Consider: eight first stage rockets have been landed already. One is a show piece (the first one) and at least one is too beat up to ever be reused. But that leaves a fleet of six-ish rockets. How many Falcon 9s would SpaceX need to run an active fleet that is constantly refurbished and reused, never replaced? They'd start to look less like Boeing and more like Delta.
While there's no money in this contract to develop the upper stage itself, only money for the engine, it's still a source.
Wow this is truly amazing! I didn't realize they've landed it 8 times already... I still remember watching the youtube live stream of the first successful landing and how exciting and moving it was to watch. We're truly entering a new phase of space exploration and I can't wait to see what comes of the next decade and beyond!
- This cannot be possible
- Awww, they got pretty close that's incredible
- Great Scott, they've done it!
- Heh, they're getting good at this
- There's no way they'll fuck this upAnd then once the trick is revealed, it stops being magic and just becomes "boring" math/engineering/etc.
- Yawn, another landing. It just lands, nothing exciting to see.
the only shameful aspect of it is how the press will portray failures as terrible events for SpaceX, while they're still pushing the envelope and boundaries of what we think it's possible with failures being normal for quite some time yet.
Musk claims that's all going to be fixed in the next version. We'll see.
To my knowledge there has only been one engine failure (which resulted in the secondary payload being lost), and it is not known whether that was due to the turbopump.
One other thing to consider is that most pre-Block 5 rockets won't fly that often even if/when SES-10 is successful and even lands again. Most customers get factory-new rockets and they already learned a lot on how to make the first stage easier and better to reuse. So once Block 5 comes around the older landed boosters are probably not needed much. They converted one of them into a side booster for Falcon Heavy already, as far as I know, so that may be one point for salvaging them.
The "cost of prepare the landed first stage" is the big question here.
Competitors just dump their flight-tested hardware in the ocean, when it is truly a goldmine of test data.
SpaceX is able to do all this testing with a free ride on paying launches. There's no risk to the primary mission, and they get to develop their capability.
There will be failures with reflown hardware for sure. I'm interested to know how well a failed engine can be isolated in flight so not to affect the others.
BTW engines are often tested on the ground, so the main extra thing SpaceX learns from landing stages is data from the non-engine components.
I also find that it is considered 'normal' that if your developing a new orbital booster you should insure that it is re-usable if you want to be competitive. That will put an interesting pressure on Russian launch vehicles if they wish to continue to get international business.
But a critical issue which isn't resolve is 'cycle time.' For this to really be effective you can't spend as much time and money 'refurbishing' a booster as you did building it in the first place. (then re-use just saves materials and maybe time but not cost). Bezos demonstrated some pretty impressive cycle times with the New Shepard, and if they can get those type of cycle times on New Glen (a couple of weeks) they will be more competitive than Falcon 9. Fun times.
But your question still applies to recoverable flight plans. How many do they need to cover all those?
There are launches which don't have enough margin to land at all. The upcoming EchoStar 23 launch is one of these. This is a GTO launch of a really heavy satellite, so getting it up there requires using the fuel the rocket would need to land.
However, this is rare, and it's likely that this will only happen a few more times at most
Especially once Falcon Heavy comes online.
If your payload and destination allow for reuse then the cost of your launch is (cost of the whole rocket) / (number of reuses) + (landing & refurbishing costs)
If you require the full fuel of a Falcon 9 it might make sense to accept higher risk and launch on a rocket that is at it's last launch.
If you also don't want that risk, then maybe a mid-life Falcon Heavy can be cheap enough for you.
If Falcon Heavy is still too expensive even with re-use then maybe a one shot Falcon 9 is right for you.
The Block 5 upgrade will bring the performance of Falcon 9 (in a recoverable configuration) up to the point where flights like Echostar will be able to make downrange barge landings. Heavier payloads (which are _very_ rare nowadays) will fly on Falcon Heavy.
Polar orbits are almost always low-earth orbits, and therefore are much easier to recover. I would be very surprised if they ever flew an expendable launch out of Vandy in the future.
Yes, but how much of that is because there isn't anything to launch them? When Falcon Heavy is up and running, a commercially feasible option will exist for the first time. Maybe that'll change, and we'll start seeing things in space that weren't commercially feasible before.
They have to fly expendable now, because customers can just fly on Ariane/Atlas/etc if SpaceX said no. Once Falcon Heavy is flying, there won't be any competitors with the same payload capacity (until New Glenn, which is also planning first stage reuse, but is still very much a paper rocket at this point).
However, they can build that into the cost of the lift. If the rocket isn't recoverable because of what they want to put in it, just charge them for the rocket.
Either way it is better than what we have now.
/me looks sternly at DooM
While SpaceX opted to test this core to the breaking point, they also noted that it could have been reused despite the damage. But having a core that represents more or less the worst damage possible while still being able to refly it is valuable in itself and for comparing other landed cores against.
They have since fired the engines for numerous full-duration burns at their test site and presumably nothing exploded yet. This doesn't tell much about aerodynamic stresses imposed, but at least the engines and tanks are seemingly good to go with minimal refurbishment for a few reflights at least.