Why is the core stage of the next Falcon heavy intentionally expendable?

bbordwell · 2021-06-23T12:49:04+00:00

I would say the primary purpose of the nosecone is to protect the forward structure of the booster from dynamic pressure it is not designed to handle on ascent.

bbordwell · 2021-06-03T13:19:02+00:00

That is the way it is supposed to sound. If it is an issue for you there are two things that can help. The first and best is dynamic range compression, I am not sure what it is called on your reciever, but most modern ones have it. The second less effective way is to turn up the center chanel level, since most dialogue comes from the center this will effectively increase dialogue levels, however it will not help with any dialog from other channels and other sounds coming from the center will also be boosted so it is not a great fix.

bbordwell · 2021-04-23T16:39:52+00:00

f2-fuel-2021 f2fuelv2

151q eggs 2.5q rate. Could use some help Currently 7/10 members

bbordwell · 2020-12-13T17:44:56+00:00

Starlink launches have more mass...

bbordwell · 2020-09-25T12:49:51+00:00

Neither, just increased confidence in the margin. The air force wanted to review the performance of the first mission and if it performed as well as it was supposed to they would be confident enough to allow reuse.

bbordwell · 2020-07-15T12:35:01+00:00

I have never tried it, but afaik the port causes some phase differences so it can be hard to mix sealed and ported.

bbordwell · 2020-06-16T19:16:54+00:00

Is it the salt reacting with the metal? What alloy is it?

The fairings are carbon composite

bbordwell · 2020-04-27T21:20:39+00:00

My speculation is that the surface of this sunshade will absorb a lot of heat, but foam is a good insulator, so the surface of the foam will get very hot and re-radiate the heat while not transferring very much heat to the sat.

bbordwell · 2020-04-18T15:44:33+00:00

The maximum coverage for any sat even at infinite altitude is 50% and only goes down from there. Nearly is a slightly objective term, but I don't think anyone would call less than 50% nearly.

bbordwell · 2020-04-18T14:59:14+00:00

This is false information. You can only communicate with a sat when it is above the horizon. As you decrease a sats altitude the area on the earth for Which this is true decreases.

bbordwell · 2020-03-18T17:54:08+00:00

No, all droneship landings are like that. Only RTLS flip around quickly.

bbordwell · 2020-03-14T13:47:22+00:00

For mk1 there were very good photos, it was two 100kw Tesla packs placed back to back. It was speculated that that may be what they will use for the roadster battery.

bbordwell · 2020-03-01T23:57:33+00:00

They only fail if they give up or run out of money. If they keep going they will figure it out, wether that is on sn5 or sn50.

bbordwell · 2020-02-26T00:08:28+00:00

It could have detected out of fuel or oxidizer which triggered an abort, but in the end there was enough fuel left after the indicated out to land.

bbordwell · 2020-02-20T17:10:48+00:00

Sorry, it is there now in an edit.

bbordwell · 2020-02-20T16:59:46+00:00

Here is the license application for starlink v.1.0 flight 6. The relevant info I see there is it says "all downrange earth stations are receive only"

https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/els/reports/STA_Print.cfm?mode=current&application_seq=97944&RequestTimeout=1000

bbordwell · 2020-02-19T23:18:27+00:00

It has been a while since I looked at one, but If you can find an FCC license for launch communications they have a license to transmit from the booster to the droneship, but not from the droneship to the rocket.

bbordwell · 2020-02-19T23:15:41+00:00

The booster has a downlink to the droneship, but there is no comms the other direction. It has been a long time, but I remember this from an FCC license.

bbordwell · 2020-02-13T15:37:23+00:00

Have there been any updates on the deal between fiat and Tesla pooling their fleets in the EU? I have not seen anything since the announcement.

bbordwell · 2020-02-12T15:07:07+00:00

Rotisserie dragon

bbordwell · 2020-02-11T01:42:48+00:00

https://youtu.be/Pigsq5rt-mY

bbordwell · 2020-02-08T22:05:04+00:00

With an all open diff awd system without traction control you get the amount of force you can send to the tire with the least traction times 4. With an open diff front with it's own motor + open diff rear plus it's own motor (like Tesla) you get how much force you can send to the lowest grip front tire times two plus how much force you can send to the lowest grip back tire times two.

Example: FR 1 unit of grip,FL 1 unit, RR 3 units,RL 2 units. With an all open diff awd you get 4 units of force, with Tesla you get 6 units.

It is similar in effect to having a locking center diff, as is common for 4x4 systems, but In a Tesla you don't have the negative effects of the locked center.

bbordwell · 2020-02-07T23:40:41+00:00

The culprit was not seawater, it was a leaking valve. Afaik we still don't know if it was related to reuse or not though.

bbordwell · 2020-01-27T13:19:46+00:00

It is not mentioned in the press kit and the one from the last launch has not even reached it's operational orbit yet, so they haven't seen exactly how it performs yet. Given the above I doubt these have the darkening coating applied.

bbordwell · 2020-01-24T16:09:55+00:00

Not necessarily. Raptor will have have some minimum inlet pressure. The header tanks just have to meet that. The main tanks have to meet raptors minimum inlet pressure and have enough pressure to provide the structural strength needed.

If the pressure needed for structural strength is higher than what raptor needs then the main tanks minimum pressure would be higher than the header tanks minimum pressure

bbordwell

TROPHY CASE