this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024

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NASA Administrator seems to hint at 2nd Stage recovery (www.youtube.com)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by ptfrd to c/spacex

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Quote from Bill Nelson:

... SpaceX, by having the return of the first stage, has brought the cost down significantly. That has affected the entire launch industry. We'll be seeing attempts at bringing the second stage down on some missions.

The key sentence is (currently) 52 minutes and 48 seconds into the video. Approximately 49 minutes after the event started.

No other mention is made of this. Should we assume he's specifically referring to the 2nd Stage of the Falcon 9? What is the likelihood that he is mistaken? Could he just be thinking of the existing deorbit procedure? Or could SpaceX be putting parachutes on some of their 2nd Stages in the near future?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Isn't this the whole point of starship

[–] ptfrd 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That's actually what worries me about this. If they are thinking of reusing 2nd Stages from the Falcon 9, does that suggest we need to start being more pessimistic about Starship timelines?

Not necessarily, of course. I think they're committed to continuing to fly the Falcon 9 as long as customers want it? So extra F9 reusability could still be worth the investment, even if they were predicting Starship to be operational very soon.

Also, this could just be recovery for inspection, not for reuse.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I believe the speaker is referring to starship about returning the second stage

[–] threelonmusketeers 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

We’ll be seeing attempts at bringing the second stage down on some missions

Does he explicitly specify Falcon 9 missions here or just say "missions"? If it is the latter, I suspect he is referring to Starship or SpaceX in general.

I'm pretty sure SpaceX abandoned Falcon 9 upper stage recovery quite a while ago. Back in 2018, there were the following two tweets:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/985654333860601856

This is gonna sound crazy, but …

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/985655249745592320

SpaceX will try to bring rocket upper stage back from orbital velocity using a giant party balloon

I think this was the last we heard of Falcon 9 upper stage recovery, and they went all in on Starship development a couple years later.

Edit: After listening to the context of Bill Nelson's quote, I'm pretty sure he was referring to Starship and/or upcoming rockets in general.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Most likely this is referring to Neutron and Starship. There is absolutely no way we could recover a Falcon 9 second stage without massive weight increases, and essentially a total redesign. If they were working on achieving reusability on Falcon, there is zero chance Elon would have the ability to keep it under wraps.

[–] ptfrd 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I for one welcome even just the hope that it might happen!

Is the 2nd Stage too heavy for a net? It's probably too much to hope that Ms. Tree comes out of retirement, right?

Any chance they could use second-hand dragon parachutes?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

One can hope! But it’s more likely he’s referring to Starship, no?

[–] ptfrd 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

My guesses

15% he's talking, confusingly, about Starship
25% he's mistaken in some other way
60% this is actually the plan

[–] ptfrd 1 points 8 months ago

My updated guesses, after seeing the other comments, and some further thought.

25% he's talking, confusingly, about Starship
25% he's mistaken in some other way
50% this is actually the plan

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Yeah, that's gotta be it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

It's more an issue of how you'll get the second stage to survive re-entry at orbital velocity. Which the current F9 upper stage can't pull off, seeing how it doesn't have heat shields. Bolting heat shields on it probably isn't happening, the added mass would cut into payload capacity too much.