How To Do A Hoverslam - Things Kerbal Space Program Doesn't Teach.
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- Опубліковано 18 лют 2018
- If you're landing a rocket then waiting to the last minute slamming on the brakes actually saves fuel over slower, more considered approaches to landing.
- Наука та технологія
Scott Manley should do a cooking segment... so we can Fry Safe.
Nice
Flied lice?
AoiKaze2000 END ME
JABiz Official bruh, your profile picture is a stock image! 🤣
Bud dum tsss
I think 'suicide burn' sounds WAY cooler than 'Hoverslam,' but I get why they'd want to avoid that terminology. It makes it sound reckless and poorly thought out/uncalculated rather than reckless and extremely well thought out and calculated.
Well in ksp its uncalculated and so it fits for ksp.
Pffff who needs maths just put on more rockets its gonna work.
Yeah it seems a lot like Elon cares about terminology. You know he is calling his dream rocket that will fly to Mars in 2024 (hopefully) the BFR, right? It stands for Big Fucking Rocket, and I am not even lying
just remember to quicksave before you're landing attempt and it'll work out fine.
But if I put more rockets on then I will have to do the maths all over again!
Hoverslam sounds like a fake wwe move
You say that as if there were "real" WWE moves ...
@@Anvilshock Actually there are plenty. For example the sleeper hold. However they are not applied properly for obvious reasons.
Now that I think of it, it does sound kinda like a move from pokemon.
WWE is fake because it's just WWF without the pandas.
to me it just sounds like Elon Musk may have decided to make a wrestling company...
Scott Manley jump scare at 2:30
I would like this but it's at 69 likes
@@rortan that was quick
We are keeping this at 69
its at 89 now
I keep trying to pause at the right moment. Unsuccessfully I might add.
The atmospheric drag also greatly contributes to the efficiency of a suicide burn. By waiting to the last second to begin the burn, you maximize the amount of drag placed on the rocket which will reduce the velocity at burn time and thus will require less fuel.
It's most efficient to land with the wind going upwards, slowing you down. So the best way to land is near the eye of a hurricane. The disadvantage: You might have to wait quite long for your landing window.
The eye of a hurricane is actually very low pressure, aim for the cloud wall for better effect.
snowpdx Paul said "near" the eye of a hurricane which probably refers to the eye wall. This indeed has the highest atmospheric pressure and updraft.
Make the barge into an air hockey table! Smartz! :P
What's more impressive than a rocket landing itself? Your rocket splitting into 3 pieces and each piece landing itself XD. Well 2 out of 3 isn't bad either.
The middle one still landed, but in several hundred smaller pieces :)
It's really brilliant if you think about it. They needed it in smaller pieces to transport it back safely. They just took it apart really really quick.
"Rapid, Unscheduled Disassembly."
Make that 3/3
I really enjoy your "Things Kerbal Space Program Doesn't Teach" series! Just the right mix of 'real' rocket science and the fun gaming version of rocket science!
Agreed! Just enough Kerbal to make it relatable. It's nice to start from an example I've actually tried myself, and then layer the real world on top of it.
calculating a suicide burn can get incredibly complicated especially when you add:
air friction
fuel use making the rocket lighter gradually while you descend but the more fuel you use the more this comes to effect
non vertical approach trajectories
gimbal control reducing thrust
etc
approaching with 3 enignes and shutting down 2 justb efore landing gives a huge advantage because it means you have a rather significant point of control relatively close to the landing, so you can do final adjustments by controling when you shutdown the two extra engines and these are close to the actual landing so the deviation after this correction is small - and shutting down engines is a lot more precise and reliable hten igniting them
Julian Danzer of
that's why it's called rocket science...
that would be so easy if gravity wouldn't keep pulling on you, so your path curves making your descent rate nonlinear meaning that now its really complicated to figure out how long exactly your descent is gonna take - its not too hard to figure out when you have tiem and apen and a paper but when trying to do it on the fly it gets a bit tricky
This is why we consign some tasks to computers.
