SpaceX's F9R 1000m Flight Test. Reusable Rocket!

Just discovered this nifty video of SpaceX's F9R (reusable rocket). This flight it reaches 1000m off the ground, then hovers for a moment, and lands perfectly!

Here's the video!




Here's some additional information.

SpaceX has had a pretty good run the last couple of weeks. The main booster from its CRS-3 resupply mission to the ISS returned to Earth and landed softly in the Atlantic Ocean — a world first for space launches. Then it won an injunction against its arch rival, the Boeing/Lockheed United Launch Alliance, which forbade them from using Russian rocket engines. And now, SpaceX has successfully completed a high-altitude (1,000-meter) test flight for its Falcon 9 Reusable rocket — and, of course, there’s an amazing accompanying video, complete with with stampeding cows and beautiful hexacopter-filmed footage of the massive rocket hovering in mid-air.

This test flight, like the other F9R and Grasshopper launches, took place at SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas facility. McGregor is used for early-in-development lower-altitude (up to 3,000 meters) flights. Another F9R test vehicle (“Dev 2″) is being built and will perform high-altitude (up to 91,000 meters, or the edge of outer space) test flights from Spaceport America in New Mexico. Rather than the fixed landing legs seen in early F9R and Grasshopper prototypes, the F9R Dev 2 rocket will probably have retractable legs, just like a real alien spaceship.

Link to more information

I'm very excited and cannot wait for more of SpaceX's innovations.

What are your thoughts ATS?

a reply to: Ghost147

As impressive as this is, I find the continued use of traditional rocket engines, rather than the development of more versatile energy and propulsion production systems, to be a mark against the entire space flight industry. Frankly I think everyone working on rockets, rather than working on the alternatives is holding the development of better space flight technology back, and should be ashamed of themselves for their narrow mindedness and lack of foresight.

a reply to: TrueBrit

As much as I agree, there are specific designs and tested-ideas, that are in the works, that may even be used on the future crafts. Landing is just as important as engines if we ever want to truly land on another planet.

I would like to see alternative engines though.

a reply to: TrueBrit

If you're such a genius, you come up with the alternative then. They HAVE developed multiple alternatives, but they're only useful once you get into orbit. Getting to orbit still requires heavy thrust, which calls for more conventional means of propulsion. Scramjets may be able to provide an air-breathing option, but we're still a ways off from having that ready. In the meantime, this is the best way to quickly get into orbit. We should be ashamed that we DON'T have a manned rocket currently available in the US.

a reply to: ngchunter

Well there are already fantastic developments being made in plasma technology, which no one in the space industry seems to be taking any bloody notice of, or thinking about in a large enough and grand enough manner. The real leg work is already done.

The downside of this spaceX tech is that the rocket has to carry the fuel for both launch and re-entry and landing on board which makes the craft much heavier than a craft that can glide back to earth... This is one of the reasons the McDonnell Douglas similar rocket tech was cancelled.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: ngchunter

Well there are already fantastic developments being made in plasma technology, which no one in the space industry seems to be taking any bloody notice of, or thinking about in a large enough and grand enough manner. The real leg work is already done.

Would a plasma engine give you a powerful enough thrust (in pounds) necessary to get off of the ground in the first place?

I know that plasma propulsion or ion drive engines (or other electric propulsion thrusters) can get a rocket moving up to speed because of the long duration of their low-powered thrusts, but that is only an advantage once a rocket is already in orbit or in space. What a plasma or ion engine packs in "instant" thrust it makes up for in the long duration of that thrust (thrusting constantly for weeks or even years). But powerful "instant" thrust is what is required to get off of the ground. Chemical rockets can provide that instant powerful thrust, but only for a few minutes -- i.e., about 99% of the fuel used by a traditional chemical rocket is used up just by the launch process.

However, while a traditional chemical rocket only provides a few minutes of powerful thrust, it is that power provided by those few minutes of heavy thrust from a traditional chemical rocket is enough to get a rocket off of the ground. Electrical propulsion (plasma, ion, vasmir, etc.) can give you a much longer duration of thrust, but that thrust is not enough to get a payload off of the ground in the first place. Once in space, though, the long-duration propulsion from a plasma or ion thruster can get a rocket up to quite fast speeds, although it may take a little while to reach those speeds. That's one reason I don't think plasma or ion propulsion is the answer for getting a payload into low earth orbit (LEO). I think the best future idea for payload to LEO would be to develop a space elevator.

