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

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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.

It depends a bit, not only on the rocket but also on the payload. Elon mentioned that the required number of successful flights depends on the type of payload. For example Atlas V and Delta IV started with paying customers on their maiden flights, with the Delta IV being a new design including a new engine. Those were commercial payloads. After a couple of flights they added military satellites. In the beginning, they were probably rather "plain" satellites. e.g. communication satellites derived from civilian designs or GPS satellites. After that, they progressed to the presumably very custom and expensive satellites (e.g. NRO spysats).

Delta IV Heavy was a bit of an exception and was initially launched with a demo payload before carrying government payloads. It never had a commercial customer, not surprising given its costs. The following Delta IV Heavy flights already carried government payloads and it was only its third flight were it carried a high profile payload, but one must consider that during this time there were no alternatives to Delta IV Heavy. Waiting for lots of qualification flights would have meant long delays for the payload. Nowadays, the NRO wont be in a hurry to put its most precious payloads onto an early Falcon Heavy flight. On the one hand, a proven alternative is operational. On the other hand, Falcon Heavy will have higher flight rates than Delta IV Heavy supported by other customers (including commercial ones), so it is easier to simply wait until it establishes its track record.

Reinhard
 
Great launch photo. Source:
https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/com..._medium=hot&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=spacex



q744askfdue01.jpg


The image version linked is not even a meg in file size though, so somewhere there's a huge version of this.
Beautiful. Thanks.
 
Did the U.S. Air Force Bomb a Rogue SpaceX Booster Rocket?
The Falcon 9 booster had unexpectedly survived a test and splashed down mostly intact off the coast of Florida.
Feb 8, 2018

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/18343/did-the-u-s-air-force-bomb-a-rogue-spacex-booster-rocket

The U.S. Air Force has reportedly conducted an air strike to destroy one of SpaceX's Falcon 9 boosters, which came down off the Florida Coast after a test. The space launch firm had previously said it would try to tow it back to shore, but it may have become an immediate danger to maritime traffic or sites along the coast, prompting the service to take action.

AmericaSpace first reported on the possible strike on Feb. 8, 2018, citing anonymous sources, but said the Air Force had declined to comment at all, directing all questions to SpaceX. NASASpaceFlight.com subsequently said it had confirmed the report, but did not say what Air Force assets had participated in the mission.

The Falcon 9 booster had been drifting in the Caribbean since Jan. 31, 2018, after it lofted the SES-16/GovSat-1 communications satellite into geostationary orbit after a launch from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The system has the ability to then land upright so the company can reuse it for future launches. In this instance, though, it made a high-stress descent over water, an experiment to collect research data that engineers expected would break it up or otherwise damage it enough that it would sink harmlessly to the bottom of the ocean.
 
Did the U.S. Air Force Bomb a Rogue SpaceX Booster Rocket?
The Falcon 9 booster had unexpectedly survived a test and splashed down mostly intact off the coast of Florida.
Feb 8, 2018

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/18343/did-the-u-s-air-force-bomb-a-rogue-spacex-booster-rocket

The U.S. Air Force has reportedly conducted an air strike to destroy one of SpaceX's Falcon 9 boosters, which came down off the Florida Coast after a test. The space launch firm had previously said it would try to tow it back to shore, but it may have become an immediate danger to maritime traffic or sites along the coast, prompting the service to take action.

AmericaSpace first reported on the possible strike on Feb. 8, 2018, citing anonymous sources, but said the Air Force had declined to comment at all, directing all questions to SpaceX. NASASpaceFlight.com subsequently said it had confirmed the report, but did not say what Air Force assets had participated in the mission.

The Falcon 9 booster had been drifting in the Caribbean since Jan. 31, 2018, after it lofted the SES-16/GovSat-1 communications satellite into geostationary orbit after a launch from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The system has the ability to then land upright so the company can reuse it for future launches. In this instance, though, it made a high-stress descent over water, an experiment to collect research data that engineers expected would break it up or otherwise damage it enough that it would sink harmlessly to the bottom of the ocean.

Must be weird to be given a mission to sink a rocket.
 