Julian Danzer
I think the problem is the wind. You can't measure how the wind behaves perfectly and an unexpected squall or in the case of landing on a boat the change of the angle due to waves might ruin an otherwise perfect landing.
Can you do a "Things Kerbal Space Program doesn't teach" on Decoupling?
bratimm He will
bratimm "Things KSP doesnt teach about fungi"
What's decoupling?
There's a lot more to decoupling than that. While decoupling is sometimes just an explosive charge detonated to bring the two pieces farther apart, there are much more sophisticated mechanisms for times when the rocket needs to allow for transfer of resources between the two halves before the staging happens.
See also: Pyrotechnic fastener, Marman clamp, and split-spool release device
Jesus Christ. I didn't realize rockets were so explosive in real life. I thought that was just gaming physics.
@@enricobianchi4499 glitch through the ground
@@Sednas yes you get an a plus
This makes sense since were all in a simulation, inside a simulation inside, another SIMULATIONNNN@@Sednas
@@enricobianchi4499 He probably figured that since the rocket was empty it would be as flammable as a used firework. Of course, "Empty" doesn't mean "Not still soaked with explosive propellants" in this case. To say nothing of any remaining usable fuel after the suicide burn.
A rocket engine is literally just a controlled explosion
"So Elon we have this cool way to quickly slow the cores and land"
"Great what shall I tell the news it's called"
"The suicide burn"
"...."
i think its the other way around :
Elon: hey guys, we found a way to slow the cores to land!
PR: great! what shall i tell the public its called?
Elon: THE SUICIDE BUUUUURRN
PR: NONONO-
Fair point well made
The name existed before Elon.
@@Joesolo13 r/wooosh
"Im going to show you the math because im a sick individual who likes math" haha! I like math too
*maths
Jeffery Saulter You see, we call mathematics ,mathematics, but math without the “s”, it’s quite odd.
Wow, you're a sick individual too!
Gross.
I'm also a sick individual though.
Ngl the maths is semi weak because acceleration is velocity with respect to time and using a=T/M there is no time component nor velocity component. Thrust is just a force and mass is just a mass.
"Things Kerbal Space Program Does Teach"
Wiktor Guzowski I learned that a rocket can't have too much boosters just slap more on maybe I will try to get a job at NASA or something like that
I went to the moon with the most ridiculously overengineered rocket. By the time I got there i still had 1/6th of fuel leftover from the launch stage with three more stages to go.
Jmvars holy shit how did you manage to do that
Jmvars wtf. Nice man
My launch stage was insane. All I wanted was to land on the Mun but I imagined "I might use this later" so I just built a massive rocket. That and I was just having fun :D
There is another advantage of the 3 engine sequence they used for the falcon heavy launch. Shutting down an engine is much easier than starting, and thus possible with higher accuracy. You stop the fuel flow, done. Having 3 engines running and then shutting down 2 gives you a precise and very capable degree of freedom. Shut them down at just the right combination of height and velocity, where the single engine can do the remaining job.
'The suicide burn is the most kerbal of moves"
Elon after creating starship "are ya sure about that now?"
“Because I’m a sick individual who loves math” best line ever!
When you are traveling at 16880m/s, and you try to slow down before you inevitably crash into the mun...
*quicksaves*
And you have a xenon engine
Too many times. *Altitude 10000*. "I still have a lot of time not going to start burning fuel just yet" *crashes at full thrust near the end*
@@microlobbies2378 ion engine*
@@dustymooneye5858 [QUICKSAVING INTENSIFIES]
This is the first time I've seen SpaceX's learning process documented so neatly; thank you.
I land my racing drones like this. Free fall from about 50 meters, use the OSD to level the airframe with the horizon, then pin the throttle and steadily roll off... it's so rad when I nail it.
Pretty brutal when you miscalculate, though.
This. Especially since racing drones have such high power to weight ratio, if you punch out at the correct moment the drone LITERALLY stops without any delay, it really looks like CGI.
