If that was ever a serious option the probability of Agent Orange in the White House again would instantly rule it out.
NATO may not be long for this world which explains why Ukraine has been signing up bilateral security agreements with as many NATO members as possible.
There is a lot of very low frequency content as well as very high sound levels. I expect drum microphones might be the best choice along with a high dynamic range digital audio recorder.
Definitely no hydraulics as the oil would freeze solid. SpaceX typically uses pneumatic or electric actuation.
ULA Vulcan rockets likely cost around $80M to build for a rocket that is one tenth the mass of a Starship stack.
At the moment I think each Starship stack is around $200M to build with all production and design costs added in. So SpaceX is around three times as cost efficient as ULA which sounds about right.
Once booster recovery is reliably achieved the economics will improve dramatically. Starship will come down to $80M at a build rate of ten per year and possibly $50M at the factory capacity of around 100 per year.
Possibly it will take too long to get FAA approval so it is easier to push the catch attempt to the following g flight and go on to try and nail ship entry.
Well you will never be excited by Biden the way that people were excited by Obama but surely that is not the point of voting for a President.
The point is voting for someone who will get things done and as an external observer he has got more done in 3.5 years than Obama did in 8 years. Both faced obstructionist House leaders but Biden faced down more rabid opposition and worked away at solutions until they were achieved.
So Obama for the rhetoric but Biden for the win.
Methane freezes at 67K which is the sub cooled LOX temperature.
The issue is right at the end of flight so it is likely to be something that accumulates and then suddenly clogs the filters.
The pattern of clogging on IFT-3 certainly suggests it is something floating on or near the LOX surface which is more likely water ice than dry ice.
The relatively low density difference between ice and LOX means that not all of it will be on the surface but some will be just below it. The much higher density difference means that gaseous oxygen bubbles will return much faster to the surface and additionally bubbles will condense out in the sub cooled LOX.
Redundancy only works if there is not a common cause of failure for each valve. If one valve is icing up the second valve will ice up at nearly the same time.
They have only modified the actuator on that arm. Possibly waiting to get the results of this test to either do the same modification on the other arm or change the design again.
300 more Bradleys look to be more useful.
Amusingly the USSR had not developed a special alloy either for their oxygen rich staged combustion engines - they used a ceramic coating over the top of regular steel.
Yes Dragon XL tanks would definitely be too small and would require extended tanks in the cargo space.
If the actual NASA statement included reference to the trunk then logically it would be a modified Cargo Dragon. I wouldn’t have thought the current trunk had sufficient capacity for either mass or volume but a stretched version would certainly be possible.
I would think they would limit the Dragon changes and store all the deorbit propellant in the trunk. Dragon would still contain the RCS hardware and control the trunk through the Dragons claw.
My best estimate is around $200M per stack at the moment but if their factory can indeed produce even half its capacity of 100 Starships per year that price will plummet.
Reusable boosters are possible within a year and $50M per expendable Starship would be very viable against A64. GTO and GEO launches would still need a third stage or tug to be viable.
Yikes they have been talking about subsidies of €20M per flight but suddenly that is €38M per flight for nine flights per year.
No wonder Kuiper can book A64 flights for US$ 100M each!
A64 can lift around 11 tonnes to GTO-1500 so typically two geosynchronous satellites per launch. So a $125M launch price is fully competitive with SpaceX at $62.5M per satellite.
They were talking about the geostationary arc which is indeed very limited for capacity. The imagination failure was in not thinking that LEO satellites were viable. “To make that work you would need consumer grade phased array terminals for under $1000 each when Aegis is $400M so clearly the idea is impossible”
F9 reusable with an ASDS landing puts 18.7 tonnes into LEO and sells for $67M.
F9 disposable would put over 30 tonnes into LEO and cost $95M but not a single disposable launch to LEO has been made. Among other things a new payload adapter would be required along with the extended fairing to fit 30 tonnes of satellites and the economics do not stack up. Disposable F9 is used for high energy orbits.
A62 puts 7.2 tonnes into LEO and costs at least $100M. So far they are subsidised by Euro 20M per launch to give $78M. If they are selling for less than that then there is an additional subsidy being applied.
A64 costs at least $120M to produce and is rumoured to be doing Kuiper launches at $100M each so Amazon is getting EU subsidies of $22M for each launch.
The main part that was getting replaced was the acoustic absorption panels. For use on Starlink launches they just take the panels out but for a less rugged payload they replaced them with new ones.
SpaceX did commission new material for the panels that would not absorb seawater so it is possible that they just flush them with distilled water now. They also moved the air vents for ascent so that they do not let in water when sitting on the ocean.
Notably very expensive payloads get new fairing halves to completely remove any possibility of contamination. I assume this is an extra cost service.
They have built another 7 for the first New Glenn.
The vehicle needs to auto dock to the ISS and then stay for at least a year as they allow the orbit to degrade before the final 47 m/s deorbit burn.
So a lashed together assembly would not survive for that length of time to 99.5% probability. It also means a cryogenic rocket is not an option.
That is why Dragon XL with additional propellant tanks and aft thrusters is the logical choice.
Correct. The Octagrabber had not been modified for a FH core at that stage but likely there were several leg crush cores compressed by a hard landing which allowed the booster to rock in heavy seas and eventually fall overboard.
So I think we are saying the same thing?
What gets replaced on fairings for reuse?
SpaceXLounge