Space X - Rockets galore

11 ^th July 2024 Space X- Rockets galore!  Joe Colls       

Joe explained that Space X is an American company, funded by multimillionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, that launches satellites. Apparently, he made his millions by selling PayPal, splitting half his profits between Tesla and Space X. They launch vehicles for putting satellites into orbit or off to the moon, using multi stage rockets, which originally sank back into the sea, but their objective was to be able to re-use the rockets, which fall into 4 categories: 1. Falcon 9 2. Falcon Heavy 3. Dragon 4. Starship.  The plan was to bring them back to a landing pad and also landing back at sea on a drone platform. He then showed a number of videos showing the launch from Cape Canaveral and the landings of the 1^st stage rocket (booster).  To date they have completed 350 launches, with only 2 failures and are operating now at 100 launches per annum, and have used 22 re-launch boosters, so far.  There are about 6000 Starlink satellites in low earth orbit and they launch them multi flat packed, using the Falcon 9.  The Space X Dragon was used to service the International Space Shuttle with both cargo and crew.  The Starship is designed for Moon and Mars exploration, using 33 liquid Methane/liquid Oxygen engines. They have constructed a new production and launch tower at Boca Chica, Texas, just North of the Mexican border.  Joe then showed an animation of the re-landing of the booster back to the launch tower, being ‘caught’ by two arms (chopsticks). He mentioned the heat issue when re-landing as the engines have to be used for the manoeuvre, so after the 1^st landing pad was destroyed, they developed an ‘upside down’ shower unit to deluge the area with water.

Space X has a different strategy to NASA, using ‘iterative engineering’, try it out, then improve it next time which compares to NASA philosophy of taking about 10 years to produce the ‘perfect solution’.  They have completed 4 launches. So far: April and November in’23 and March and April ’24.  The plan is for IFT 5 to launch in August, where they hope to ‘catch’ the booster. They are building a 2^nd launch tower at Boca Chica and a further one at Cape Canaveral. Joe talked about the changes in technology that have affected the costs, originally estimated at 50, 000 $/Kg, 5000 $/Kg to the current price of 50 $ /Kg for Starship.  He concluded his presentation with an historical video of James Burke, showing a rocket launch using liquid Hydrogen/liquid Oxygen engines.

Joe fielded a few questions regarding the funding, answering that the launches are quite profitable, use of Methane engines and weather tolerances. Adrian proposed the vote of thanks, mentioning that he might be the right person to do the vote as a ‘space enthusiast’, but he might be biassed. He suggested that we all grew up in the ‘Space Age’, so should have some empathy with the subject matter. He concluded that he really enjoyed Joe’s talk delivered with enthusiasm, humour and many facts, a fascinating subject and amazing technology and asked members to join him with a warm round of applause.          AR