Youve probably seen some clips of the Space X launch that took place today already but if not you really did miss something pretty spectacular. The launch was successful though it appears one of the three boosters did not land itself properly. Still, the image of the two boosters landing themselves simultaneously on adjacent landing pads seemed unreal. And then on top of that, there was the cargo for this test launch: Elon Musks own Tesla Roadster with Spaceman at the wheel (actually Space Xs own space suit design). From Space.com:
Standing 23 stories tall, the Falcon Heavy rocket is SpaceXs largest rocket yet and the most powerful booster since NASAs mighty Saturn V moon rocket. Its first stage is powered by three core boosters based on SpaceXs Falcon 9 rockets, with 27 engines (nine per booster) firing in unison to produce about 5 million lbs. of thrust (22,819 kilonewtons) at liftoff
SpaceX has now successfully landed Falcon-family rockets 24 times three on this mission alone. (The rocket family is named after another famously reusable spaceship, the fictional Millennium Falcon from Star Wars, Musk has said.)
But perhaps the biggest draw of todays launch was the Falcon Heavys unique payload: a Tesla Roadster riding atop the rockets second stage.
Musk announced in December that the midnight cherry red convertible, which he owns, would be the first Falcon Heavy payload. Then, on Monday, he revealed another surprise: a spacesuit-clad mannequin called Starman(a reference to David Bowies song Starman) in the drivers seat, with its right hand on the wheel and left arm resting on the door.
So to sum up, Musk sent his car to mars with a driver named for a David Bowie song on a launch vehicle named after a Star Wars spaceship. Not a bad day if youre a nerd who enjoys science and science fiction. The full Space X video is below, but if you only have a moment now, watch this because its incredible:
As mentioned above, it seems the day didnt quite go perfectly. The Verge is reporting that the center core, which was supposed to land out at sea, did not make it.
Though the Falcon Heavys outer cores successfully landed after launch this afternoon, the middle core of SpaceXs huge rocket missed the drone ship where it was supposed to land, a source tells The Verge. SpaceX hasnt yet confirmed this publicly.
Still, Elon Musk is clearly having a very good day today and and who can blame him:
View from SpaceX Launch Control. Apparently, there is a car in orbit around Earth. pic.twitter.com/QljN2VnL1O
If you're right that it take nine engines to land an empty booster, then the problem is more dificult to solve than if they only need three and can use the other six as back-up.
If you're right that it take nine engines to land an empty booster,
I didn't say that at any point. I said that at least two Merlin engines failed.
To maneuver properly, the engines under thrust need to be properly spaced. You also overlook the possibility that it is designed for only particular engines to be used for landing.
On launches, I've read that they can lose an engine and still make orbit. But launch is very different than landing.
Well, no. You said, "At least two of its 9 Merlin engines failed to ignite ..." (meaning 7 did?)
"To maneuver properly, the engines under thrust need to be properly spaced. You also overlook the possibility that it is designed for only particular engines to be used for landing."
That's all true. But if only three engines are needed for landing, the engineers have some wiggle room to come up with a redundancy solution. If all nine are needed, the solution is more complex.
Well, no. You said, "At least two of its 9 Merlin engines failed to ignite ..." (meaning 7 did?)
It doesn't mean that at all. But you go ahead and pretend that if it makes you feel good.
That's all true. But if only three engines are needed for landing, the engineers have some wiggle room to come up with a redundancy solution. If all nine are needed, the solution is more complex.
My guess is that they would be 3 sets of 3 engines, equally spaced.
We also don't know if certain engines are designated as the landing engines. Maybe only 3 engines are ever used in the Falcon 9 landings. I have read that they do most of the deceleration using a 3-engine burn, then cut back to just a single-engine at landing. This is called the "hover-slam" because it comes down pretty fast and reduces velocity to 0 just as it touches the ground.
Looking further, I found better answers at Slashdot where they discussed this. These are individual nested comments, each replying to the previous.
It would be interesting to know why this engine redundancy wasn't leveraged to save the center core of the Falcon Heavy when it attempted to land on the drone ship. They claim two of three engines failed to fire. If so, why wasn't the system programmed to automatically try to fire two alternate engines in that failure mode? Unless the failures where of a more catastrophic nature of course...
They said that failure was because of lack of fuel, so more engines wouldn't help that.
Actually I think the problem was running out of TEA-TEB ignition fuel.
Correct. Essentially, they had plenty of candles, but ran out of "matches" to light them.
I wonder if that was just a screw up... The center engine had enough to relight. They usually land with just the center engine. They had only just tested a 3 engine burn not so many days before with the previous F9 launch. Maybe someone forgot the ignition fuel for the additional engines?
No, it was the fact that it doesn't necessarily relight when you try it, and each try uses up a charge. Eventually you run out.
IIRC it was a chemical that starts up the engines that ran out TEA-TEB (Triethylaluminum-Triethylborane) So they could not fire the others
Not all engines are equipped with the chemicals needed for an air start, IIRC. Or there's two tanks that feed all the engines. Either way, they ran out of TEB, there was no engine failure.
Maybe this is as good an explanation as we'll get. They've produced 3 versions of these Merlin engines so it's sometimes hard to find info that is accurate about the current Merlin engines used on the Heavy.
Hard to believe that the flame from the one good engine didn't ignite the raw fuel coming out of the other two.
Well, they are coming in at 3000mph so that fuel would blow away. A live start in that much airflow would be hard. The center engine alone managed to slow it to 300mph before it hit the water.
If they didn't need that starter fuel, they wouldn't use it.
Triethylaluminium ignites on contact with air and will ignite and/or decompose on contact with water, and with any other oxidizer[9]it is one of the few substances pyrophoric enough to ignite on contact with cryogenic liquid oxygen. Its easy ignition makes it particularly desirable as a rocket engine ignitor. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket uses a triethylaluminium-triethylborane mixture as a first-stage ignitor.
Well, they are coming in at 3000mph so that fuel would blow away. A live start in that much airflow would be hard.
I think the center core is pretty high up before it starts the engines to slow it down. Meaning there is very little air to produce a significant airlow, even at 3,000mph.
That TEA-TEB is used because it combusts with cryogenic liquid oxygen. They can't restart those engines otherwise since there isn't enough oxygen to support combustion.
Apparently, they just didn't have enough TEA-TEB fuel onboard to get the engines lit again.
Everything about these SpaceX rockets is just-barely-enough in design, even this big-ass Falcon Heavy. It's a miracle they fly at all. Yet they have a good record compared to other launch platforms. Even the Ariane rockets or the military's big launchers don't do much better at 3-4 times the cost. No one ever talks much about our military space program but it is a huge and very costly program.
According to the launch video, the altitude at 3 minutes (MECO) was 85 km (or about 50 miles). Essentially a vacuum.
At 3000mph, even a near-vacuum has significant impact. Sure, it would kill us quickly if we tried to breathe it but we aren't a rocket engine that requires a dangerous pyrophoric igniter fuel to light off the LOX that is used to keep rocket engines burning in space or near-vacuum where there isn't enough oxygen for any normal combustion. For that matter, these rockets can't get off the launch pad without carrying their own oxidizers. It's a matter of the efficiency of combustion of fuel. At a certain point, you get so much more thrust by adding oxidizer to your rocket fuel so it can fully combust and produce the insane amounts of thrust required in even launches to low-Earth orbits, let alone launches like Falcon Heavy that are capable of putting payloads on the moon or in Mars orbit or missions to other planets.
I hope you don't want to have a silly discussion about the role of oxidizing agents in rocket engines. Because that's just stupid.