
Falcon Heavy core booster lost at sea - tomsyouruncle
https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/06/spacex-landed-two-of-its-three-falcon-heavy-first-stage-boosters/
======
hodgesrm
I kind of figured that happened when they lost the video. Still a really
amazing accomplishment--the video of the boosters landing was like something
out of a sci-fi movie. It's the best space launch since the first Space
Shuttle in 1981.

~~~
imjasonmiller
In a press conference an hour or so ago, I think Elon mentioned that, if he
had to pick one core that would experience “rapid unscheduled dissassembly”,
it would have been the center one. I think he mentioned it was due to the
boosters having the expensive titanium grid fins and also being reusable for
future flights.

Regardless, it was absolutely wonderful to watch! I think the Youtube stream
had 2,500,000 viewers at one point. I can’t wait for more footage of the
launch the coming days.

~~~
jlmorton
The unspoken point in Musk's comment is that SpaceX doesn't actually care if
they get these particular rockets back. They want to prove reusability, of
course, but no matter the outcome they never plan to re-fly these cores. They
will focus on the not-yet-flown Block 5 cores, and standardize on that going
forward.

In this flight, the side boosters and center core were Blocks 3 and 4. So
SpaceX definitely wants to recover the boosters, to perfect reusability, but
they never intend to re-fly any of these boosters, so better to get back the
one with the expensive and reusable titanium grid fins.

~~~
Eridrus
Didn't they say these boosters had already flown before?

I'm also a bit surprised the grid find are so pricey, they seem pretty small?
Not that I really know how much titanium costs to buy and machine.

~~~
quasse
They measure 4 by 5 feet, so we can estimate they are probably made from a
solid chunk of titanium that was at least 20 cubic feet or almost 5,000
pounds. That would be nearly $150,000 in raw material and probably another 5x
that in processing (guesstimating cost per cubic inch of titanium removal).

Either that or they were specially made castings, which are similarly
expensive in low volume, if not more.

~~~
larkeith
Wouldn't you be able to recover most of the removed titanium, amortizing the
majority of that guesstimated materials cost? Processing likely remains
expensive, however.

~~~
solarkraft
I'd think so. They also 3D print a lot, but metal powder does seem expensive.

~~~
cjsawyer
Printed metal has huge issues with heat, and they just switched from aluminum
gridfins to titanium because of the heat. I seriously doubt that they’re usung
additive techniques here.

------
delaaxe
> But the core, middle booster, which attempted to land aboard “Of Course I
> Still Love You,” a drone barge that SpaceX uses as a mobile, ocean-borne
> landing pad stationed in the Atlantic for its flights departing from
> Florida, wasn’t recovered.

“Of Course I Still Love You” is the name of a spacecraft in The Culture, a
series of novels that inspired Elon Musk when he was young.

~~~
deadA1ias
For anyone who has not yet read of the books from The Culture series, I highly
encourage you to do so. They are an amazing - agnostic - version of what our
far future selves could be. Iain M. Banks had quite the mind (no pun
intended).

~~~
Flemlord
Yes, great books! I recommend starting with 'The Player of Games', not the
first book in the series but the best. They are only loosely connected, you
won't miss anything.

~~~
kristianp
I started on 'Consider Phlebas', the first book in the series. I recommend
starting with that, it's a great book, perhaps not as accessible as 'Player of
Games', but more wow-factor.

------
sarreph
I absolutely love the fact that SpaceX is so open and public about their
rocket launches, however, I couldn't help but get the feeling that they were
in full 'PR backlash' mode [over the core booster] when ending the live
stream, and from skimming many of the instantaneous press releases.

Does anyone else think that they were overly quiet on the core booster landing
on purpose, in order to minimise negative PR on the whole operation; or was it
simply that they did not have enough information on what happened (seems
slightly implausible to me)?

This all being said, what happened today was nothing short of magic.

~~~
globuous
Agreed, at the very end of the feed actually, the 2 presentators didn't really
know what to say about the status of the core booster. A space X employee
showed up (I assume a PR or an engineer previously briefed by PR, all he had
was a SpaceX polo). The guy essentially said: 'best test ever, everything went
smooth yadi yadi yada, oh and also, we gotta figure out about that last
booster. Otherwise, everything went perfect !"

Which is very true. But it was clearly a move to divert away the audience from
that last booster. Which is understandable. it'd be a shame if everyone
focused on a lost booster when the everything else was nothing short of magic
like you say ;)

Congrats spaceX, guys guys are magicians.

