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CEO Elon Musk has released the first official video of A Shortfall of Gravitas (ASOG), the latest member of SpaceX’s “autonomous space drone ships” fleet.
From a purely visual standpoint, the ASOG drone represents a substantial departure from the older siblings Just Read The Instructions (JRTI) and Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY). While JRTI and OCISLY have developed Marmac 300 series barges with rectangular wings and a variety of power generation and propulsion extensions in a multitude of nailed shipping containers, the ASOG drone appears to be significantly refined. This process of gradual refinement is an integral part of SpaceX’s strategy. operating mode and ASOG is therefore probably the culmination of years of lessons learned from 76 recall recovery attempts and 66 successful landings.
Perhaps more importantly, Musk says ASOG could use SpaceX’s first fully automated drone – potentially capable of propelling itself to and from recovery areas and securing dismounted Falcon boosters without hands-on human intervention.
Physically, the ASOG drone appears to be a bit sleeker and more optimized than its siblings. On ASOG, the substantial amount of additional equipment needed to transform a barge into a “drone ship” has been much more robust and permanent conditioned inside steel bunkers, while JRTI and OCISLY have generators, power supplies, computers and communications equipment strewn across their decks in shipping containers.
On JRTI and OCISLY, the only real protection against the explosion of a Falcon booster on landing and the threat of damage caused by the high seas by crashing on the equipment comes from two bent steel deflectors. The ASOG, on the other hand, looks like a seasoned tank with almost no identifiable equipment visible under black steel hoods and armor. ASOG appears to be designed to tolerate extreme rocket explosions and the high seas, in other words.
Oddly enough, the angular landing bridge on the ASOG is also significantly smaller and slightly narrower than the rectangular bridges on JRTI and OCISLY. Additionally, the vast majority of the additional ASOG gear has been fitted to the rear of the drone, which appears to result in an intentionally asymmetric deck load distribution.
This design decision could be linked to Musk’s hint that ASOG is SpaceX’s first really autonomous drone ship. While JRTI and OCISLY are both able to remain self-sufficient at a specific location after being towed out to sea and prepared by a team of technicians, ASOG may be able to travel several hundred kilometers at sea, retrieving and securing a booster Falcon with his Octagrabber. robot, then return to Port Canaveral to unload the rocket without a single person boarding the drone.
In theory, if achieved, the full autonomy of the ASOG drone could easily save SpaceX $ 1 million or more per booster clawback. Still, it remains to be seen if SpaceX is actually at a point where recovering boosters at sea can be. really automated as described above. A Shortfall of Gravitas is currently on track to arrive in Port Canaveral on Thursday evening July 15th.
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