Exciting times.
BTW until Electron started flying Beck reckoned doing recovery on a launcher this size was impossible.
After about 12 flights (and actual telemetry) that started to change. And should continue to improve as they leverage Li ion cell improvements in the market.
With pad turnaround times at 31 days. (and hopefully continuing to drop) Flight 17 flies by early December.
Actual in flight catching could follow as soon as flight 18
However actual reflight of the recovered stage is likely much further off. SX, who like it or not are the only benchmark for this, took roughly a year to refly their first recovered booster. OTOH Electron is much smaller and presents a smaller inspection target.
By Dec 2021 we could be looking at 2 partially reusable launch vehicles one of which is 100x bigger than the other.
That means anyone looking to get funding for yet another TSTO ELV without 1st stage reuse had either better have their funding already committed or have one hell of a sales pitch, because there's no real reason to bother otherwise. :-(
Caveats. This assumes no further launch mishaps leading to stand downs and ocean recovery reveals no show stoppers needing either extensive re-design (making it uneconomic) or issues with the physics that make it impossible at this scale. As always, hope for the best but plan for the worst.
All of which means pretty exciting times for those of us interested in this sort of thing.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
