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NASA's Europa Clipper Launch

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217 points belter | 1 comments | 14 Oct 24 15:28 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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sidcool ◴[14 Oct 24 16:14 UTC] No.41838932[source]▶
Are the side boosters going to be recovered?
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benjismith ◴[14 Oct 24 16:16 UTC] No.41838957[source]▶
Nope. They needed the maximum amount of thrust from those boosters in order to propel the spacecraft toward Jupiter, so they couldn't save enough fuel for the boosters to land themselves. This was the 6th flight of these boosters, so we thank them for their service!
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linotype ◴[14 Oct 24 16:36 UTC] No.41839149[source]▶
Is this one of those things that’s limited by physics or at some point will these kinds of missions be doable with a mostly reusable setup?
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1. tsimionescu ◴[14 Oct 24 16:51 UTC] No.41839321{3}[source]▶
It's limited by physics: if a reusable rocket can carry a maximum payload of X tons, it can only be reused when it carries a payload of X/N tons, and (1-X)/N as extra fuel. How large X and N are of course depends on the rocket design, but N is always going to be greater than 1.

So, for any rocket, flying it reusably is going to mean not using the full capacity.