this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024
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Right, F9 can operate as reusable or expendable depending on mission profile. But for the Starlink constellation, they're landing the rockets and re-using them.
Long March 6 are fully expendable, though, and would require a dedicated launch vehicle for every 18 satellites that go up (maybe more than 18 if they reduce the payload mass on later satellite models, etc).
Not to say they'll launch the whole constellation on LM6; they could have a reusable booster in the works and switch over to that in later phases.
I think you misunderstood. They're pointing out that the Falcon 9's upper stage is always expended
But the Falcon 9 second stage is sent on a controlled re-entry after satellite deployment, usually aiming for point Nemo.
There's only been one second stage failure in 270+ launches and that re-entered in a unguided manner (I'm actually not sure where it re-entered), but it still didn't leave any major debris in orbit.
And they changed their deployment hardware - those long rods that the sats are contained by - to keep it attached to the second stage, so it all deorbits together.
I thought you were referring to the orbital insertion stage? what else do you mean by this?
That was referring to the space debris point of the post. I just merged my two points (orbital debris and launching a megaconstellation on an expendable launch platform) poorly, lol.
The first link was for the orbital debris issue, and the second was for the launch vehicle. But upon closer reading, the second is about the LM 2C and not the 6(A). That's my bad.