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Sounds like they are not planning on testing the booster catch yet, I wonder what's stopping them
by LostLocalMan 3y ago
Sounds like they are not planning on testing the booster catch yet, I wonder what's stopping them
- ceejayoz 3y agoThey haven’t launched and recovered it at all yet, have they? Presumably they want to test out to sea where it won’t blow up the only launch tower if it comes in hot.
- olex 3y agoThe booster has not yet flown, no. The closest it came was a all-engines static fire (during which 2 out of 33 engines didn't fire, but it was still enough of a success to continue with the program apparently).
- starbase 3y agoRisk of damaging their only launchpad, I would assume.
- samwillis 3y agoThe hardware at the launch site is hundreds of millions of dollars (or more). They won't want to test that till they are sure they can fly the thing. The Flacon 9 did a fair few simulated landing over water before they tried on land or risked and barge.
- Me1000 3y agoThat's correct, there will be no catch attempt this launch. They're going to simulate a landing by attempting to do soft land it in the Gulf of Mexico. The reason is pretty straightforward: this vehicle has never flown before and a lot can go wrong. There is a lot of ground equipment including propellant tanks very close to the launch tower. If anything goes wrong hundreds of tons of metal + propellant is going to cause a lot of damage, and they'd likely end up having to rebuild a large portion of their launch area. Best to see how the booster behaves first before risking all that infrastructure.
- Aeolun 3y agoIt can’t be that hard to not land it in your launch area right? Can’t they have a separate land and crash area (preferably separated by a few tens of kilometers)?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- olex 3y agoYou would need to build a second tower with catch arms there. The booster does not have landing legs and will not touch down on the ground, the plan is to have it settle on the same "tower arms" that are used as a crane to stack the booster and the ship for launch, with engines still well above ground.
- Aeolun 3y agoThey managed landing legs and they decided to up the level of difficulty a few notches or something?
- skykooler 3y agoPretty much. Catching it with the launch tower means in theory you can have much faster turnaround between flights, since you don't need to transport it from the landing site to the launch site.
- brain_staple 3y agoIt means less hardware/weight on the actual rocket.
- Tuna-Fish 3y agoAnd crucially more room to absorb shock.
- chriswarbo 3y ago
- hadlock 3y agoThe falcon 9 did several "hover over water" landings in the ocean to prove out safe landing on... land, and also to alay fears that it might miss it's target and hit a population center. Even now, falcon 9 do a ballistic reentry that would hit the water, and then propulsively adjust the landing target towards land, after the engines have safely started. Given how much larger, and how much additional fuel is onboard, it's not surprising that they're following a similar strategy this early in the program.
- stetrain 3y agoNeed to verify that they can successfully launch and guide it back to a specific point before they aim a guided missile at US mainland.