51 thoughts on “Falcon-9R”

1. The best part was that Musk tweeted later that the Merlin-1D can throttle down to 40% power. That vastly increases the ability to smoothly control the vehicle to a precision landing.

   1. 40% that’s a lot for a showerhead, not very much for a pintle.

2. If it were CGI they wouldn’t have worried everyone by rendering the legs smoking. At least the legs didn’t seem to be outright flaming like they appeared to be in the 250m test. I don’t suppose there’s been any comment from SpaceX on that? They must not have been very worried if they decided to quadruple the altitude and fly again after a couple weeks, but it would be nice to have some official “that’s just paint burning off” or “it’ll be fine when they’re folded until just before touchdown” vs “damn, we’re going to need new legs every fourth flight”.

   1. I noticed that they only smoked during hover. In a real recovery, you’d only have a couple of seconds of hover during landing.

      The cattle in the foreground were a nice touch.

3. I bet the flaming legs are intentional. They are probably covered with an ablative material to protect them. Such materials are designed to burn – so the underlying structural components don’t.

4. Over 126,000 views on YouTube already. Granted, it’s no “Friday”, but still…

5. Great vid!!

   That’s spectacular, no doubt about it.

   One thing that caught my eye; the slow takeoff. My guess is that the stage was very close in mass to the max thrust of the single Merlin.

   Would anyone happen to know if they ballast the stage to simulate the 9 Merlins that would be there on a flight stage? I would assume they do, because that’d effect not just mass but CG, pitch moment, etc.

   1. Maybe they’re using that down-to-40% throttle control Robin mentioned on takeoff as well as landing?

6. As to how high they can go, I seem to recall that the McGregor location has a 10,000 foot FAA-imposed ceiling on such tests. So they can roughly triple what this flight did, then they’re out of vertical envelope.

   As to the “smokin’ hot legs,” whatever it is that’s burning off doesn’t start noticeably doing so until 25 seconds into flight (35 seconds into the video as ignition and liftoff are at ca. 10 seconds elapsed) and looks to complete the process within 75 seconds or so. Contra roystgnr, I sure saw what looked to be flames showing on the legs from roughly the apex of the flight at T+1:10 (1:20 into video) until the end of smoke at roughly 1:40 into flight (1:50 into video). No smoke for first 25 seconds of flight, lots of smoke on the way up for the next 45 seconds, smoke and flames for maybe the first third of the way down (30 seconds); almost none the rest of the way down (25 seconds) on this hop.

   If the smoke was the result of a deliberately applied ablative of some kind, I’d think it ought to start smoking when it gets hot enough, then keep smoking, and maybe flaming too, for the remaining duration of flight. As things stand, the last 25 seconds or so of flight are smoke-free. Make of that what you will.

   It is shaping up to be quite a busy month for SpaceX:

   1) This “surprise” test of F9R-Dev1 ( and quite probably at least one more before month’s end, given that this one occurred only two weeks after the first hop)

   2) The initial Orbcomm launch from Canaveral and third booster soft landing test now scheduled for May 10.

   3) The return of Dragon from ISS which I think is scheduled ca. May 20.

   4) The unveiling of Dragon 2.0 on May 29.

   SpaceX continues to accelerate, putting new facts onto the ground, into the air and the water and into orbit as they go. They’re single-handedly plowing new ground nearly as fast as NASA did in the 60’s on a miniscule fraction of the erstwhile budget.

   1. Ya have to wonder if the competition will ever shift out of neutral?

      1. Sure, if we give them enough money. They don’t spend their own money on trivial things like R&D.

         1. It’s the new unamerican!

7. Grasshopper is essentially a privately-funded X Vehicle program.

   1. It’s kind of disheartening that Boeing had the DC-X operating on government bucks and didn’t do anything with the concept. If there was ever a comparison between what an individual entrepreneur and corporatism/socialism this is the best example since the R100 vs the R101.

      1. The problem was the DC-X was meant to be a pathfinder to SSTO.
         Once it became obvious it wouldn’t scale to orbit without being enormous,
         McDac lost interest.

         I think there is something in the concept, but, it’s a bit of a solution looking for a problem.

