Re: SpaceX News
Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2018 1:25 am
Block 5 and the Merlin 1D block 5 have enough differences, I guess that they are simply not going to bother with block 3 and 4 anymore.
Block 4 could have been reused up to 10 times already, but they need the block 5s for NASA's commercial crew anyway and they are currently sitting on too many old cores that they don't know what to do with them. Their storage is full. They have been scrapping old block 3 cores to make room for the landed block 4s and the anticipated bunch of block 5s. They did test some new re- entry profiles with today's core, from what I understand and they have done that with other expended cores in the past. This seems to be the best use for them right now. I also doubt that they will put much more energy into Falcon 9 anymore since BFS is around the corner and that again is completely different anyway. BFS will take over most of their launches in the future.
Block 4 could have been reused up to 10 times already, but they need the block 5s for NASA's commercial crew anyway and they are currently sitting on too many old cores that they don't know what to do with them. Their storage is full. They have been scrapping old block 3 cores to make room for the landed block 4s and the anticipated bunch of block 5s. They did test some new re- entry profiles with today's core, from what I understand and they have done that with other expended cores in the past. This seems to be the best use for them right now. I also doubt that they will put much more energy into Falcon 9 anymore since BFS is around the corner and that again is completely different anyway. BFS will take over most of their launches in the future.