Lol I usually just fly low, then turn around quickly with yaw, a quick throttle pulse. That eliminates horizontal speed and then just descend. (I use 40° of uptilt on my FPV cam). Or I simply crash
lol. That seems... Risky.
Then again, it's just a drone I guess.
I've been learning to fly a plane, and well, when you're on the thing that's landing you tend to be a little more risk averse.
Though I guess fixed wing aircraft have rather different dynamics, since you can land just fine with no power at all.
Turns out the primary approach for powered landings though basically amounts to flying the aircraft into the ground then killing your vertical velocity at the last minute.
Then you cut all the power and coast just above the ground. As you slow down, you lose lift and drop onto the runway...
I guess you can't really do anything comparable to a suicide burn in a fixed-wing aircraft... XD
Can you autorotate a drone?
i actually noticed this while landing on mun. When i do a shorter more violent burn closer to the ground i generally have more fuel left.
Great video, Scott! I’m DYING to see more of the science stuff from your channel! :)
Hazard-ish hiiiii
Hi hazard
Hazard-ish hi hazard
It's the awesome retro space builder person!!!
Great "Scott"!
"Rapid unscheduled disassembly"
Entropy... is such a lonely word.
I just came back to your channel after about a year and I must say, i really like your new style of videos !
Great video Scott! Out-done yourself, extremely interesting content peppered with nice side notes as well (like the fact the boosters aim for the sea not the barge), keep up the good work :)
These should be put into a play list because I want to watch all of them but have to search around for them all
"I'm a sick individual that likes math"
As a Physics Student, I heartily agree with you, Scott. ;)
Hey Scott, just wanted to say that as a Computer Science student, you've inspired me to take a class completely unrelated to my major - Astrodynamics! Thanks for the years of great videos!
Thanks for a good explanation of landing dynamics. A lot of factors I am not so much unaware of, but had not included in my reckoning of what goes on.
"Unscheduled disassembly" -- Sir, your immortality has been assured!
Is "unscheduled rapid disassembly" really a term Space-X adapted from Scott?
Funny enough, I had just programmed this in kOS a week or so ago while trying to make my Grasshopper recreation land on the launch pad.
Did you succeed?
I did. Though the code I'm still working on. So far I've made the Grasshopper fully autonomous. Flies up, hovers at 1000m, then angles and lands itself on the launchpad. It's* using a simple calculation to figure out how much time it'd take to decelerate at 1.5g's of force. It usually gets up to about 50m/s in vertical speed before it starts to suicide burn. I'm still actively working on it. I don't like the lat/long measuring to stop overburning horizontally, and I'm still trying to perfect it before moving onto the Falcon 9/Heavy/BFR. If nothing else, it's been fun figuring the code out. Just started learning kOS a few weeks ago.
Lol, well yes and no. I am high, but the response got held for review because I'm an idiot and tried to give a quicklink for anyone to view. I'll repost without links:
"I did. Though the code I'm still working on. So far I've made the Grasshopper fully autonomous. Flies up, hovers at 1000m, then angles and lands itself on the launchpad. It's* using a simple calculation to figure out how much time it'd take to decelerate at 1.5g's of force. It usually gets up to about 50m/s in vertical speed before it starts to suicide burn. I'm still actively working on it. I don't like the lat/long measuring to stop overburning horizontally, and I'm still trying to perfect it before moving onto the Falcon 9/Heavy/BFR. If nothing else, it's been fun figuring the code out. Just started learning kOS a few weeks ago."
I doubt I ended up on reddit, I'm too small of a streamer.
Hey that is enough funny
Very cool to see a reasonably intuitive presentation of the math behind this
I love it. You end the video showing a bunch of crashes (and a couple of successes) with your trademark, "Fly Safe."
Physics, explosions and some funny jokes in the bottom left corner
This is a 10/10 video right here
Whoever does the comments on the 'landing' parts of this video is funny as hell xD
That’s SpaceX
@@scottmanley Did they actually adapt "unscheduled rapid disassembly" from you?
