SpaceX Falcon 9 historic landing thread (1st landing attempt & most recent missions)

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ThirstyBarbarian said:
The two boosters landing together side by side by side really was amazing! My wife was about to head out the door to Costco right before the launch, but I convinced her if she would wait 15 minutes, the launch would be worth it. She gave me an indulgent smile and agreed to stay, like she was doing me a favor so I wouldn’t have to watch it alone. When those two boosters came in and landed together, I turned to her, and her mouth was literally hanging open, agape. I don’t care who you are, or whether rockets are your “thing” or not, but that sight will boggle you. It looks like something from a science fiction movie.
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I was fortunate enough to catch the SpaceX launch out of Vandenberg in late December. I'm 300 miles south of the launch site and caught the launch just after separation. Spread out across the sky was the entire trail from the launch site to the north to the 2nd stage burning to the south. In the middle was the booster maneuvering around to come back in and land. The thrusters looked like they were blowing smoke rings. Then the engine lit up again for its retro burn. As I was watching it I stood there thinking we could accomplish incredible things. And that was one booster I don't know how many miles away that splashed down in the ocean.

I would imagine being in Florida to witness the FH launch and the simultaneous landings of the side boosters would be pretty darn awe inspiring.
 
Great launch photo. Source:
https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/com..._medium=hot&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=spacex

Falcon Heavy flame detail from 1300ft away. It's a 42.4MP 81.6MB uncompressed RAW image, let's count bolts | Ryan Chylinski for SpaceFlight Insider
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q744askfdue01.jpg


The image version linked is not even a meg in file size though, so somewhere there's a huge version of this.


So, like said earlier about the publicity value.......

D1pawHf.jpg
 
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captbk said:
Is it just me or is anyone else baffled why Musk chooses to put one of his cars into space and not something else that
would maybe benefit mankind. I know it's his money and he can stroke his ego any way he wants, but cmon, really.

Sure it was a great step forward in space travel but a car? Stupidest thing ever.
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When you own SpaceX and Tesla you can indulge yourself. It is a non-important test mass object in a practical sense. It could have been a block of concrete. You do not launch important things when you think it has a fair chance of failing.

It will likely also be a Tesla commercial at some point.

It is a piece of showmanship. Does everything need to value mankind? Man, I hope this is not the case.


Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum
 
Last view before the batteries died. Do not know how far away it was at the time. But the batteries were supposed to run out about 12 hours after launch, so this would be ballpark 6 hours or so after the 3rd (final) burn (about 6 hours after launch) to reach escape velocity.

update - I googled that the generic escape velocity is about 25,000 mph. So this may have been taken at about 150,000 miles away, ballpark. Probably at least 100,000 miles. It's likely some some number crunching space techs will post about how far away this would have been, based on the actual velocity needed to nearly reach the Asteroid belt and the likely time after the escape burn that this would have been taken.

27625438_10157132033915760_3382440010127918490_o.jpg
 
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ThirstyBarbarian said:
One thing I think is kind of weird is that it doesn’t seem like they really picked a specific orbit to aim for, or they missed the orbit they were aiming for. Originally, they had talked about a “Mars orbit”, which everyone interpreted as actually orbiting Mars. That was later clarified to mean a heliocentric orbit with the aphelion at Mars distance from the sun and perihelion at Earth distance. But they ended up blasting the car out past Mars distance to almost Ceres distance from the sun. Did they really not have a particular orbit in mind and just shot it as far as they could? Or did they aim for Mars distance and something didn’t work right? Maybe Starman just stomped on the Tesla’s accelerator and didn’t let up?
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They didn't have a specific orbit in mind. It was just fire the engine and see what happens. It was probably anticipated that it might exceed the distance to Mars, but it is better to promise one thing and deliver something more.
 
Couple of photos showing the landing zones. LZ-1 has the black center (radar-reflective paint), the gray (unpainted concrete) is LZ-2.

Image by Digital Globe, taken Dec 15th after CRS-13 landing on LZ-1.

https://twitter.com/digitalglobe/status/941814212686311424

xbtyb8o.jpg


This view angle… I HOPE SpaceX will soon release multicopter video of the landings, as they have done with some of the RTLS landings.