~~~
Sammi
"A space X employee showed up (I assume a PR or an engineer previously briefed
by PR, all he had was a SpaceX polo)"

I think you're talking about John Insprucker:
[https://twitter.com/jinsprucker?lang=en](https://twitter.com/jinsprucker?lang=en)

He's a senior engineer who was present for the whole cast. Look at it again.

------
tetraodonpuffer
they also re-uploaded the webcast video with feeds from both booster cameras,
I also didn't remember seeing the fairing separation so well when watching it
live

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCc16uozHVE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCc16uozHVE)

------
mabbo
SpaceX hasn't failed a landing of a booster in two years (correct me if I'm
wrong). I hope a lot of data was collected as to why and how it failed.

SpaceX's biggest advantage is that they iterate quickly. Hopefully next
iteration fixes whatever problem they had today. Those boosters aren't cheap.

~~~
sehugg
_Musk attributed it to low levels of triethylborane—a hot-burning propellant
that essentially acts as rocket engines ' starter fluid—in the center
booster._

The center core is a special structurally enhanced model, so I'll give them a
pass since they're flying a new bird. I'm sure they'll get it right.

~~~
mabbo
That makes a lot of sense. The center core had to ignite for liftoff, then
either scale back or stop entirely during the main lift phase, then re-ignite
when the side boosters detached, then reignite for the boostback, entry AND
landing burns. That's a lot of re-ignition!

I hope they post a very high quality video of that booster having its
unplanned disassembly. May not be great for PR, etc, but it sure would be
entertaining.

------
imron
> Eventually, Musk hopes to be able to turn rockets around in less than 24
> hours and have reflown boosters go up twice in one day.

This will be amazing.

~~~
jboggan
This won't be a huge flashy milestone when it happens, but future historians
will point to that achievement as an inflection point in space travel.

Remember a few short years ago when humans always threw away the rocket after
every trip?

~~~
teovall
Agreed. It's the Henry Ford moving assembly line of rocket launches. It's a
game changer.

------
lykr0n
I'm still impressed beyond words that they were able to glue basically 2
reused rockets onto a 3rd rocket and then not only have a successful test
flight but return 2 of the 3 boosters.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Fun fact: there is a pneumatic mechanism that gives the side boosters a gently
push away at the top, with the bottom attachment point separating milliseconds
later. This is to cause the side boosters to fall away from the center core
properly.

------
godelmachine
Yes, I remember this. Had stayed up all night to watch the launch. After the
side cores landed (which was mind blowing honestly), the cameras switched to
drone ship where the center booster was supposed to land. The only thing I
could see was mist & fog, and they switched to their commentators 2 seconds
after that. Thought I must have not noticed the successfully landed core, &
went back to sleep dreaming of the cool life Musk lives.

------
gt_
_> and in the live stream SpaceX provided of the launch, you could hear
someone say “We’ve lost the core” but it wasn’t clear whether that indicated
just the feed, or the booster itself._

That’s definitely not set-speak for ‘video feed’ but I wish it was.

------
eatbitseveryday
And the article does not say / make apparent where this information is from.

~~~
Klathmon
There was just a press conference where he went into some detail, with the
caveat that it's all still very early information.

Basically he said that 2 of the 3 engines didn't start up correctly, and
caused the booster to hit the water at a few hundred miles per hour.

I'm guessing the dive into the water was purposely missing the barge when it
detected the problem, as they have spoken about this capability in the past
when they were first making attempts at landing the rockets.

He also said that as long as they have the footage, and it's cool looking,
they will post it somewhere!

~~~
derekp7
I previously thought that the middle core on a Falcon Heavy was expendable. So
it not landing (while needing 3 engines) makes sense, as it was only a week or
two ago that they tried a fast/hard landing with 3 engines over open water (as
they weren't sure then that it would work). I would expect this landing mode
to need at least a couple more tries to get working reliably.

~~~
Klathmon
Well that test was unrelated. They only reason they tried that with an ocean
landing was because they wanted the barge for the FH demo flight.

This should have been a 1-3-1 style landing burn where it lights up one
engine, then 2 more to slow it down, then drops down to just 1 again at the
end. In this case it sounds like the the outer 2 engines didn't start up
right, so it came in way too hot.

They also have said that the center core of FH is basically a new design from
the ground up, so it makes sense that they had some problems on it's first
landing.

