From http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/10/musk-plans-reusability-falcon-9-rocket/
Performance hit for reusable rockets:
Musk also addressed the performance hit that results from reserving propellant for landing the first stage.
“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).”
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Musk believes that the most revolutionary aspect of the new Falcon 9 is the potential reuse of the first stage “which is almost three-quarters of the cost of the rocket.”
Return to launch site landing – safety and location:
Although a “return to site” landing of the first stage could happen as early as the CRS-3 flight in February, Musk cautioned that SpaceX would only attempt it if it is perfectly safe to do so.
Citing safety as part of the reason why they first wanted to land in the ocean, SpaceX wants to make sure that everything is working properly in the first instance before attempting to land with legs on land. Musk noted that if a return to launch site recovery is made, it would be done over an unpopulated area.
“For any landing area that we would have, the landing ellipse, the sort of error that the stage could encounter would be an unpopulated region,” Musk added. “So we would aim to have a landing site that’s unpopulated with a radius of a couple of miles.”
He also explained that this could be achieved in certain areas at Cape Canaveral and at Vandenberg.
Seems the reason is fuel usage and safety.
Posted Saturday 9 Apr 2016 @ 1:50:03 pm from IP
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