8WYaQAF.jpg


Also, at the press conference, Musk said they'd release video of the center core crash, if the ASDS cameras survived. Well, in the past they've used GoPros recording to their internal SD cards, which survived the "Kamikaze" crash of the first attempted landing and other mishaps. And the FH core did not even hit the ASDS, so they ought have video recorded. But I'm not holding my breath waiting for it to be released.
 
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Pretty cool video with some great sound effects. Put your headphones on and turn it up. If my kids weren't asleep I would get the sound going through the sub just to feel it.

[video=youtube;x7uQ8OWiheM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7uQ8OWiheM[/video]
 
georgegassaway said:
update - I googled that the generic escape velocity is about 25,000 mph. So this may have been taken at about 150,000 miles away, ballpark. Probably at least 100,000 miles. It's likely some some number crunching space techs will post about how far away this would have been, based on the actual velocity needed to nearly reach the Asteroid belt and the likely time after the escape burn that this would have been taken.

27625438_10157132033915760_3382440010127918490_o.jpg
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In the image the diameter of the earth appears about the same size as the width of the windshield on its upper edge - lets say about 5ft. If we assume the distance between camera and the upper edge of the wind shield is about 10-15ft away, then the camera would be about 2-3 earth diameters away from the earth - something in the neighborhood of 16,000 - 24,000 miles.

Reinhard
 
Given the wide angle nature of the camera and uncertain distance from lens to windshield, hard to work out distance from sizes in the image. The lens to windshield distance was probably more like 5, maybe 6 feet (whole car is not 15 feet long!)

Escape Velocity is about 25,000 mph. The image was supposed to be shortly before the batteries died, which was supposed to be about 6 hours after the burn. So that’s why it probably was more like 125,000 to 150,000 miles away (presuming SpaceX was accurate in saying this was just before the batteries died, and that the batteries lasted as long as stated).


On to new stuff.... or rather new news about THIS:

T9yVy5n.jpg



So, before FH flew, on Jan 31st there was an F9 launch of Govsat-1, flown as an expendable. To get more landing data (apparently for a new type of 1-3-1 Landing burn, maximizing the “3” and minimizing the “1” only),

SpaceX had the booster do this new type of landing but without an ASDS, so it landed on the water. It ended up staying intact, and floating. Info about that was posted several pages back. Then the speculations on what would happen to it. Elon Musk even said they’d try to tow it back to shore.


Well, reportedly, reality has finally sunk in.

Really… SUNK….. in.

From AmericaSpace.com:

“Air Force Strike Takes Out SpaceX's Floating GovSat Booster“

https://www.americaspace.com/2018/02/08/air-force-strike-takes-out-spacexs-floating-govsat-booster/

…… Thing is, SpaceX didn’t expect the booster to survive the splashdown in tact, but it did, making it easy to speculate*that it’s a situation SpaceX didn’t have a contingency plan for. For example, things like un-safed*COPVs (composite overwrapped pressure vessels) at flight pressure could have made it a ticking time bomb and hazard to navigation and marine life, being that they*store a dangerous amount of energy if not vented.
Additionally, if circuitry onboard was fried by water after the booster splashed down, then there’s no way high-pressure areas could vent.
Whatever the case, trusted anonymous sources have confirmed to AmericaSpace that the U.S. Air Force carried out an air strike to blow up the unsafed floating booster.
In an inquiry to the U.S. Air Force, an Air Force Space Command spokesperson would not confirm or deny the strike, but instead asked that any and all*booster queries go to SpaceX.
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Back to the last image of the Roadster, Earth in background, before the batteries died:

sooner.boomer said:
I'd like a hi-res photo of the Tesla with the Earth in the background. THAT would make a great poster!
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Keep in mind that was a frame from a video. If the camera was a 4K camera, transmitting at 4K quality, then 4K is the highest-res it could be. Otherwise, what you see (seeming less than 4K, maybe 1080?) may be the best there's going to be. Keep in mind that is a frame released by SpaceX, so whatever quality it is, is the max there's going to be unless there is a better quality version that they release later (AFAIK, they were not publicly live streaming video near the time this was taken).
 
