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Comment by ed25519FUUU | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone have any information in what exactly goes into "refurbishing" the satellites which land? What exactly do they do to the rockets to get them mission-ready again?

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I assume you meant rockets in your first sentence, as most satellites (other than spacecraft) don't survive landing :)

SpaceX/Elon hasn't gone into a huge amount of detail about what's involved in refurbishing the first stage. I imagine a lot of it comes down to inspecting parts and making sure they haven't been damaged or worn out, and replacing the ones that have. Maybe cleaning out soot from the engines. The stated goal is to not have to do any inspection or refurbishment between flights, but they aren't there yet.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1143195449425321984 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1313450351366873090

Satellites don't land. Boosters do. They have lots of very high-spec mechanical parts--turbines and valves exposed to high-temperature, oscillating high-pressure, often oxidizing fluids--that must be inspected for damage and wear, so as not to cause explosion on the next flight. In addition, high-stress non-moving parts, e.g. nozzle neck, can erode under high-temperature matter flows.

Exploding rockets ruin their day, disappoint customers, and endanger any people onboard.

You can see SpaceX cleaned some surfaces from flown boosters to inspect welds:

https://twitter.com/wikkit/status/1353354797127245825

https://twitter.com/RDAnglePhoto/status/1353764105040093186?...

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