Excellent video Scott. You did a really good job of explaining this so even I had a clue.
After seeing a stray frame inserted somewhere around 2:30 I thought you may have pulled a Tyler Durden on us. After slowing the video down and several attempts at pausing it at just the right time, I found it was just your face. Love you videos!
Can you do a video about SpaceX mars mission and its possible risks and advantages?
That's always something that's confused me. As far as I can tell, sending humans to Mars versus sending more humans to the Moon seems like a tremendous increase in risk--including the fact that it's a guaranteed one-way trip--without offering any real advantages that I can think of. I feel like it's mostly for the sake of being able to say "Hey look, we put people on mars! First, lol."
But then, I don't work in astrophysics, so maybe I'm missing something.
It's not a guaranteed one way trip, before humans land they will have already set up a fuel manufacturing plant and have enough fuel stored to refuel the rocket to send them back to earth.
Mars has an atmosphere, tons of resources and a day/night cycle similar to our own. Solar power is not as good on the moon as it's a month of day and a month of night. Gravity is about half of earths, which is probably enough to not cause long term problems, and the temperature is not too cold or hot, about -50 to +20C at the equator, which is surprisingly similar to the winter/summer temps where I live in Canada.
The only good reason to go to the moon instead is 2-6 months shorter travel time.
coast2coast00 it's actually about 15 days or dark then 15 days of light the moon does a full rotation about once a month
We're talking about the currently proposed expeditions, not some hypothetical future mission. And while it does technically have an atmosphere. the extremely low pressure means that doesn't do much good except for wind power generation. And what exactly are you talking about for fuel manufacturing? Cryogenic hydrogen and oxygen? Not only does that require orders of magnitude more power than any autonomous system we've ever built, it also requires very complicated and cumbersome infrastructure, as well as some means of collecting a significant amount of water. It's possible, yes, but is pretty far outside our current reach. And if you're talking other fuels, then we straight don't have the tech to do that without access to chemical precursors. It could hypothetically be done by cracking atmospheric CO2 and chemically refining minerals from the soil, but that would take even more advanced and massive infrastructure and facilities.
The moon, on the other hand, is much closer, and while it has practically no atmosphere, solar power is much more effective there, and hydrogen and oxygen can both be liberated from the lunar regolith using nothing more than electricity. We'd need more refinement of electrical storage technologies, but given the power range we're talking about for fuel refinement, molten salt batteries are already an economical option.
When I saw those tanks come back and land, vert, I have to say, I was floored.
@Babylon falling ????
@Babylon falling what
That video of the F9 sliding around on the droneship is one of the most stressful things I've seen. Every single time I see that, my heart rate jumps. Even though I know the rocket is "okay!"
2:30 I waisted 1 minute of my life trying to pause the video on that frame...it was more than worth it, thank you Scott!
Haha I can see why they didn't name it that, you try convincing government and investors it's a great idea to perform a suicide burn xD
I could make a politically incorrect statement here about certain factions thinking it was a great idea ...
Thank for thst analysis, Scott. Don't be afraid to thrown some more equations into future videos - I’m pretty sure you have an educated audience.
These falcon rockets are so much bigger than they seem. Hearing how big they are gets me every time.
Yep. Rockets often look small in videos...
Thank god there is you making rocket science approachable!!
Keep it going
Ah it brings back memories of Atari Lunar Lander - I have it on my Fire Tablet. Fun game.
One of the 6502 based vector classics..... It doesn't get much better than that.
Yup - I know.
Hey Scott!
With the Falcon Heavy launch out of the way, which space related events are you most looking forward to in 2018?
When is scott going to continue the nuclear series?
Yesterday.
For me; Both the next falcon heavy commercial launch and the James Webb Space Telescope and its results.
JWST, Giggty! I'm so excited to see what comes from it
Falcon 9 block 5. If they're really able to be flown 10 times, we could wind up seeing a SpaceX launch every single week. In particular, seeing a block 5 Falcon Heavy fly.
