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http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/28/15071288/spacex-launch-recycled-falcon-9-rocket-landing-schedule
On Thursday, SpaceX is set to launch yet another satellite into orbit from the Florida coast — but this mission will be far from routine for the company. The Falcon 9 rocket that SpaceX is using for the launch has already flown before. Around the same time last year, it sent cargo to the International Space Station for NASA, and then came back to Earth to land upright on a floating drone ship at sea. This is the first time that SpaceX will attempt to reuse one of its rockets.
[...] In truth, only part of the Falcon 9 is being reused on this upcoming mission. After each launch, SpaceX tries to save just the first stage of its vehicles. That's the 14-story-tall main body of the Falcon 9 that contains the primary engines and most of the fuel.
[...] Not only is this Falcon 9 rocket launching for a second time, but it's landing again, too. The first stage will attempt another drone ship landing in the Atlantic Ocean after takeoff, meaning this particular vehicle could see even more flight time in the future. It's still unclear just how many times a single first stage of a Falcon 9 can be used again. In the past, Musk has boasted that parts of the Falcon 9 could be reused up to 100 times, but he expects 10 to 20 reuses out of a single vehicle.
[...] It's not known just how much launching a used rocket saves the company, but SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell estimated that customers could see a price reduction of about 30 percent for launches that use landed rockets. (In October, however, she told Space News that SpaceX is only offering 10 percent discounts for the time being.) That means the Falcon 9, which starts at a little more than $60 million, could eventually go for $40 million if it's a reused vehicle.
[...] SpaceX performed a successful static fire test of the Falcon 9 engines on Monday, and right now, takeoff of SES-10 is scheduled for 6PM ET [2200 UTC] on Thursday from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. There's a two-and-a-half-hour launch window, so the Falcon 9 can conceivably take off anytime until 8:30PM ET [0030 UTC]. So far there's a 70 percent chance that weather conditions will be favorable, according [to] Patrick Air Force Base.
The Verge story says it will be updated 20 minutes before the scheduled launch to provide a live-stream of the launch.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 29 2017, @07:30PM (2 children)
You can get cheaty and turn coal into methanol in the Winkler process. I'm too lazy to look up if its the same Winkler who implemented the famous dissolved oxygen test using manganese. It was about the same era. Suppose it doesn't matter anyway.
Given all the cool stuff you can do with petrochemicals and impure coals it seems a waste to burn the stuff.
The natgas market is in a huge frac bubble where it hasn't quite trickled down from the geologists to the electrical plant operators yet that decline rates in the real world are a wee bit steeper than decline rates reported by marketing droids. We're headed for a hell of a squeeze in the natgas market in the next couple years, say, before 2025 at latest, probably before 2020. No, not next week.
BS stacked on BS all the way down and bad money thrown away after good money can make cheap natgas for a little while. But not forever....
Those natgas peaking plants are going to have nothing to burn soon enough.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday March 29 2017, @07:45PM (1 child)
What you say about natural gas is interesting. I didn't expect what you say to happen quite that soon.
As for coal, it probably has some place in the total energy picture. There are existing coal burning generation plants after all. But coal is not the long term future. Even with coal for peak demand, green energy should be the big focus. And solar already employs more people than coal.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 29 2017, @09:31PM
Coal doesn't do peak demand very well. Thats a baseload technology like nuclear. They do best cranked up to 100% and left alone until the next maint interval.
In some parts (most?) of the USA "gas" means natgas methane but my understanding in jolly old england before the north sea (and after, now that its in decline) gas used to mean coal gas where steam plus coal equals craptons of carbon monoxide. Thats the whole stick your head in an unlit kitchen oven kills you gag which makes no sense in the USA but if you have towngas or cokegas or coalgas the carbon monoxide is quite fatal.
Anyway. My gut level guess is coal gets stockpiled into gassifier facilities that run natgas peaking plants and legacy natgas furnaces and stuff.
You can do cool chemistry with carbon. I think we'll continue mining it for some time. Just not so much to burn and make steam.