         1. Once it became obvious it wouldn’t scale to orbit without being enormous, McDac lost interest.

            Which issue of Marvel Comics did that happen in?

            In the real world, McDAC bid a DC-X follow-on for NASA’s X-33 competition, but lost to Lockheed’s VentureStar. It “scaled up to being enormous” because NASA wanted a bigger payload.

            1. As X-33 did not fly, there is no evidence that it was the right size
               to hit it’s mission requirements.

               MacDac may have liked the DC-X as a concept to get NASA money, but
               they sure didn’t like it for an investment of company money.

            2. As X-33 did not fly, there is no evidence that it was the right size to hit it’s mission requirements.

               Did you read what I wrote? What Fenster wrote? What YOU wrote?

               In your last post, “it” referred to the McDonnell Douglas Delta Clipper Experimental. In this post, “it” refers to the Lockheed Martin’s X-33/VentureStar.

               In other words, you just changed the subject.

               No one claimed the Lockheed Martin X-33 “was the right size to hit it’s [sic] mission requirements.” We were not discussing X-33. We were discussing DC-X.

            3. The DC-X was an amazing technology demonstrator. It was the first VTVL rocket demo.

               That was interesting. It got a lot of press, it got a lot of kudos. It was done for under $100 Million.

               However, the data indicated the DC-X VTVL architecture for SSTO would have been enormous. Yes, you can argue about what the payload should have been, but, the reality is NASA and USAF who would be principal funders wanted a 40K payload and 1800 mile crossrange. That would have been a really, really big bird.

               MacDac/Boeing never saw a business case for an SSTO.

               They didn’t in 1990, nor in 1995, or 2000, or 2005, or 2010.

               Neither has anyone else.

               MacDac, like Rockwell, Like Lockheed, saw the program as a way to get NASA money.

               The technology was interesting but immature and could have used a decade of
               maturity.

            4. However, the data indicated the DC-X VTVL architecture for SSTO would have been enormous.

               What data? Where was this published?

               Engineers do not express values in terms like “enormous.” They use numbers. To say something is “enormous” is meaningless. A mouse is enormous, to a grasshopper.

               the reality is NASA and USAF who would be principal funders wanted a 40K payload and 1800 mile crossrange.

               No, that is not reality. The original sponsor was SDIO. Later on, it was NASA. The USAF was never involved at all.

               SDIO wanted to launch interceptor platforms that weighed much less than 40,000 pounds. The proposed payload was *never* more than 20,000 pounds until NASA took over.

               MacDac/Boeing never saw a business case for an SSTO. Neither has anyone else.

               Actually, many people have. Your ignorance of those business cases doesn’t mean they never existed.

               You need to read a little history. You didn’t know which agency sponsored DC-X, or what SDIO’s desired payload was, and you’ve consistently misspelled McDAC even after being corrected. This does not speak to a high level of credibility.

               The technology was interesting but immature and could have used a decade of maturity.

               What would the technology be “interesting” and worth maturing if there was no business case for it? You do realize that you just contradicted yourself, don’t you?

         2. McDac lost interest when they lost the bid for X-33.

            1. If MacDac saw the technology as wildly profitable, would they have
               not continued investing?

            2. 1) No one claimed “MacDac saw the technology as wildly profitable.” Or even McDAC (the company that actually built the Delta Clipper).

               2) There are obvious reasons why a private company would choose not to compete with a government-subsidized monopoly. It’s hard for a business to be profitable (let alone “wildly profitable”) in the face of a competitor that can sell goods or services below cost.

               3) This has nothing to do with your original statement that “it became obvious [DC-X] wouldn’t scale to orbit without being enormous.” You do realize that, don’t you?

            3. Edward

               While it makes you happy to argue, i’ll just point out that Nobody is
               flying an SSTO 35 years since the DC-X.

               If you have a cogent explanation for what that is, i’d be interested to hear it.

            4. Because SSTO isn’t necessarily that great an idea. But it hasn’t been 35 years since the DC-X. We just celebrated the 20th anniversary in Alamagordo last August.

               You moron.

