So what does it cost to take fuel along for landing?
‘As many people know Elon recently said that: “If we do an ocean landing (for testing purposes), the performance hit is actually quite small, maybe in the order of 15 percent. If we do a return to launch site landing, it’s probably double that, it’s more like a 30 percent hit (i.e., 30 percent of payload lost).”’
You can take the fuel hit; just think of it as structure weight.
The real question is, for commercial missions, who wants to put their $150 million satellite on a used rocket?
Musk can talk himself blue in the face about how reliable it is but business plans and insurers will make the decisions.
Eventually they may get used to it...SpaceX will have the burden of proof on them to show the reliability.
> So what does it cost to take fuel along for landing?
Less than the cost of replacing the recovered hardware with all-new (minus the cost of the recovery and refurb on the recycling).
I suspect Elon’s bean counters have it all worked out, including amortized life-cycle costs of the recovery barge and support ships, and having to offer discounts on future launches with “pre-owned” rockets.
Nonetheless, this is a test. Do not be surprised if it fails. When none of your tests fail, you aren’t pushing hard enough.
What would it take for you to close on this booster today? It was used gently by a little old who only made three once-around orbits with it. We’ll even take your ULA launch slot in trade.