Falcon Heavy can boost 140,000 pounds to low earth orbit. What if that capacity was used for more fuel for the 2nd stage (and the tanks and other equipment required)? Then where could we go?
 
"Ya got 2 choices: Mars or Pluto"

"But I want to go to Jupiter....."

"Tough luck"

No non-stop flights to Jupiter, but you can fly to Pluto, change rockets, and then fly to Jupiter with just two stops, one at Neptune, and one at Saturn. No meal service, so pack a lunch.
 
Oddly, if you add a stop on Venus between Neptune and Saturn you can shave a few bucks off the price.

Every time I fly through Venus, my bags end up on Mercury. Of course it's better than flying through Uranus -- that place stinks!
 
Here is a Youtube video with the ground communications only, and a fixed view video camera at Mission Control, with many SpaceX employees in the background (other side of a glass wall). Go to just before 29 minutes in the video. You’ll see some reactions by people, particularly the SpaceX president and Chief Operations Officer (COO) near the center of the front row.

https://youtu.be/-B_tWbjFIGI?t=1720

[video=youtube;-B_tWbjFIGI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B_tWbjFIGI[/video]

And BTW, for those who do not know, the SpaceX president is Gwynne Shotwell. And the COO is Gwynne Shotwell. Credit for SpaceX’s success goes more to her than to Elon Musk, I think. So it is neat to see her responses to the launch, and to her employees at some key moments.

Final count for launch beings at about 29:40.

Side boosters start to throttle down and prepare for separation at about 32:20

Core shutdown for staging at about 33:00

Faring separation at about 33:42. They see the real-time internal view of the Tesla, with the fairing separating, that wasn’t originally shown in the webcast.

Side boosters entry burn at about 36:30, center core entry burn shortly after.

Side boosters subsonic at about 37:30, shortly after their landing burns begin, center core a bit after that.

Side boosters land at about 38:00. Crowd goes nuts.

Center core begins landing burn at 38:18, igniting center engine. Very soon after, two more engines were supposed to ignite very shortly after but did not (ran out of TEA/TEB).

At about 38:28 they react to the center core crashing, as “we lost the center core” is said over the communications. I do not know what arrangement they have for real time displays, but I would figure they have many VERY large monitors, so very likely they had one showing the onboard (Cineroc-ish) video (which had seemed a bit blurry after the re-entry burn), and the video from the ASDS. If they had any decent view from the onboard camera, then they would have likely seen that it was going to miss the ASDS and the ocean surface coming up way faster than it should have then loss of signal from the core. So, while they often lose signal briefly on the ASDS due to exhaust acoustics affecting the communications antenna dish, they probably saw the crash from the camera on the center core. Also, moments later from the ASDS camera, the mist from the splash-crash was moving, so that wasn’t a freeze frame or smoke from landing. Most likely on the webcast we saw, the director knew it crashed and quickly changed the video feed before it became obvious that there was live video from onboard the ASDS that would have been showing no Falcon sitting there as the spray/mist subsided.

So, this shows why the crowd got so silent so quickly. They probably all saw the crash. On the webcast we saw, presenters sure seemed like they were about to say it had crashed, but it seemed someone told them in their earpieces NOT to say so. So they began their routine of dancing around the subject (acting like they did not know the outcome - they need to take acting classes if forced to do that kind of thing again).

Anyway, a really interesting perspective on how the people in the room reacted to the launch. Also, while its “Mission Control”, during the pre-flight pose its Launch Control in charge, though the last few minutes it’s the Falcon onboard computer in charge but Launch Control can override to do a hold/abort until the last 10 seconds IIRC. Once it’s launched, NOBODY has any control over the launch vehicle, it’s 100% automated (even the self-destruct is automated now). So, back to Mission Control, they are in a real sense spectators for the launches. Monitoring what is going on, real-time data on performance values, flight path, and so forth, seeing if it’s “nominal”, or if there’s a problem occurring (that they can’t do anything about during launch).

Update - I looked around and found some images of SpaceX's Mission Control. They use one huge projection screen (seems like a projection screen). So, like a computer monitor with a lot of windows open on it, showing the various views of whatever things are most important to show "on the big screen" at the time. In this case, a CRS resupply mission with a Dragon at ISS.