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Reinhard said:
In the image the diameter of the earth appears about the same size as the width of the windshield on its upper edge - lets say about 5ft. If we assume the distance between camera and the upper edge of the wind shield is about 10-15ft away, then the camera would be about 2-3 earth diameters away from the earth - something in the neighborhood of 16,000 - 24,000 miles.

Reinhard
Click to expand...

Is this the intercept theorem? If we knew the distance from the camera to the windshield, which we can because we have that side picture of the roadster, then we need the width of the windshield. From that we can get a good estimate of the distance at the time the pic was taken.
 
gjxj said:
all that effort and they could only fit 12h worth of batteries?
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No reason to redesign the 2nd stage for longer life.

This is an incredibly unique case since normally anything shot out that far would have it's own power supply and propulsion.

Starman did his job, sent his reports, and will continue his patrol long after we're gone.
 
gjxj said:
all that effort and they could only fit 12h worth of batteries?
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The purpose of the whole flight was to test fly Falcon Heavy. The Falcon Heavy does not need for the 2nd stage battery to last more than 12 hours after launch. Indeed, to meet mission objectives, the batteries (and second stage) only have to work for about 6 hours after launch. Reason for that is to be able to put some satellites DIRECTLY into Geostationary orbit (the USAF wants this capability). As in...... 6 hours after launch, the satellite is in Geostationary orbit. Most Comm sats are launched into Geostationary Transfer Orbits, and use small thrusters that take MONTHS to get the satellite into the final Geostationary Orbit, that is over where it needs to be.

Now, the USAF did not require SpaceX to put an actual satellite, or anything, into an actual Geostationary orbit. What the USAF wanted to see , among other things, was that the FH could work reliably, and fire the second stage for a 3rd time 6 hours after liftoff (otherwise SpaceX could have done that burn several orbits earlier, or even a direct-injection launch without a parking orbit first).

Normally for a first launch, some dumb inert mass like concrete, steel, or even water would be used. Since if the rocket failed, no expensive payload lost. In this case, they launched a car. Had it failed, well, they actually spent more money on the rocket mods to carry the car (and the accessories like the video camera arms) than the car's value. But they didn't go screwing with modifying the second stage itself for any of this.

So, this is one reason why they didn't use bigger batteries. Or add solar panels, and whatever else (and it's NOT GOING TO MARS). But let's say they added bigger batteries. Well, the batteries get COLD, so if the batteries could have been bigger, they'd still have died from cold (they are insulated to help last a few hours). I know, HEATERS! Yes, electrical heaters to keep the batteries warm....powered by... batteries! Uh.... no. Not without solar panels. Or hey, Solar Radiators to run fluids thru to keep the batteries warm, or whatever. "Mission Creep". The Falcon Heavy does not need any of that, it's second stage does not need any of that. And there's other problems than just batteries and cold that are issues for keeping a stage "alive" for very long in space, especially one not designed to begin with to last for many days or even months.

But what if it did have the power to keep sending signals for months? That's deep space radio receiver stuff, not in SpaceX's wheelhouse (never mind BFR to Mars, they are many many many many many "6 months" away from that happening). Also, the transmitter and antennas designed for this are for LEO. For deep space antennas, they'd need a more elaborate system.

Now of course they could have still done it, just like in theory they could have bolted a massively modified Dragon outer shell base structure, with Draco thrusters, solar panels, deep space comm system, and so forth, to LITERALLY send the Tesla to Mars, not the Solar Orbit they actually flew. And in theory put it into orbit around Mars (if they launched during an optimal Earth-Mars window that happens every 2 years), spending a lot of SpaceX's own money and lots of R&D on the project...... and it could have all ended up in the Atlantic ocean, because this was a TEST FLIGHT of an unproven rocket.

But SpaceX already is spread too thin. In a sense Musk almost literally admitted that the work on FH is a big reason why the manned Dragon spacecraft is so behind schedule. They are now going to focus their efforts on THAT. And indeed not only should they, they already should have... it's been dragging along with delays almost as bad as FH (indeed for awhile, delayed 6 months later about every 6 months. Hmmm). Big reason it hasn't seemed too bad is that Boeing's Starliner (The other Commercial Crew contender) has also been delayed about the same, in this case a race between the tortoise and the tortoise.