            5. Nobody claimed that anyone was anyone was flying an SSTO “flying an SSTO 35 years since the DC-X.”

               That’s DN Guy strawman #617.

               Now, do you have any evidence for your claim that “McDAC lost interest” because “it became obvious it wouldn’t scale to orbit without being enormous”?

               Or can we just write this off as more ahistorical nonsense, like your belief that DC-X was funded by the Air Force?

               If you have a cogent explanation for what that is, i’d be interested to hear it.

               What “that” is??? “That” is a pronoun with no obvious referent — and part of a very strange request.

               Or did you mean to ask *why* that is? If so, the answer to that is quite easy. McDAC lost the X-33 contract, as explained before. Lockheed Martin won but failed to get its vehicle off the ground. The failure of the X-33 project resulted in so much negative publicity that no potential investor has been willing to touch an SSTO project ever since. All of this is quite well documented.

      2. Boeing never operated the DC-X.

      3. Actually, that was McDonnell Douglas, not Boeing.

      4. OK, you were wrong about Boeing, but great point about the R100 vs. R101.

         I saw a TV documentary about them many years ago. Short version: The British government commissioned two airships, one to be built by private industry and the other by the government. The private R100 worked pretty well and made a couple of transatlantic test flights without serious incident. The government R101 had one problem after another, and crashed on its first long-distance flight, killing 48 out of the 54 people on board. In response, the government ordered the R100 to be scrapped.

         I have to admit that this photo made me laugh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:R101-at_mast.jpg

         Compare and contrast the cows peacefully grazing beneath the R101 vs. the panicked cows running away from the F9R.

8. I pity the poor fools who will try to oppose this with single use boosters.

   Dead man walking.

   1. I suspect it won’t work out as well as SpaceX hopes, but, it’s real job may well be to keep the PR going.

      PR is useful for leverage.

9. BTW, It looks like they will be trying another water recovery on their comsat flight next week.

   http://www.mynews13.com/content/news/cfnews13/news/article.html/content/news/articles/cfn/2014/5/3/spacex_rocket_launch.html

   SpaceX set to launch rocket next Saturday

   [[[A Falcon 9 rocket, which is similar to the one launched two weeks ago, will be blasting off from pad No. 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

   Just like the previous launch, the Falcon 9 rocket will have launch legs to land the first stage rocket off Brevard County’s coast in the Atlantic Ocean.]]]

   1. “Launch legs”? To assist it in springing off the pad?

   2. IIRC, after the first attempt, SpaceX said that it will be doing this on all launches. Perhaps they would make an exception if a customer needed the extra lift but it sounded like they were not interested in giving customers this option going forward.

10. How is Atlas V going to be submitted for CCDEV use without a steady engine supply? Surely remaining engines will be prioritized for DOD payloads won’t they? Will this not push all CCDEV winners onto Falcon now?

    1. There is still Delta IV Heavy I guess.

       1. Not Man-Rated nor likely to be.

11. Armadillo, masten, Blue Origin .. Were supposed to be halfway to orbit by now. It takes megamillions and a huge team after all.

    1. Blue Origin was founded by Jeff Bezos. He doesn’t just have megamillions, he is a billionaire!

       1. I have no clue what Blue Origins Strategy is.

          They show off things, then they stop,

       2. Bezos has kilomillions (usually known as “billions”), not megamillions (“trillions”).

          Of course, NASA does not have trillions, either. Neither do Boeing, Lockheed, Orbital Sciences, or SpaceX. Does “reader” believe it’s impossible for them to reach orbit?

          One possibility, which “reader” overlooks, is that it might require more money greater than the few million which Armadillo & Masten have spent but still less than trillions, as reader imagines.

          Also, the last I heard, Armadillo and Masten were building suborbital vehicles. If reader “supposed” those vehicles would be “halfway” to orbit, he does not understand the destinations or the physics. This is like saying the Long Island Express was supposed to be halfway to Pittsburgh.