I needed this video, its been driving me crazy! Engines fight gravity for a longer time.so thats why... Thanks!
Great Stuff! It is such a BLAST to see technology where it is today. Cheers, Scott! \m/
Bring back the Nuclear Fission Series.
I just wanted to say this!
He's said the series isn't dead, he's just already covered everything he already understood well, so any further videos are going to take a lot more research and time.
There'll be at least another episode, it's just taking along time to write because I know less about enrichment than I did about nukes.
Yeah, I think that series really blew up the viewership numbers.
I love Space-X.
Not because of what they do, how successful or not they are, or because Elon Musk...no...
I love Space-X simply because they are a private company building spacecraft, and publicising every test, every launch, every landing(attempt) so you can just watch it.
It's fascinating to me, and is somehow way different from the clinical approach NASA launches used to have.
yeah. Thats the best part of spaceX. Elon musks bussiness model is to create and industry and to create services to profit off a industry, which is actually really smart.
Thats why with tesla hes striving to become the biggest car battery manufacturer so he can sell said batteries once other companies start building electric
I quite like their approach to R&D. Put in the research and design to make it workable, then test, evaluate, redesign, and repeat, instead of endless paper shuffling. I take the same approach to building model planes: If it works, great. If it fails and I learn something, well and good. If it crashes and burns, I'm only out a few dollars of foamboard and an hour of my Saturday afternoon to build it.
Love the video! And I would love to see a video in which you explain the mathematics of the more realistic suicide burn as an example. Great work as always!
Way back when I was in high school in 1971 we had an interesting program in a computer programming class. The school had an IBM 1620 computer and one of the computer programs available was Lunar Lander. The input/output on this computer was a built-in typewriter, so it was typed information only. You had to use your imagination for any "graphics".
The Lunar Lander program would type your altitude, fuel remaining and velocity. You would type in the desired setting for the decent rocket motor. The goal being to end the program with zero altitude, near zero velocity and some fuel remaining. If you started braking too soon, you ran out of fuel and crashed, just like they would in real life. We quickly learned that the only successful flight profile was to do a hard burn at the last moment. I seem to remember that a few short burns along the way helped to keep the velocity from climbing too high (no atmospheric drag on the moon). It was fun, and I don't think we appreciated we were learning something.
Fast forward 45 years. We watched the amazing flight and landing of the two boosters of the Falcon Heavy at work. In discussing the booster landing, it was neat to be able to share why the booster has to fly the "hoverslam" profile, it's the only flight profile that will work.
Good job on your video and explaining this. Yes, it is rocket science..
2:30 Surprise Scott!
Nice Christmas Tree in the background. I'm sure your wife is thrilled that it still hasn't been taken down!
She's the one that's keeping it up.
+Virginia Hansen
True fans of the Christmas tree will celebrate at least through St. Patrick's Day, possibly redecorating it as an Easter tree when the time comes. =D
(Admission: we actually had a 4th of July tree once, but even I have to admit that was a touch excessive.)
@Scott Manley, I think there's an easier way of understanding how reducing the burn time saves fuel. If the rocket is falling at a terminal velocity of 200 m/s, and you do an instant burn to reduce speed, you'd only need 200 m/s of deltav to brake. If you instead take X seconds, gravity keeps acelerating your vehicle during those X seconds, so you instead require 200 + 9.81 * X m/s of deltav. The longer the burn, the higher the deltav needed (roughly linearly).
Love your new series of videos !
So technically KSP _does_ teach this?
Yup. The only thing it doesn't teach in all of this is that engines cannot be throttled, and need time to start up.
But that was already part of a previous "things KSP doesn't teach" video.
And there are mods for both of those, if you really want them.
engines cannot be throttled? Yes they can, unless they're solid rockets.
