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For the retro- and re-entry burns, it appears to show all the engines firing, but I believe only three of them do. It correctly shows only one for the actual landings though.
dhanson865
Well-Known Member
ToddRLockwood
Active Member
I doubt the center core will come all the way back to the launchpad for its landing -- it's going much faster horizontally than the two side cores when the second stage separates and it has to come back. Much more likely for it to land on some island a ways off the coast, or on the "spaceport barge" parked out at sea.
But with SpaceX, who knows? If you nail the reuse part, the payload hit can be absorbed -- it could become cheaper to launch the same payload weight from a fully-reused Heavy with all 3 cores returning to Canaveral, than it would be to launch-and-throw-away a single-core Falcon 9...
But with SpaceX, who knows? If you nail the reuse part, the payload hit can be absorbed -- it could become cheaper to launch the same payload weight from a fully-reused Heavy with all 3 cores returning to Canaveral, than it would be to launch-and-throw-away a single-core Falcon 9...
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
dhanson865
Well-Known Member
if he can put up with slightly missing the barge the first time he'll be ok with a few seconds out of synch on the landing if they both hit the correct mark.
mknox
Well-Known Member
Probably. There's a lot less bang for the buck bringing back the second stage. The cost (in terms of payload weight) of additional fuel is worse, and the payback (one engine and much smaller stage) is much less.
dhanson865
Well-Known Member
RobinF
Member
@Doug_G is correct. The second stage recovery was always a long range idea at best. The first Heavy launch is schedule for this year (3rd quarter) but it's a demo flight and I don't know if they will attempt a landing of the core stages. Actually I doubt that the Air Force will have them cleared for shore landings by that time anyway.
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The video actually shows the central core stage coming back but that's still part of the first stage. The second stage has a single Merlin engine.
The second stage reentry with a heat shield was for me the most surprising part when I first saw that video with the Muse soundtrack.
It looks like they have changed the design of the second stage. It appears that the "skin" of the second stage stays with the first stage. The second stage slides out of the rocket shell most likely making the second stage less expensive and easier to manufacture. It would be interesting to know the cost of the items they are discarding (second stage without outer shell and fairings) and what proportion that is of the cost of the whole rocket. I imagine it's a very small percent.
I wonder how many Dragon Version 2 capsules they will have to throw away during the testing phase? Those are reusable too but everything says that they won't be making any powered landings with it for quite a while. For now, it seems as though they aren't really interested in recovering the second stage. It makes sense since it probably isn't too cost effective. I'd think you'd need to maximize the usability over recoverability for that stage. Just a WAG but I'd guess that the three booster stages would account for at least 75% of the cost of the rocket excluding payload.