So anyway, with this launch they did a REALLY NEAT THING. Yes, they successfully flew Falcon Heavy. And oh by the way, also sent its second stage into Solar Orbit. Which happened to have a car attached, which happened to be seen on live video for nearly 12 hours. In an ironic way though, so much publicity was about the car, and so little was about the Falcon Heavy itself, at least for a lot of the non-space-related media.

Bottom though, the Falcon Heavy is the big dog. The Roadster and accessories in the payload section was the dog's tail. Regardless of the publicity about the tail, the tail did not "wag the dog" as regards any changes to the Falcon Heavy.
 
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Nice article from the Motor Trend website. But the page code is so unfairly over-bloated and loaded so slow for me (even with AdBlock), that… screw it…. I’m posting the whole article rather than a sample. Link included for those with faster internet or who want to see the original html page, links, and comments (didn't bother to read the comments)


LIKE A ROCKET: THE STORY BEHIND SPACEX’S PLAN TO LAUNCH A TESLA ROADSTER INTO SPACE

Tesla-Roadster-SpaceX-Falcon-Heavy-payload.jpg



https://www.motortrend.com/news/like-rocket-story-behind-spacexs-plan-launch-tesla-roadster-space/

Scott Evans Words February 6, 2018

How Falcon Heavy's payload came to be

The tweet went out at dinnertime on the West Coast, local time for*Tesla*Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

“Payload will be my midnight cherry Tesla Roadster playing Space Oddity,” Musk’s tweet read. “Destination is Mars orbit. Will be in deep space for a billion years or so if it doesn’t blow up on ascent.”

Musk is going to launch his personal Tesla Roadster into space*on the first SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. But why? Is he even serious? Can he do that?

Replying to a follower the next day, Musk wrote, “I love the thought of a car drifting apparently endlessly through space and perhaps being discovered by an alien race millions of years in the future.” A few days later, he told another follower it would have a copy of Douglas Adams’*The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy*in the glove box, along with a towel and a sign reading, “Don’t panic.” Surely, it was all a joke. Funny guy, that Elon.

Three weeks later, just before Christmas, Musk took to Instagram this time with a photo of the car in a space capsule and an explanation.

“Test flights of new rockets usually contain mass simulators in the form of concrete or steel blocks. That seemed extremely boring. Of course, anything boring is terrible, especially companies, so we decided to send something unusual, something that made us feel. The payload will be an original Tesla Roadster, playing Space Oddity, on a billion year elliptic Mars orbit.”

He wasn’t kidding.

It shouldn’t have been as much of a surprise as it was, though. Way back in March, Musk replied to a follower asking about the payload: “Silliest thing we can imagine! Secret payload of 1st Dragon flight was a giant wheel of cheese. Inspired by a friend & Monty Python.”

How did he end up deciding to launch his car into space, though? SpaceX employees with knowledge of the scheme spoke to Motor Trend on the condition of anonymity to share the story behind the “Red Car for the Red Planet.”

Late in the summer of 2017, the delayed launch of the first Falcon Heavy rocket was finally beginning to take shape, and it was time to talk payload. As Musk would later tweet, payloads on test flights are generally cheap, heavy objects to simulate a real payload without the risk of losing a billion-dollar satellite if the test went wrong, which isn’t uncommon. The engineers tasked with selecting and preparing a payload were aware of the wheel of cheese and Musk’s expressed desire to do something silly, so they brainstormed various unexpected payloads. One suggestion: a car. Practical heads prevailed, and the goofy suggestions were shot down in favor of the standard heavy block payload.

The presentation to Musk did not go as planned. The payload team assumed, incorrectly, that Musk would be fine with a typical test payload on such an important launch. That’s not Musk’s style. He wanted a fun payload and sent the team away to come up with one. They came back with their old list of goofy ideas, and Musk loved the car idea. He immediately offered up his personal 2010 Tesla Roadster Sport.

