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Exactly. SpaceX has completely designed this rocket around easy readiness tests. That's why the rocket was switched from a parachute landing, to a VTOL device[0].

They basically want this to be a smart rocket. Something that can just launch payloads into and out of orbit, and come home like a good dog after a long day of work.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Reusability



Well, either they tear apart and inspect the engine in between launches or they don't. If they don't, their turnaround will be way faster, but there is a greater chance of failure, and if there is a failure, a much lower chance of figuring out the reasons.


The engines are fired up, shut down and then re-lit again for many dozens of cycles during testing. Plus it's re-started 3 times during landing manoeuvers on top of the launch burn, so it's definitely capable of re-use without being stripped and cleaned. How many times I don't know, but like I said they run the engines though a lot of cycles during testing so they should have a good handle on that.


> so it's definitely capable of re-use without being stripped and cleaned. How many times I don't know

I'm confident SpaceX themselves would have tested multiple engines to failure with many, many re-light, shutdown, re-light cycles so they have a good understanding of what's going to happen when they try to re-use one of these things.

There is no way they'd be going to all this trouble to design a rocket that can come back, all the trouble of giving it someplace to land if they were not already confident the engine can be used at least a few times.


OTOH, there's still huge cost savings even if you need to take apart and reinspect the engines. Building space components is not cheap.




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