[ad_1]
CEO Elon Musk reiterated that SpaceX is still pursuing an important rocket reuse milestone that it initially set for the company several years ago and revealed that its Falcon rockets could ultimately fly way beyond.
Musk has been talking publicly about reusable rockets for over a decade, but the first hard numbers related to actual hardware came with the launch of the Falcon 9 Block 5 upgrade in May 2018. During a conference call with reporters, Musk revealed that the Block 5 upgrade incorporated design changes that would allow SpaceX to reuse orbital-class Falcon boosters. at least ten times each. An upper limit of over 100 flights per booster would also be possible with regular maintenance and part replacements every ten launches or so.
Since the upgrade launched on May 11, 2018, the Falcon 9 and Heavy Block 5 rockets have completed 37 launches – all successful – with a single in-flight anomaly, an engine failure in March 2020 that prevented the booster from recovering but did not prevent the success of the mission. Excluding three perfect Falcon Heavy launches, SpaceX’s 34 Falcon 9 Block 5 launches were collectively supplemented by 11 boosters – an average of> 3 launches per rocket. In less words, SpaceX has amassed a great wealth of data with which to judge Block 5’s design, and CEO Elon Musk has some choice observations more than two years after his Block 5 press conference.
In the simplest possible terms, Musk’s comments on August 19 strongly suggest that the Block 5 upgrade more than hit the targets set for it in 2018.
The only fact that the average The Falcon 9 Block 5 booster (even with a consumable mission) thrown more than three times is a major credit for the design. At the same time, SpaceX flew the same booster for the sixth time just days ago and achieved the fifth launch of three separate Falcon 9 boosters between March and August 2020.
Now, with all that experience in hand and a Falcon 9 Block 5 booster already 60% of the way to reusing ten flights, Musk says that “over 100 flights are possible” and that “there is no limit. obvious. “While” some parts will need to be replaced or upgraded “to achieve dozens or hundreds of booster reuses, Musk says SpaceX” hardly ever needs[s] replace a whole [Merlin 1D] engine.
Since the nine M1D engines in a Falcon 9 booster are probably the hardest part of every rocket to reuse quickly and safely, it’s extremely easy to believe that individual boosters can throw dozens, if not hundreds of times with just a small amount of regular maintenance. and repairs. In that sense, SpaceX has effectively fulfilled Musk’s long-held dream of building a rocket that comes close (more or less, at least) to the reusability of airplanes.
Of course, even 100-flight Falcon boosters would still be at least an orders of magnitude or two distant from most modern aircraft, but that would still be a big improvement over any other launcher in history (especially , including the space shuttle).
Musk says SpaceX is still striving to fly a Falcon 9 booster ten times, and the Starlink missions – allowing the company to mitigate risk on its own launches – will leave plenty of opportunities. If SpaceX can fly the Falcon 9 B1049 booster every 60 days on average, the company could hit that ten-flight milestone as early as Q2 2021.
The SpaceX CEO also responded to a classic head-in-the-sand claim from traditional aerospace companies like the United Launch Alliance (ULA), refuting the theoretical assumption that booster reuse “doesn’t make sense” as long as the reuse of ten flights is not carried out. Instead, Musk says SpaceX only needs to fly each booster three times to make sure reuse of booster is cheaper than just building new rockets.
In short, despite the ad hoc rationalizations that competitors continue to use to excuse years of denial and laurel rest, SpaceX routinely reuses rockets, saving significant resources, and has still barely scratched the surface of what is ultimately possible.
Consult Teslarati newsletters for quick updates, field insights, and unique insights into SpaceX’s rocket launch and recovery processes.
[ad_2]
Source link