A few weeks later, the car rolled into a SpaceX workshop to be prepped for spaceflight, and the real work began. Things launched into space first must survive the launch, which as you can imagine is both loud and violent. Like all payloads, the Roadster needed to undergo sonic, vibration, vacuum, and other standard testing to make sure that it wouldn’t come apart during the launch and ascent and damage the rocket and that it would survive in space.

It was quickly determined the car needed to be stripped. After all, the only launch it was designed for was a stoplight drag. All the glass had to go, as did the battery. With the battery out, there was no need to keep the drivetrain in, either, so that went, too. Musk himself has been very open about prototype rockets tending to explode, and no one wants to scatter 1,000 pounds of lithium across the upper atmosphere. Other than the obvious weak points like glass, SpaceX engineers were impressed with the rigidity and durability of the Lotus-based Roadster in their tests.

The car was still in the test lab when Musk’s first tweet went out. It took the team by surprise, as the whole thing had been a big secret up until that point and was supposed to remain so until the launch. The tweet, followed by the photo confirmation on Instagram a few weeks later, unleashed a torrent of regulatory inquiries from regulators, including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Any rocket launched into space from a U.S. territory must be licensed by the FAA, and part of that license includes approving the cargo it will carry. Generally, the rules require the regulator to determine if the cargo is a threat to human health and safety to the safety of U.S. property. It also must be in compliance with international space treaties. Stripped of its potentially hazardous components, the Roadster should pass muster, but according to reports, FAA wasn’t happy about the surprise.

In the broader regulatory scope, the international Outer Space Treaty only covers planetary protection, designed to prevent other planets from being contaminated with any sort of life from Earth (such as hardy microbes that could hitch a ride on a spacecraft). Were the Roadster to land on Mars or if it were put in orbit of the planet where it could eventually be pulled down by gravity, SpaceX would be in violation. To get around that, the Roadster will be sent out to the general distance from the sun where Mars orbits and left to drift, never coming close enough to the planet to risk crash landing. Otherwise, legal experts mostly agree there isn’t really any law preventing SpaceX from sending the Roadster into space.
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As for this:

attachment.php


Funny, but inaccurate / made up fantasy. Second photo should be captioned "SpaceX Webcast playing David Bowie's music, with video of silent Tesla car in space". The Tesla Roadster wasn't playing or transmitting any music or anything else (Yeah, I know "But Elon said" it would. But Elon Musk says a lot of stuff that does not turn out to be accurate).

Speaking of Fantasy memes with the Roadster in space..... I decided to use this thread rather than the LOL thread for this one:

zI2rZAZ.jpg


For those who don't get it..... sigh. :) https://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Nomad

Well, the name did throw me, the person who created it should have called it Nomad, not the name of "the other" that it collided with. But no doubt what was in the right seat, regardless of name.

If I'd made that Photoshop (very creative idea!), I probably would have changed the Hitchiker's - inspired "Don't Panic" sign, to "OKAY, PANIC!" As in this sign in the movie "Airplane II"

m9J143Q.png



OK, adding one more pic to end the night, posted by Jeffrey Cornish on the SpaceX Facebook group. Look real closely, but not at the car. UFO?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156581999340656&set=p.10156581999340656&type=3&theater

27544641_10156581999340656_8683234149290287853_n.jpg


Nope it's a ISO (Identified Space Object):

See that little grey speck in the upper left? That’s the moon.

The moon is .5 degree across at Earths distance. The camera aimed at the Roadster is likely set to about a 60-90 degree field of view, so a .5 degree wide object is small
Click to expand...
 
My question for George and others, brought on by FH's successful flight but really a more general questions about any new rocket:

Just because flight #1 got payload into space without a hitch doesn't mean it's reliable. I'm a bit surprised the next FH launch will be taking a valuable payload up. I'd think once a couple successful flights with dummy payloads are done, THEN it's reasonably reliable, but for flight #2, the insurance cost covering the payload must be insane. Or is SpaceX self-insuring the payload?

Sure, the Merlin engines are reliable based on proven performance, and the boosters are known quantities with minor changes for FH use, but the system as a whole... that's a can of worms. I'm curious how they decide "what is enough testing/flights" to justify putting a real payload up.

Now, I'm not saying it's WRONG to put payload on flight 2, just I'm curious how they get to the decision point.

Thanks.
 

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