Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

SpaceX plans ocean platform landing

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.

Grendal

SpaceX Moderator
Moderator
Jan 31, 2012
7,809
12,018
Santa Fe, New Mexico
SpaceX Will Try to Land Rocket on Floating Ocean Platform, Elon Musk Says

It looks like they will be trying for a barge landing in December. If it is successful then SpaceX will re-launch that rocket and we will have our first official reusable SpaceX rocket!

That will have every other launch company trembling in their boots and scrambling to match the effort.

THIS is what we call disruption!
 
Space X Launches & Landings, Videos









SpaceX
Past Launches &Landings

Date TypeLaunchPayloadOrbitCustomer //
Landing attempt in bold in row below
+/-Video
Jun 4, 10 Falcon 9v1.0CC LC40Dragon Spacecraft Qualification Unit LEOSpace X+Video
Dec 8, 10 Falcon 9v1.0CC LC40NASA COTS - Demo1LEONASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services+Video
May 22, 12 Falcon 9v1.0CC LC40NASA COTS - Demo C2+LEO NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services+Video
Oct 8, 12 Falcon 9v1.0CC LC40Primary Payload Space X CRS - 1LEONASA Commercial Resupply Services+Video
Oct 8, 12 Falcon 9v1.0CC LC40Secondary Payload Orbcomm-OG2LEOOrbcomm-
Mar 1, 13 Falcon 9v1.0CC LC40Space X CRS-2LEONASA Commercial Resupply Services+Video
Sep 29, 13 Falcon 9v1.1VAFB LC4ECASSIOPEPolarMDA Corp //+Video






Propulsive return over water simulated test landing-
Dec 3, 13 Falcon 9v1.1CC LC40SES - 8GTOSES+Video
Jan 6, 14 Falcon 9v1.1CC LC40Thaicom 6GTOThaicom+Video
Apr 18, 14 Falcon 9v1.1CC LC40Space X CRS - 3LEONASA Commercial Resupply Services //+Video

First Dragon
First booster with extendable legs
CRS-3 First Stage Controlled descent test
Video
Jul 14, 14 Falcon 9v1.1CC LC40OG2 Mission 1 6 OG2 SattelitesLEOOrbcomm //+Video





Falcon 9 First Stage Return ORBCOMM Mission
Video
Aug 5, 14 Falcon 9v1.1CC LC40Asia Sat 8GTOAsia Sat+Video
Aug 22, 14Falcon 9v1.1


Falcon 9 Static Fire Test
Falcon 9 First Stage Reentry Footage From Plane
+.
Video
Aug 22, 14Falcon 9-RMcG T

F-9.1 Dev-1 Test-Video
Sep 7, 14 Falcon 9v1.1CC LC40Asia Sat 6GTOAsia Sat+Video
Sep 21, 14 Falcon 9v1.1CC LC40Space X CRS - 4LEONASA Commercial Resupply Services //+Video





Controlled descent test
Video
Jan 10, 15 Falcon 9v1.1CC LC40Space X CRS - 5LEONASA Commercial Resupply Services //+Video



Run out of hydraulic fluid
CRS-5 First Stage Landing-Video
Feb 11, 15 Falcon 9v1.1CC LC40DSCOVRL1US Air Force / NASA / NOAA //+Video



Landed within 10m of target
Test flight descent-
Mar 2, 15Falcon 9v1.1CC LC40ABS - 3A Eutelsat 115 West BGTOAsia Broadcast Sattelite, Eutelsat (Satmex)+Video
Apr 14, 15Falcon 9v1.1CC LC40Space X CRS - 6LEONASA Commercial Resupply Services //+Video



Excess lateral velocity
CRS-6 First Stage Landing -Video
Apr 27, 15Falcon 9v1.1CC LC40TurkmenAlem52E/MonacoSatGTOThales Alenia Space+Video








Jun 28, 15Falcon 9v1.1CC LC40Space X CRS - 7LEONASA Commercial Resupply Services //-Video








SpaceX2015Launch Schedule











Jul 15, 15Falcon 9v1.1CC LC40 SES 9GTOSES

Jul 22, 15Falcon 9v1.1VAFB
SLC-4E
Jason 3SSONASA / NOAA EUMETSAT CNES

Mid 2015Falcon 9v1.1CC LC40Orbcomm-OG2
11 OG2 Sattelites
GTOOrbcomm

3rd QuarterFalcon HeavyKSC
LC39A
Demo FlightTBDSpace X

Sep 2, 15Falcon 9v1.1CC LC40Space X CRS - 8LEONASA Commercial Resupply Services //






CRS-8 First Stage Landing

3rd QuarterFalcon 9v1.1CC LC40JCSAT 14 Communications SatteliteGTOSky Perfect JSAT Corp

4th QuarterFalcon 9v1.1CC LC40ABS - 3A Eutelsat 115 West BGTOAsia Broadcast Sattelite, Eutelsat (Satmex)

Dec 9, 15Falcon 9v1.1CC LC40Space X CRS - 9
NASA Commercial Resupply Services //






CRS-9 First Stage Landing

Q 1, 16Falcon 9v1.1CC LC40Amos 6GTOSpacecom
Feb 13, 16Falcon 9v1.1CC LC40Space X CRS - 10
NASA Commercial Resupply Services //





CRS-10 First Stage Landing
 
Last edited by a moderator:
"SpaceX’s Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship ready for action"

Nice article with some very good links.