@slopedarmor Sure, but there are limits. They need a certain amount of fuel flow to sustain combustion and operation, and that means there's a minimum thrust they can put out. Between that and full throttle you can probably throttle them pretty smoothly, but there's that minimum - which KSP doesn't model without mods.
That's true. You can go to like 1% thrust output in ksp but not in real life D:
One thing I didn't get - is 'suicide burn' a KSP-endemic term or is it more widepsread/originated elsewhere?
Its an industry term, it didn't start with KSP.
Lots of KSP terminology is actually real-world industry terminology...
Thanks!
Scott..... Awsome explonation for simple common folks like me......
Thanks
👍👍👍👍👍
Surprisingly, I remember a very basic 'simulator' Deutsche bahn released on their website a while ago that was a PR thing showing the best way to drive a high speed train for energy efficiency.
One of the things was quite obvious; when dealing with a hill, let the train slow down uphill, then recover the energy downhill. (though it demonstrated this was tricky to do while keeping to schedule and not breaking line speed limits on the downhill section.)
But the one that I'm reminded of here is that the program and the web page to go with it showed that the most energy efficient way to drive a train is to accelerate as quickly as possible, and decelerate as quickly as possible as late as possible.
In other words, it's a similar operating principle to the suicide burn rocket landings - quick, sudden velocity changes are more energy efficient than slower, gradual ones.
(though both for rockets and trains there are a bunch of limiting factors that make this less practical in a real world scenario.)
Oh, yes! Energy-efficiency optimisation often leads to bizarre results. One more niche application, very closely related to the problem with trains: given identical lap-time target, a more powerful racing car will use less fuel (assuming equally efficient engines). Accelerate as fast as you cant out of corners and then lift-and-coast for a while before hitting hard on the brakes. (Modern F1 with its ”hybrids” likely uses this approach, obviously, on how to best use the recovered braking energy.)
As for naming terminology; Even though suicide burn is perfectly appropriate for what the maneuver is; hoverslam sounds not as cool, why don't we call it the HALO burn? Since special forces also don't use their parachute until the very last moments before landing, that also sounds cool.
High airspeed low burn?
gamertagcaleb its high altitude low opening burn my dude
I am curious why a suicide burn landing would be more desirable than landing the booster with a parachute (maybe I am just too lazy to research it). Or even a combination drogue chute and suicide burn, but I guess excess thrust is not a problem in the examples in the video. I would use this combined approach in Kerbal, but the unrealistic engine throttles make it so easy. IRL, sure you have to haul a parachute with you on the way up (weight), but you have to carry extra fuel for the suicide burn. Maybe you could use a suicide burn to slow the craft to a relatively low speed and use a larger low speed (low quality) chute at the end.
Just wondering, because coming from Kerbal, I use chutes on every thing. Even experimental aircraft on the runway can be saved by chutes if they lose control on takeoff. Obliviously, Kerbal is not real life, but I do not know the real life pros/cons of using parachutes for landing.
You have to haul the parachute, it wouldn't be as precise, I imagine you might need some engine thrust for a soft landing anyway, plus you still need to reignite your engines for a possible boostback and a mandatory entry burn, and at that point you really might just carry a little extra for a final landing burn instead of dealing with the extra complexity and the downsides of chutes.
A lifting body or winged vehicle might be able to skip the entry burn, and I think that's what the BFR upper stage/spacecraft is plannd to do, but it'll still land propulsively.
Robert G I'm guessing that flooding a rocket with salt water makes it much harder to reuse said rocket. It's pretty difficult to land something at a fixed location using a parachute and it's much more prone to wind blowing it off course
Parachutes have a hard time delivering things with the precision to land on a barge, if they don't land on a barge they're probably ruined.
Accuracy is the biggest problem. With parachutes, your landing zone would stretch for miles, and wind can easily blow it off course.