One other advantage of electric propulsion (such as plasma or ion) is the ability to start and stop (and start again) those engines multiple times. For example, the Dawn spacecraft that just finished visiting the asteroid Vesta restarted its ion thruster and is now on a different trajectory to visit Ceres. In the past, this would not have been possible with a traditional chemical thruster. For the most part, the trajectory set at launch is the trajectory the spacecraft will be on forever (unless clever uses of planetary gravity assist "slingshot" maneuvers are used)...

...But the Dawn spacecraft, with its ion thruster engines, is different. Because it has thrusters that can provide long durations of thrust (albeit thrusts that are low in power), a spacecraft with an ion thruster can use that thruster to make major change in its trajectory.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: Ghost147

As impressive as this is, I find the continued use of traditional rocket engines, rather than the development of more versatile energy and propulsion production systems, to be a mark against the entire space flight industry. Frankly I think everyone working on rockets, rather than working on the alternatives is holding the development of better space flight technology back, and should be ashamed of themselves for their narrow mindedness and lack of foresight.

Got any ideas what those alternatives would be?

Because you know there have been groups of very smart people looking for them for some time. Google: "NASA Breakthrough Physics Propulsion Program".


Just wishing something to be doesn't make it reality. You can not wish something into existence.

That said, there are very smart people working on ideas for a Space Elevator.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: ngchunter

Well there are already fantastic developments being made in plasma technology, which no one in the space industry seems to be taking any bloody notice of, or thinking about in a large enough and grand enough manner. The real leg work is already done.

Plasma engines would only be able to be used once you are in space. Still have to get them there out of Earth's gravity well.

As for Ion propulsion, we have several space missions already flying with them.

NASA: Ion Propulsion

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: ngchunter

Well there are already fantastic developments being made in plasma technology, which no one in the space industry seems to be taking any bloody notice of, or thinking about in a large enough and grand enough manner. The real leg work is already done.

Would a plasma engine give you a powerful enough thrust (in pounds) necessary to get off of the ground in the first place?

Maybe. But...

Nuclear Plasma propulsion however would send radioactive particles out the back which is why no one is talking about trying to launch ships into orbit with it.

It becomes a very good technology once we already are in space with infrastructure to support it.

A plasma spaceship would never take off or land on the Earth.

Ion propulsion is different from Plasma propulsion.

Nuclear thermal rockets go back to the 1960s as well.

S&F!

This is remarkable technology, given that it is all chemical rocketry epic fail!

@ Everybody discussing what else could be used ... NUCLEAR PROPULSION!

originally posted by: DietJoke
S&F!

This is remarkable technology, given that it is all chemical rocketry epic fail!

@ Everybody discussing what else could be used ... NUCLEAR PROPULSION!

Do you understand that nuclear propulsion involves spewing radiation out the back of the rocket?

You can't take off from Earth with it.

Well you can but you'd pollute the launch site and atmosphere with radioactive isotopes which make anything Fukushima had done look like childsplay.

a reply to: JadeStar

FYI ... Project Orion (nuclear propulsion)

But the main unsolved problem for a launch from the surface of the Earth was thought to be nuclear fallout. Any explosions within the magnetosphere would carry fissionables back to earth unless the spaceship were launched from a polar region such as a barge in the higher regions of the Arctic, with the initial launching explosion to be a large mass of conventional high explosive only to significantly reduce fallout; subsequent detonations would be in the air and therefore much cleaner. Antarctica is not viable, as this would require enormous legal changes as the continent is presently an international wildlife preserve.

Freeman Dyson, group leader on the project, estimated back in the 1960s that with conventional nuclear weapons (a large fraction of yield from fission), each launch would cause statistically on average between 0.1 and 1 fatal cancers from the fallout. That estimate is based on no threshold model assumptions, a method often used in estimates of statistical deaths from other major industrial activities, such as how modern-day U.S. regulatory agencies frequently implement regulations on more conventional pollution if one life or more is predicted saved per $6 million to $8 million of economic costs incurred. Each few million dollars of efficiency indirectly gained or lost in the world economy may statistically average lives saved or lost, in terms of opportunity gains versus costs. Indirect effects could matter for whether the overall influence of an Orion-based space program on future human global mortality would be a net increase or a net decrease, including if change in launch costs and capabilities affected space exploration, space colonization, the odds of long-term human species survival, space-based solar power, or other hypotheticals.

Danger to human life was not a reason given for shelving the project – those included lack of mission requirement (no-one in the US Government could think of any reason to put thousands of tons of payload into orbit), the decision to focus on rockets (for the Moon mission) and, ultimately, the signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963. The danger to electronic systems on the ground (from electromagnetic pulse) was not considered to be significant from the sub-kiloton blasts proposed since solid-state integrated circuits were not in general use at the time.