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/11/spacex-autonomous-spaceport-drone-ship/

platform.PNG
 
I gather that the value of recapturing a used stage is worth all the extra fuel to land it as well as all the extra fuel of moving / positioning the landing platform, all the transport of staff to landing platform, etc? The fuel used to be able to reuse the booster starts to add up. It will probably take a lot of reused boosters to justify the cost of the landing platform too.

Do the economics all add up? I suppose there is PR value is saying you reuse and recycle plus the geek wow factor even if the costs are high.
 
I remember at one point Elon saying that the cost of fuel to fully fuel a rocket is about $200,000 (although certainly they wouldn't need to fully fuel it to hop the first stage back to land). The cost of a new first stage, though, I'm going to guess is ~$30,000,000. Even if it costs them $300,000 to get the stage back, and $200,000 to refurbish it, that's still much better than spending $30,000,000 to build a new one.

Of course the largest hit they take isn't in logistics, but in the fact that they'll only be able to launch about 60% the mass to LEO than they were previously able to launch due to the weight of the re-usability stuff (like leaving extra fuel in the tank, and putting legs on the rocket).
 
Last edited:
I'm trying to remember my numbers here, but I think Elon said that only 4% or so of the mass at launch ends up in orbit. And that adding reusability brings that down to somewhere between 2% and 2.5% So that means they'd only be able to launch somewhere between 50% and 62.5% of what they were previously able to launch. (I guessed 60%).

But this was from an interview from a while ago, and those numbers are quite rounded, and Elon seemed to not be quite sure of the final values since they hadn't done much actual testing at the time.

Does anyone have any numbers on this that are more up-to-date?
 
I remember at one point Elon saying that the cost of fuel to fully fuel a rocket is about $200,000 (although certainly they wouldn't need to fully fuel it to hop the first stage back to land). The cost of a new first stage, though, I'm going to guess is ~$30,000,000. Even if it costs them $300,000 to get the stage back, and $200,000 to refurbish it, that's still much better than spending $30,000,000 to build a new one.

Of course the largest hit they take isn't in logistics, but in the fact that they'll only be able to launch about 60% the mass to LEO that they were previously able to launch due to the weight of the re-usability stuff (like leaving extra fuel in the tank, and putting legs on the rocket).

Also should be factored is in that with reusability you can do more flights, because you significantly multiply your manufacturing-trips per year.

But, for now, stage one (ho ho) is just to land the thing and see what happens.

Here's another reusability thought. Imagine SpaceX has full reusability. 3 F9 engines fail in flight, so they can't get the cargo to orbit. SpaceX aborts the missions, lands the 3 pieces, checks them out, repairs, and then sends them up again. Not only could the kaboom cost be cut dramatically by re-use, but the ability to recover would cut the risk of cargo loss.
 
Last edited:
Here's another reusability thought. Imagine SpaceX has full reusability. 3 F9 engines fail in flight, so they can't get the cargo to orbit. SpaceX aborts the missions, lands the 3 pieces, checks them out, repairs, and then sends them up again. Not only could the kaboom cost be cut dramatically by re-use, but the ability to recover would cut the risk of cargo loss.

There seemed to be a decent amount of damage in the one engine failure. I would bet there would need to be a lot of repair needed if three engines failed. It would probably still be less than the price of building a new rocket from scratch.

On that thought, I wonder how much of the rocket cost is the engines compared to the rocket body? How much is the cost of one Merlin engine? $1 million each?
 
I'm trying to remember my numbers here, but I think Elon said that only 4% or so of the mass at launch ends up in orbit. And that adding reusability brings that down to somewhere between 2% and 2.5% So that means they'd only be able to launch somewhere between 50% and 62.5% of what they were previously able to launch. (I guessed 60%).

But this was from an interview from a while ago, and those numbers are quite rounded, and Elon seemed to not be quite sure of the final values since they hadn't done much actual testing at the time.



Does anyone have any numbers on this that are more up-to-date?

Musk also addressed the performance hit that results from reserving propellant for landing the first stage.
“If we do an ocean landing (for testing purposes), the performance hit is actually quite small, maybe in the order of 15 percent. If we do a return to launch site landing, it’s probably double that, it’s more like a 30 percent hit (i.e., 30 percent of payload lost).”


http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/10/musk-plans-reusability-falcon-9-rocket/


Also remember Aerobraking...
 
I gather that the value of recapturing a used stage is worth all the extra fuel to land it as well as all the extra fuel of moving / positioning the landing platform, all the transport of staff to landing platform, etc? The fuel used to be able to reuse the booster starts to add up. It will probably take a lot of reused boosters to justify the cost of the landing platform too.

Do the economics all add up? I suppose there is PR value is saying you reuse and recycle plus the geek wow factor even if the costs are high.

I expect once they are successful and prove landing is safe they won't have to land on a barge with the added complexity that it brings. A temporary solution since it adds unnecessary cost, time and requires more people.
 
I expect once they are successful and prove landing is safe they won't have to land on a barge with the added complexity that it brings. A temporary solution since it adds unnecessary cost, time and requires more people.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. It isn't obvious that the powers that be will allow rocket tail landings anywhere near human habitation. Maybe SpaceX will be allowed to create a new spaceport in the middle of nowhere requiring the building of many miles of road.
 
I wouldn't be so sure of that. It isn't obvious that the powers that be will allow rocket tail landings anywhere near human habitation. Maybe SpaceX will be allowed to create a new spaceport in the middle of nowhere requiring the building of many miles of road.

The bigger problem is that by the time that the first stage expires it's a long ways downrange. For a Florida launch, it would be a major bit of fuel consumption for the stage to turn around and return to the continental US. Something may be possible if they launch from Texas. Unless there is some mid-atlantic island that is in an opportune location?