Then there is the problem of the drag of parachutes. Rockets are designed to take the compression forces, but a stretching force would require a new structure which would also be heavier.
there's also the fact the booster is like 16 stories tall.... I can't imagine a parachute working for something like that
Another great video, you taught me to fly right when I picked up KSP in alpha.
people have probably commented on this before, but I really love how Scott's house / video set is just mayhem. Every other YT'er has manicured at least 1 corner in there house, but Scott is like "f that!"...what a champion.
0:19 - So, Ace Ventura parking, basically.
Like a glove.
I put down the datasheets to take a relaxing entertaining break from electronics and math...(how bout an interesting space video from Scott)... "...I like math..."..".. here's a graph" (facepalm)
Nobody made you watch it.
[Announcer voice]: "as he FLIES by the 'joke ahead' sign at incredibly asinine speed!..."
Nobody would have done the maths though !
Eric Miret
...Indeed...
*correction edits*
Thanks for all of the knowledge, Scott C:
I've nailed the suicide part of this manoeuvre down like a pro!
Are engines that can reliably perform suicide burns pure sci-fi or do we have some ideas for tech that would pull it of with close too 100% reliability?
SpaceX has been pretty reliable except when pushing the envelope. They haven't had an RTLS failure.
OH senpai noticed me!
Well I was thinking that the tech seems really good for unman crafts at the current stage of development but will is realistically be used for manned flights in our lifetime?
Seemed from the video that we are at the "good enough for unmanned"-stage not the "I'd take a ride in a craft that can only land via hoverslam"-stage.
GreatgoatonFire
The boosters wouldn't have people in them... so a manned falcon 9/heavy is pretty reliable now.
Put a reproduction mercury capsule on autopilot (I'm no steely eyed missle man) on the nose of one... I'd ride it tommorow given the chance.
Rocket engines are reliable. The challenge with the falcon booster engine return is they run on LOX/RP1
So they need a reliable method of reignition (they probably use TEB, Triethylborane. Which is pyrophoric liquid that spontaneously ignites (quite violently) on contact with oxygen.)
This isn't a new concept... the SR71 was using TEB to light its engines and afterburner since the 60s. Each engine had enough TEB to relight its afterburner 15 times. after that... nada.
Carbon deposits on the TEB injector inside the J57 engines would sometimes cause multiple shots of TEB to be needed to light the afterburner... wonder if SPACE X is having a similar issue?
If the Falcon was a hypergolic first stage, the relight would be simple, and almost foolproof... hypergolics are nasty, nasty, chemicals though.
Anyone know why they went with LOX/RP1 for the boosters?
As for landers... how do you think the apollo LEM landed on the moon... parachutes?
Came down on its engines on a suicide burn, with enough reserve to adjust the landing site as needed to avoid terrain on final.
It was said the most reliable part of the Apollo moon system... was the Lander.
Now, a powered manned decent on a planet with a thick atmosphere like earth...
I see it as a needless risk, chutes work fine, and are lighter than the fuel needed to pull off a powered decent.
I think it could be done, certainly... but why work when you have drag to do the job for you?
They could use something inspired by the approach Rocket Lab takes (who use an electrically-driven turbopump, which provides extremely fast startup and throughput modification), to help start it spinning quickly upon startup.
This could perhaps also provide a means for small but highly responsive adjustments to the turbine rotation speed, so as to significantly reduce the latency between targeted pump throughput and what is actually achieved - as well as maintain it, counteracting any disparities which arise.
This could be achieved by coupling electric motor(s) to the turbine shaft(s); supplying power would increase turbine speed, and drawing power from it (by using it as a generator) would decrease turbine speed - performing these actions as required for control.
The key part is the level of near-instantaneous control this should enable in control of turbopump throughput.
*Important:* The proposed electric motor addition is only a _compensatory_ mechanism which aims to decrease latency and short-timescale variances between what the flight computer commands and their real-world outcomes - it is NOT proposed as the sole energy source for pump operation... it is merely a fast-acting and precise augmentation to provide responsiveness and consistency to the operation of existing components. It should consume only very modest amounts of energy, nothing _remotely_ like that required of purely electric-driven pumping like that used by the Rutherford engine used by Rocket Labs.
