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Old 04-08-2016, 07:26 PM   #459
DaFace DaFace is offline
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Random dump of points made by Elon in the post-launch press conference...

Quote:
  • Mousetronauts doing well!
  • Half of missions will need to land out to sea due to technical reasons
  • Elon: "Press should educate public on difference between space vs orbit"
  • Koenigsmann: "Dragon healthy, all thrusters fired, comms working"
  • Next step is opening of the GNC door, will happen in about 2 hours and 15 minutes, followed by orbital adjustment burns tomorrow morning.
  • Question about whether booster will be reused Likely this booster will be reflown, will arrived in port on Sunday, series of test fires at the Cape, fire 10 times in a row, if that looks good, that will qualify it for reuse and launch in June! Eventually would like to reuse them in a few weeks.
  • Thought 2-1 chance it would land, if it did fail, would fail for a new reason. "Still quite tricky" to land on a ship.
  • Would reflight be paying customer? think it will be
    vague question abut future of spaceflight "another step towards the stars", with a huge impact on cost. "Few years to make that smooth and efficient". Proven that it can work, with failures in future. Want to make it routine.
  • Would like to be able to just wash rocket and refly
  • Where is F9-021? Hopefully will be displayed outside Hawthorne HQ in next few months
  • What was the highest altitude and velocity this booster reached? "I don't actually know!". Could've bought it back to land, wanted to do a ship landing with lots of margin. Low margin return to land vs high margin to ship.
  • Maximum transfer velocity of F9 is to accelerate 120 tons to 9000-10000 km/h
  • Barge is better called a ship
  • What is the maximum tilt the rocket can handle? 2-3 degree pitch and roll today, maximum is about double-triple that (8-9 degrees) limit, that'd be intense seas.
  • Ship holds to absolute GPS position with accuracy below a meter
    headcount + launch rate will continue to grow, Q3 2016 one launch every 2-3 weeks.
  • Welded shoes are still go! "Potentially some heavy winds coming in"
  • "Not certain if initial destination is Port Canaveral"
  • Bring it into port, they can put a cap on the top of the rocket, pick it up with a crane and move it to land onto a stand. Fold legs up, crane rotates it horizontal, brings it back to 39A, then 10 test fires. Then comfortable with an orbital flight.
    Horizontal velocity cannot be emphasized enough. "Could conceivably put a huge weight on top of the boost stage, but there's no point doing that"
  • "Basically impossible to do these tests on land"
  • "I have a confession to make: I did hug Hans", still a lot of work ahead, making the landing and reflight easy is hard. Rapid + complete reusability needed for cost effectiveness.
  • Question about FH "Should've been called the Falcon 27", high pucker factor, amazing payload capabilities, heavy payloads that can currently only be flown by Ariane.
  • 50/50 ground/ocean. As performance is refined, in the long run 1/3 or 1/4 on barge. Next land landing is about 3 months away. JC-SAT for ocean landing. Third mission from now will be land landing. Tough to stick landings, really hot.
  • How many times can you reuse a used first stage? No meaningful limit, up to 1000 missions. "10-20 missions", minor refurbishment "100 missions"
  • Forsee any competing launch providers? Musk hopeful other providers will embrace reusability. 100 fold marginal cost reduction.
  • "What can top the experience you had today?" Getting to orbit to the first time was the best one. Falcon 1 was most profound.
  • "We'll be successful when it becomes boring"
  • Fairing reuse mentioned! Several million dollars each!
  • Falcon Heavy will be quite exciting.
  • World's cringiest question, no useful information.
  • End of conference!
Props to Echologic on reddit for the summary.

They're aiming for a re-launch in June. That'd be fun.
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