          1. Edward,

             The last I heard Armadillo Aerospace was in hibernation mode, apparently partly a result of their decision to go after NASA work.

             http://www.newspacejournal.com/2013/08/01/carmack-armadillo-aerospace-in-hibernation-mode/

             Carmack: Armadillo Aerospace in “hibernation mode”

             [[[A second reason was what he called “creeping professionalism” at the company as its volunteers became full-time employees and started working with NASA. Rather that turning out hardware quickly to try something, he said, Armadillo started doing more reviews and additional planning: comforting to customers like NASA, but not nearly as speedy as before. When Armadillo was all-volunteer, “everyone was focused on getting the work done” when they were in the shop only a couple days a week, he recalled. That efficiency, he believed, wasn’t maintained at that same level of urgency when people started working full-time at Armadillo.]]]

             Yes, like RpK, Armadillo Aerospace learned that the NASA way is poison to New Space firms unless you are very, very rich like Elon Musk. I suspect that is why Jeff Bezos had Blue Origins drop working with NASA.

             Makes you wonder where SpaceX would be today if they had stayed free of NASA and worked with Bigelow Aerospace. Probably flying folks in the Dragon to Bigelow Aerospace habitats in a true example of space commerce. But then NASA couldn’t have that, a private space station doing what ISS does at a tiny fraction of the billions NASA spends on ISS each yera.

             1. Technically, Bezos is still working with NASA. Blue Origin is an unfunded fourth player in the Commercial Crew program. Whether they’re still working as hard on their biconic capsule as they were back when they were getting at least some NASA money – or even working on it all anymore – I don’t know. B.O. is notorious for playing its cards very close to its vest. But I’ve seen no announcement by either NASA or B.O. about the latter dropping out. If this happened, it seems likely that at least NASA would put out a press release.

             2. They still seem to be claiming a biconic, according to the latest information.

             3. I believe Jeff Foust recently reported that Blue Origin had completed, or was about to complete, its unfunded Space Act Agreement.

          2. It is damned hard to do it with the amount of money Armadillo put into it. However I think part of the problem they had was they spent a lot of time and effort on pointless excursions like hydrogen peroxide monopropellant rockets, which do not have enough performance, with the expectation that they would use hydrogen peroxide/kerosene afterwards. Which was another failed move that they should have learned by looking at what happened to Beal Aerospace. It is not easy to get the hydrogen peroxide of the required purity in the market. Neither is it particularly easier to work with than liquid oxygen. Actually its a lot worse since it decomposes and you have to take care to passivate the container. Only the British developed working hydrogen peroxide/kerosene rocket engines but they had a lot of experience on hydrogen peroxide combustion from previous submarine and aviation projects.

             SpaceX did a lot of things right by examining where others failed and not repeating those mistakes. LOX/Kerosene is all you need to have a TSTO launch vehicle and it is relatively easy to buy the propellants and to work with them.

             I think the major obstacles are manufacturing turbopumps, which SpaceX apparently outsources, and manufacturing the pressurized tanks, which SpaceX does in house.

             I have seen proposals to simplify the designs of both but neither of these were what Armadillo got into. Remember the Flometrics pistonless pump? Or the XCOR piston pump?

             1. It’s also a lot easier to have a research program when you have a for profit program to pay for it.

12. Discussing DC-X brings to mind the other 90s-era orbital RLV concepts: the Roton, Black Horse (in-flight propellant transfer), Kistler (TSTO with parachute recovery), etc. I don’t recall anyone pushing the concept that Space-X is now pursuing, a fairly conventional TSTO expendable that is incrementally turned into a VTVL reusable.

    1. The closest would have been Starbooster with its TSTO VLHL flyback booster.

    2. There were 1960s proposals similar to what SpaceX is doing. I remember reading about proposals to reuse the Saturn rocket 1st stages among other things. Mind you it was a simple parachute recovery scheme. Automated reentry and touchdown was too complicated for the control systems they had back then. Most proposals for propulsive reentry had manned pilots. The DC-X proved the automated control systems were perfectly doable. It was a bit ambitious as it was supposed to lead to an SSTO design they called the Delta Clipper. Making it TSTO ensures you will actually have a usable payload.

       The Soyuz capsule fires solid rocket boosters prior to touchdown in order to ensure a ‘smooth’ landing.

       1. The earliest concepts for the Space Shuttle had a piloted, horizontal landing first stage.

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