... Come to think of it, this would theoretically be even more effective for the operation of Raptor engines instead of Merlin engines, as full-flow staged combustion cycle engines like Raptor depend upon highly precise, well coordinated pressure differentials throughout the preburners and the turbines that feed them - especially during startup - and this level of control should be particularly useful in this context.
Happy Christmas?
Tis the drawback of making a video months in advance. But judging the work that went into making the awesome video a couple of months for good editing isn't a bad thing!
While there are many complications, such as the decreasing mass, drag and so on there is one thing that does make it 'easier' and that is the throttling capability of the engine/s.
While the throttling range is limited it does allow closed loop feedback control to have sufficient authority to make up for most of the difficult (or sometimes impossible) variable factors.
One would calculate the starting time of the burn assuming a thrust mid way between minimum and maximum and then allow the closed loop control algorithm to make adjustments, continuously recalculating the required thrust for a zero velocity touchdown as it approaches.
Wise words from a wise man on an island of his own inside a block-chain of knowledge, one moment to decentralized thought that begins day by day. Don't give up!
Elongated Muskrat
Chris Rothenbush ...
You really still have a Christmas tree out?
I still remember the first time I saw a video of a "hoverslam". Absolutely blew my mind.
Hey Scott! first off, great explaination as always! You really know your stuff :) I was wondering if you could cover the topic of how rocket fusalages are built. they may seem simple but I imagine they're could be rather complicated.
still got a Christmas tree huh?
2:30 this must've been my face when my girlfriend broke up with me via facetime...
still blows me away every time I see this
that engine perspective landing footage is beautiful
I didn't fly safe, Scott. I feel like I let you down :(
Not unless your unsafe flying involved Scott's ship ;)
My flight was completely safe.
As for the impact…
Do while (landing) {
If (Rocket Going To Crash) { Don’t Crash }
}
Someone tell Elon that I’ll accept a million dollars to my PAYPAL & whatever the latest Tesla is sent to my door.
Haha problem solved by that scipt.
{while:landing}
[If]
lol did anybody notice the random 1 frame of Manley at 2:30?
Oh and this is so informative yet entertaining, these videos are amazing.
Back in the 70‘s there was this very early computer game „Moon Lander“, originally developed on PDP-8. To land the moon lander successfully, you had to use the limited fuel really late and close to the surface, but not too late. It was the same principle.
"Hoverslam " sounds cooler than "Suicide burn" but describes the process much worse
(Edit: Scott talks about this in the video, I should've watched the video before commenting)
Hoverslam sounds like a basketball move or a skateboarding trick
Hoverslam is also better for PR...
Definitely
Hoverslam sounds like slamdunking a basketball while having your teammates carrying you on their shoulder
Hoverslam sound like "I'm trying to hover, but I'll just slam on the ground instead"
Hover slam is an awful PR name.
No its not
Better than fuckin Suicide Burn
it sounds fucking epic
Thanks Scott. Always the educator.
Great video Scott makes me want to start my own channel about space(if or when I get the education) :)
Scott I love your vids mate but every time you say "math" a part of me dies.
Charlie Butterbean I don't say histories so I'm fine with it
Interesting. In the same moment part of me is given new life.
Don't be so chauvinist.
math > maths
unless you're numberphile
I think it's probably better if you let that part of you die, anyway. Trial by fire. Let the weakness burn away...
Seeing the falcon burn down on to the ocean barge is just... beautiful.
Great just great that was a well done video I'm impressed I am now filled with learning thank you
Excellent. Thank you so much for the enlightenment.
Scott you are the best. Just the best.
'fly safe' loved the expression you used
Good one. Always at your best when getting a bit technical.
This really is a Fucking excellently factual and concise video. One of your best in my opinion.
I was looking for this video yesterday.
thank you kindly for another great video
best intro in UA-cam.
Carry on.
I love those falcon testing videos, it's like watching my KSP videos, only in really high def :P