Science General Discussion

Started by Legend, Sep 02, 2014, 07:17 PM

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Legend


Legend


the-pi-guy


Legend

So sci fi looking


Legend


Legend

Sep 12, 2017, 10:20 PM Last Edit: Sep 12, 2017, 10:33 PM by Legend



Legend



Lots of software problems.  ::)

the-pi-guy

(I didn't watch the video)
In my software engineering course, there was a rocket failure because one team was using SI units and the other team wasn't. So they had some unit mis-conversions.

Legend


Legend

Blue Origin has pushed back their space tourism plans to 2019. Was 2018. Also seems like they're taking longer on their BE 4 engine than expected. That's not a significant problem for Blue Origin since they can take as long as they want, but it's really troubling for ULA.

ULA's next gen rocket Vulcan is wanting to use BE 4 engines but they have a different engine design as backup. Vulcan is supposed to fly in 2019 and replace the company's current rocket so there's a lot of pressure to get it launched as quick as possible. If Blue Origin can't get the engine working in time, then ULA will have to go with the backup engine which has worse performance.

Legend

ULA could dominate the launch market if they re-design the vulcan first stage to land like the Falcon 9.

The ACES second stage on vulcan is designed as a space tug with in orbit refilling. ULA already plans to launch heavy payloads to LEO and use a second vulcan to launch and refill the first ACES, almost exactly like the spacex BFR.

Unlike BFR though, ACES has a low dry mass and can send much heavier payloads to direct GEO. Outside of cost, Vulcan with ACES is a stronger launch system outside LEO.

But costs could be greatly improved if the vulcan first stage was fully reusable. The current plan is to only reuse the engines, but I hope that changes.

A vulcan could launch ACES+payload to space and then land. ACES could do its thing and then come back to a LEO parking orbit. After a few launches, a group of these could be picked up by a BFR and returned to Earth.

Would be super cool and work well. Even if vulcan doesn't land, picking up older ACES by BFR would be smart. It's crazy to think that cislunar 1000 and such might be happening in 10 years.

Legend


Legend


About time!

Legend

BE-4 test was at 50% power for 3 seconds. That is somewhat comparable to the raptor test SpaceX did a year ago, so it'll be interesting to see how fast they progress since their engine is already full sized.

Also for a much much longer engine test:


Legend


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