I was wondering about that too. It would be cool if they could launch from somewhere south of San Antonio, TX on the water, and land in Florida so it doesn't fly over land mass for safety reasons.
Well, they obviously plan to land on land. Why do you think I ever thought otherwise?
It just seems weird to me that this fluke of geography would force them turn around and land. It seems like they could launch in Texas or somewhere and then land in Florida or something.
I've always thought the goal was to launch from south Texas and to land the 1st stage in Florida. I don't know if that's too far, or not far enough. Maybe second stage? Although the second stage is a lot higher and faster at the end of it's burn.
SpaceX owns some land in southern Texas. It seems that the initial idea is to have a spaceport in Brownsville, TX, and use Cape Canaveral, FL, as the landing location. In the mean time, they can practice by using floating platforms in the Atlantic.
It's a good question, and I don't have a great answer for you other than my understanding is that the ground space they have to work with in Boca Chica is not really that large. And there are a lot of environmental concerns (+ the chances of blowing up on landing is greater than blowing up on liftoff).
But I've heard speculation that they might build a dedicate landing tower around their Florida launch site for that reason. No idea how accurate that is though.
Florida's an awful long way from Brownsville. Take a look at the launch danger zones chart; first stage recovery is just off the coast. Maybe you could finagle a second stage recovery in Florida from Texas, but only from very specific inclinations. Doesn't seem likely to be useful.
Does this mean they'll be launching from another facility? Right now, the trajectory goes over to the sea, and bringing the first stage back to dry land is expensive. They'd have to launch far away from the east coast.
1. Yes, they will eventually be launching elsewhere. SpaceX is currently building its own launch facility in Brownsville, TX, which would indeed permit landing at the cape.
2. Elon Musk seems to think that despite the expense, they can fly the rocket back to the launch pad for lighter payloads.
You don't have to launch over land, just go the other way. BFR flying without a payload can easily go the long way around, launch west over pacific and land in Florida from the east.
When they were starting out with Falcon 1 launch attempts, they were using Kwajalein Atoll. They had tons of problems with corrosion from sea-water in the air though. I imagine that might be a concern in Hawaii as well, depending on which islands were available.
They'll still be near sea-water in Texas of course, but perhaps the wind tends to blow west to east, with the jetstream? I'm not sure.
It can’t be inland, because there’d be a huge stretch of flyover restrictions. It’d be at sea on top of mobile floating platforms. Like the two oil rigs SpaceX bought last year…
Blue Origin's mission allows it because it's suborbital. That is: it doesn't actually go anywhere other than straight up. That's also why they can launch in the middle of Texas.
I'm curious, why does the falcon reverse course after having so much lateral velocity? Why not launch somewhere in Arizona and land in Texas or Florida?
It would take a lot more fuel to reach Florida from Texas than it would take to boost back to the launch site. The first stage is only a couple hundred kilometers downrange at stage separation. Florida is >1,000 kilometers away from Texas.
The other advantage to boosting back to the launch site is that any failures result in the first stage crashing into the ocean. If you put it on a ballistic trajectory towards Miami... the worst case scenarios get a lot worse...
Considering where they launch I don’t think landing anywhere but in the ocean is an option.
They launch from the coast to the east (taking advantage of the Earth’s rotation), meaning when the first stage shuts off it will be somewhere over the Atlantic, on a ballistic trajectory further eastward. Since the goal is to be re-useable without losing too much payload capability I really don’t think they can have much fuel to spare at that point. To decelerate and come to a hover, sure, that’s the goal, but to actually decelerate, accelerate in the opposite direction, decelerate again and come to a hover? That would be ridiculous.
SpaceX will need to launch from somewhere else to end up over land when the first stage shuts off.
I'm pretty sure they're planning to fly the first stage back to the launch site (Cape Canaveral in most cases for now). It wouldn't return to the same tower, but somewhere at the Cape.
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