions, which don’t allow enough residual propellant for landing. In the longer term, missions like that will fly on Falcon Heavy, but until then Falcon 9 will need to fly in expendable mode.

We will attempt our next water landing on flight 13 of Falcon 9, but with a low probability of success. Flights 14 and 15 will attempt to land on a solid surface with an improved probability of success.

nokia69

flights 14 and 15 are for the end of the year but might slip a little, looks like a landing on a platform at sea

amazing progress in such a short time

the Moon and Mars are getting closer

Rucking_Fetard

SpaceX Layoffs

Rucking_Fetard

SpaceX Executive Calls For $22-25 Billion NASA Budget

Rucking_Fetard

SpaceX’s lawsuit against the Air Force is gaining steam

Rucking_Fetard

SpaceX Roadmap building on its rocket business revolution

Rucking_Fetard

Maybe not worth new thread so I'll put it here. 6 Mil to put a Sat in space. Vids in link, not on youtube.

Kiwi rocket company ready to blast off

New Zealand aerospace company Rocket Lab has unveiled a 10-tonne rocket capable of sending satellites into space for less than $6 million, a fraction of current costs.

At an unveiling in Auckland this morning, Rocket Lab chief executive Peter Beck said the 18-metre rocket, named Electron, would revolutionise the space game.

Electron would make space more accessible. The average cost of sending a satellite into space was about $155m, Beck said.

The Electron is significantly smaller than the average rocket length of 60m.

Electron would also reduce the time it took to launch a satellite from years to weeks, he said.

"This is the new way to access space."

The carbon-composite rocket could carry satellites weighing up to 120 kilograms and was expected to be launched next year, he said.

Rocket Lab would provide all the launching facilities to get customers' satellites into space. It already had commitments for more than 30 launches, he said.

Beck, who founded Rocket Lab in 2007, said a team of 25 staff had worked on the project for the past year.

The company was looking to add 30 staff to meet demand forecasts.

"We're looking to create a billion-dollar space industry down here."

Beck, 36, hoped to launch one rocket a week after the company started regular manufacturing of Electron rockets.

"If we can launch one rocket a week we are going to change the world."

Rocket Lab built Electron using a $25m government grant and funds from The Warehouse founder Sir Stephen Tindall and principal backer Silicon Valley venture capital company Khosla Ventures.

A former Nasa director and Florida Space Institute research associate Dr Alan Weston, who was at today's unveiling, said Rocket Lab was a global leader in aerospace technology and Electron was a game changer.

"It's revolutionary," Weston said. "This will address the cost of getting spacecraft into space."

Electron opened up opportunities for New Zealand to partner with international satellite and technology organisations, he said.

"This is not just cheap, it's responsive which means you can launch it when you want to. In the United States it can take over a year."

Beck said the rocket has 10 engines, named Rutherford, which burned the same amount of fuel an aircraft used to fly from Auckland to Christchurch.

Satellites launched by Electron could remain in orbit for five to seven years and could be used for purposes such as weather prediction, real-time mapping, high-speed internet and climate-change monitoring, Beck said.

A patent was pending on the technology for the rocket.

The unveiling attracted the interest of foreign media including the Wall Street Journal, Reuters and Wired.

Rocket Lab had scheduled a programme of three test flights to get the rocket into space, Beck said.

Since 2007 the company had launched about 80 rockets, only one of which went into orbit, he said.

That was in 2009 with the launch of Atea-1: a 6m-long, 60kg rocket from Great Mercury Island.

Beck said the first rocket would be launched from a yet to be confirmed New Zealand location.

"The great thing about New Zealand is it offers us a fantastic launch site which is a major issue for other countries."

Rocket launches worked well in New Zealand because it's isolated with a small population and light air and shipping traffic.

It also allows the rocket to be launched from a trajectory favourable angle, Beck said.

nokia69

I fear that poor kiwi is going to lose his money

Capt'n Midnight

nokia69 wrote: »

I fear that poor kiwi is going to lose his money

6 million for 120Kg ?

Soyuez can put 6.5 tonnes into LEO which would value it at 324 million per launch.

As recently as 2007 the US was offered seats for 23 million by Roskosmos.
which puts a maximum price of 46 million since the third seat would be taken by a cosmonaut

nokia69

nokia69