←back to thread

NASA's Europa Clipper Launch

(www.youtube.com)
217 points belter | 2 comments | 14 Oct 24 15:28 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
sidcool ◴[14 Oct 24 16:14 UTC] No.41838932[source]▶
Are the side boosters going to be recovered?
replies(5): >>41838950 #>>41838957 #>>41838963 #>>41838966 #>>41839800 #
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!
replies(1): >>41839149 #
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?
replies(8): >>41839217 #>>41839224 #>>41839321 #>>41839349 #>>41839410 #>>41839427 #>>41840442 #>>41852102 #
1. perihelions ◴[14 Oct 24 16:54 UTC] No.41839349[source]▶
It's an engineering tradeoff of payload vs. booster cost. It's heavily one-sided for this launch—you get 4x more payload to this interplanetary orbit with the expendable Heavy vs. the reusable one [a].

Future launches with Starship, analogous to this one, would refuel their upper stage in orbit to their full capacity, so there would be no performance downside to recovering boosters; you would need more launches, but they would all be reusable.

[a] https://elvperf.ksc.nasa.gov/Pages/Query.aspx (I queried for a high-energy orbit with a C3 of 42 km^2/s^2, which I think is correct, or at least very close)

replies(1): >>41840357 #
2. whamlastxmas ◴[14 Oct 24 18:25 UTC] No.41840357[source]▶
Also with starship launches only needing about a million dollars in fuel, it makes a ton of sense to just launch fuel to orbit versus sacrificing an entire ship