And Fukushima is already a radioactive hell hole ... simply make it the launch site and pay the Japanese rental for the new space port.

The benefits are the following ...

The ability to launch 4000 metric tons of space craft carrying 150 crew and 500+ metric tons of cargo to Saturn and back within two years.

Now if you can show me one chemical rocket that can compete with that, then I would love to see it!

originally posted by: DietJoke
a reply to: JadeStar

FYI ... Project Orion (nuclear propulsion)

But the main unsolved problem for a launch from the surface of the Earth was thought to be nuclear fallout. Any explosions within the magnetosphere would carry fissionables back to earth unless the spaceship were launched from a polar region such as a barge in the higher regions of the Arctic, with the initial launching explosion to be a large mass of conventional high explosive only to significantly reduce fallout; subsequent detonations would be in the air and therefore much cleaner. Antarctica is not viable, as this would require enormous legal changes as the continent is presently an international wildlife preserve.

Freeman Dyson, group leader on the project, estimated back in the 1960s that with conventional nuclear weapons (a large fraction of yield from fission), each launch would cause statistically on average between 0.1 and 1 fatal cancers from the fallout. That estimate is based on no threshold model assumptions, a method often used in estimates of statistical deaths from other major industrial activities, such as how modern-day U.S. regulatory agencies frequently implement regulations on more conventional pollution if one life or more is predicted saved per $6 million to $8 million of economic costs incurred. Each few million dollars of efficiency indirectly gained or lost in the world economy may statistically average lives saved or lost, in terms of opportunity gains versus costs. Indirect effects could matter for whether the overall influence of an Orion-based space program on future human global mortality would be a net increase or a net decrease, including if change in launch costs and capabilities affected space exploration, space colonization, the odds of long-term human species survival, space-based solar power, or other hypotheticals.

Danger to human life was not a reason given for shelving the project – those included lack of mission requirement (no-one in the US Government could think of any reason to put thousands of tons of payload into orbit), the decision to focus on rockets (for the Moon mission) and, ultimately, the signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963. The danger to electronic systems on the ground (from electromagnetic pulse) was not considered to be significant from the sub-kiloton blasts proposed since solid-state integrated circuits were not in general use at the time.

And Fukushima is already a radioactive hell hole ... simply make it the launch site and pay the Japanese rental for the new space port.

The benefits are the following ...

The ability to launch 4000 metric tons of space craft carrying 150 crew and 500+ metric tons of cargo to Saturn and back within two years.

Now if you can show me one chemical rocket that can compete with that, then I would love to see it!

Do you understand that Project Orion was NEVER intended TO BE LAUNCHED FROM EARTH?

It was going to be assembled in space (you know like the Starship Enterprise) and remain in space.

I'm all for nuclear propulsion but those who misunderstand what it is or isn't :Facepalm:

It's not like we do upper atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons anymore because it's kinda a bad idea.

a reply to: JadeStar

If you read the wiki I linked to then you would know that some versions of it were intended for ground launch and I simply point out the following quoted from the wiki ...

Missions that were designed for an Orion vehicle in the original project included single stage (i.e., directly from Earth's surface) to Mars and back, and a trip to one of the moons of Saturn.

... and ...

During take-off, there were concerns of danger from fluidic shrapnel being reflected from the ground. One proposed solution was to use a flat plate of conventional explosives spread over the pusher plate, and detonate this to lift the ship from the ground before going nuclear. This would lift the ship far enough into the air that the first focused nuclear blast would not create debris capable of harming the ship.

The issue of nuclear propulsion is NOT without it's technical issues such as are listed in the wiki ... BUT they are not insurmountable!

The Orion project scales UPWARDS from 4000 metric tons ... we could build an 8million ton version and lift entire cities of people into space.

originally posted by: coastlinekid
The downside of this spaceX tech is that the rocket has to carry the fuel for both launch and re-entry and landing on board which makes the craft much heavier than a craft that can glide back to earth... This is one of the reasons the McDonnell Douglas similar rocket tech was cancelled.

It only requires about 2% of the propellant be reserved for the reentry burn and landing. It only slightly reduces the amount of payload the Falcon 9 can deliver to orbit. But it has the added benefit of returning the first stage for reuse, thus greatly reducing costs. In other words, it's well worth the propellant cost.

a reply to: nataylor

If that is the case, then rock on SpaceX!!!

a reply to: DietJoke

cold fusion reactor