Hey guys, thought you might enjoy some pictures of the new fuel cell for SpaceX.
A few years ago one of the large manufacturing buildings in our small town got bought by a bunch of strange suits, supposedly by Boeing for special projects. Extremely tight security.
Even the shipping containers outside had biometric locks on them.
But a few days ago they brought this big fucker out and loaded it onto a barge, supposedly for "destructive testing".
Less than 24 hours later, it has already returned seemingly intact.
They could not have gone very far at all, so everybody is pretty curious about what they actually did.
I saw a few man-sized silver tanks that were being moved off the barge as they were venting.
My best guess is they only filled it partially and will be cutting the tank open to examine how well it held up. Supposedly the last one exploded due to a reaction with the resin in the carbon fiber and the liquid oxygen.
spooky?
Excellent thread OP. Thx.I understand there will be 2 of those fuckers as part of the body of the rocket?
didn't they say they were gonna stress test it to 2/3rd's of breaking pressure?
This isn't like that COPV tank that exploded, I don't think they are doing that anymore, caused too much problems I guess.
Talking with some people now, apparently it isn't a "fuel cell", it's the ITS LOX testing tank.
I have not kept up with news about SpaceX for a few months, so I'm not very knowledgeable about it.
I do know they couldn't have gotten very far from shore, it was back a day after it left and I'm in Anacortes/San Juan Islands.
What are the chances that SpaceX are actually going to launch something to Mars in 2018? they've mentioned it in interviews, but they don't even have a timeline on their website
I'd say probably around 100% because thats kinda the whole point of the company
this is the tank they showed a picture of back in that september presentation
>I'm in Anacortes/San Juan Islands
Whoah, what? Why would they do it there?
Are you sure it isn't Janicki Industries doing this? They're based out of Sedro Wooley and do a lot of custom composites work too
>Are you sure it isn't Janicki Industries doing this?
It is them, I guess they were just using the building next to my workplace to build it for easy access to a barge. It's literally across the street from the pictures.
Turns out my friend who works at Janicki was working on this, I knew he was on some kind of secret project but I never imagined this.
Very low. After the most recent explosion they are again faced with clawing back months of lost schedule. SpaceX's has struggled for a long time to get it's flight rate up and it's still not there. Falcon Heavy will slip again and so will Red Dragon.
>didn't they say they were gonna stress test it to 2/3rd's of breaking pressure?
Yeah, they probably just did that, and have brought it back for examination for signs of damage.
If it checks out, they'll probably take it back out for pressure cycling, see if any cracks start.
This is basically just the overwrap. They'll be pressurizing it with inert gas, not oxygen, since they haven't decided what they're doing for the inner coating, which will have to stand up to hot, high-pressure oxygen and last for years. Musk mentioned that an invar (an iron-nickel alloy with a low coefficient of thermal expansion) inner tank is an acceptable option, but they'd like to find something lighter.
hmm. what about the Jul 2020 – Sep 2020 window?
I mean it sounds like they've already done some deal with NASA for Red Dragoon to share data, but Ig uess if they can't launch in 2018 they can't launch
I have very little doubt that Red Dragon will go on schedule.
It's too important for their overall company vision to let slide. Anyway, they're getting the bugs worked out, and should get on a mature operational model in 2017.
Red Dragon is, after all, just one launch. To suggest that they can't launch one rocket of their choosing in a given year is absurd. What they're struggling with is the process of becoming the most prolific launch service in the world. Six launches last year and eight launches this year is a very respectable rate, it only looks disappointing in comparison to their ambitions.
Whether the red dragon lands successfully on mars first attempt is another story
Yes, that could fail. However, it's a much easier task than landing the Falcon 9 booster. Not even in the same category, really. Falcon 9 landings barely work. In the interests of efficiency, they're landing with the absolute minimum necessary capabilities.
Crew Dragon has redundant SuperDracos and will be able to throttle down enough to hover, as well as survive quite a hard landing. It can also survive a passive atmospheric entry (until it needs to start the burn for landing), unlike the F9 booster, which isn't aerodynamically stable and needs to be kept oriented so it doesn't break up.
This isn't your usual barebones Mars lander. This is a robust crew vehicle, far more capable than it needs to be for the mission.
Thats true, but they don't have GPS, and I dnno how capable its sensors/computing power will be.
How often does the rocket have to land for this whole reusable launcher scheme to be worthwhile?
I think there's more factors involved than just how often does it land
it'll land basically every time
more a question of how often do they launch, because thats how they make their money.
I think even a 50% successful landing rate would make it viable on a marginal cost basis. I don't know if they'd recoup their development budget that way.
They lose about 30% of capacity by going reusable, but many customers don't care about maxing out on payload, they just need a medium-capacity launch, and until they get Heavy going, they do need the option of fully-expendable launch.
They did have other options for reducing costs, like making Falcon 5: a Falcon 9 with only 5 engines on the bottom, and a shortened booster. With the Merlin 1D upgrades, they could have probably launched all Falcon 9 reusable payloads on Falcon 5, and essentially all commercial Falcon Heavy payloads on an expendable Falcon 9. Then they could have added some strap-on boosters based on Falcon 1 instead of building Heavy. It's what most companies would have done.
If they get an average of two uses per booster, then that makes up for the cost savings of building a smaller Falcon 5.
However, I think failure to recover is going to become rare, especially for FH side-boosters. Barge landings might always be dodgy, but flyback to land has proven fairly reliable.
When their private spaceport opens that's gonna accelerate everything else in their business isn't it? It seems like a big increase in "bandwidth" to have a facility that belongs exclusively to them instead of a NASA lease
That's a big tank
Still have to deal with the FAA
The FAA's radar doesn't catch on fire and stop all launches for a month.
ITS A FUCKING TANK