How SpaceX Reinvented The Rocket!
Video from the channel The Space Race about Falcon 9, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 21:01. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.
What it's about
A video essay explaining why SpaceX was the first to recover an orbital first stage, something it achieved with the Falcon 9 in December 2015. It argues that the key was not just landing the booster, but making it genuinely reusable and flying it often enough for that to pay off.
Historical context
Early launch vehicles were adapted intercontinental ballistic missiles, such as the Titan II of the Gemini program. The Saturn V was designed to be expendable because, for a dozen missions, building twelve rockets was cheaper than developing a reusable one. In the mid-1950s, Wernher von Braun had conceived a fully recoverable three-stage ferry rocket, with parachutes and a gliding orbiter. The Space Shuttle, funded in 1972, turned out to be more refurbishable than reusable: returning it to the pad required about 650,000 hours of work, and it never flew as often as planned. Over 30 years it totaled 135 missions with five orbiters, 39 of them by Discovery.
Key facts
SpaceX ruled out parachutes because the Falcon 9's first stage separates at more than 8,000 km/h. It opted for a propulsive landing, with a reentry burn, grid fins, and a final burn. The video reviews the rocket's versions: the 1.0, about 46 m tall; the 1.1, over 68 m, with Merlin 1D engines in an octaweb layout, legs from CRS-3 (April 2014) and grid fins from CRS-5 (January 2015), when the first barge landing was attempted; and the Full Thrust, 70 m tall with subcooled propellants, which after the in-flight failure of June 2015 achieved the first landing at Cape Canaveral. The first reused booster flew in March 2017. The 2018 Block 5 brought forged titanium grid fins, retractable legs, reinforced turbopumps, improved COPV tanks, and a heat shield at the base. Booster B1058, which carried Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the station in May 2020, completed its sixteenth flight on July 10 and is certified for 20.