BTW - the page I found the image below on has a lot of interesting photos on it, about SpaceX and others. Worth going to it and scrolling thru all of it.

https://factualfiction.com/marsartists/category/sets/page/3/

7270538424_7420cb556b.jpg
 
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The excitement of this thing is immense. The last time I got so worked up about something like this, it was Curiosity landing after "7 minutes of terror." I stayed up until whatever awful east coast time it was when that happened. No way I was missing it.
 
Did the U.S. Air Force Bomb a Rogue SpaceX Booster Rocket?

Apparently... no.

This twitter by Emre Kelly of Florida Today , with a SpaceX statement that contradicts the USAF destroying the booster stories:

https://twitter.com/EmreKelly/status/962089727871643649

Full SpaceX statement on #GovSat1: “While the Falcon 9 first stage for the GovSat-1 mission was expendable, it initially survived splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean. However, the stage broke apart before we could complete an unplanned recovery effort for this mission.”

I'm not going to get into speculating about any of it.

The Floating booster is gone, FH flew successfully, got back 2 out of 3 boosters, dead Second stage with Tesla Roadster in Solar Orbit as planned, and next SpaceX launch set for Feb 17th from VAFB.
 
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I can only imagine on what the tinfoil flat Earthers are saying about this one.

LOL.
I couldn't resist - here's the chatter from the dogs barking, in case any of you wanted to know the sorry state of affairs in this country :
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TerribleTim - A rocket landing backwards in reverse is not even physically possible. Rockets can only go forward.There is no reverse gear. I also noticed that they used mostly young people to promote this garbage. Probably craigs list people trying to make a few bucks.

Darth Vader - Apart from all the other nonsense the only principal of a rocket working is the enormous thrust expelled at the bottom end of it and therefore a controlled landing with diminished thrust is an absolute impossibility. What stabilizes the rocket is the speed that is achieved by thrusters at the opposite end of where it's going essentially, the same principal why a bullet can be fired in a controlled fashion with a realistic chance of hitting it's target (written in simple terms so Millenials also have a chance of understanding it), the reversal of this principle only works in Cartoons or CGI. A rocket can't do what a helicopter can do even if SpaceX pretends they land rockets on helipads. So for the Millenials: If you have a rocket whose thruster(s) don't generate enough power for forward motion it falls down to the ground in a non-controllable fashion, there's nothing on a rocket from an aerodynamic standpoint that would enable it to make a stable landing with the rear thrusters facing down. C'mon, how stupid can you be.

Darth Vader - Why is so hard for you to understand that the output of the thrusters is what stabilizes the flight path of a rocket stage in the atmosphere, sensors and engine gimbals are simply there for corrections. Keep trying to sound smart and make an even bigger fool out of yourself if you so wish.

Curious Life - Darth Vader exactly!!!! My guess is that 'space bound' rockets are helium/hydrogen filled and the thrust is only to assist...common sense will tell you that space rockets are ascending much too slowly, in reality they would spin wildly out of control going that slow solely on rocket thrust. Clown show

smokeyjayshouse - Grim Engineer hmm do you work for spacex? Cuz that's the only way you would be able to see one land and even they only see it on a monitor. The gyro controls the nozzle thrust vectoring motors the move the nozzles left right forward backward.. but you leave out one very important thing. For any of this insanity to make a landing you would need precise real time control of the throttle of each engine independently with a actuator and pump response time of less then .0000001 seconds. Which probably won't be possible for another 200 years or more. Most rockets fail during take off by making a slight error due to rebound speed limitations of thrust vectoring motors. This is usally bad enough that the rocket can't recover and the range officer initiates the shape charges strategically placed to blow up the fuel tank. They have never used independent thrust throttling to adjust course heading (steering) why because they are using turbo pumps that can suck dry an Olympic swimming pool in seconds and making split second adjustments in fuel flow rate from let's say 80% thrust to 30% thrust is impossible not to mention a millisecond adjustment. Also to slow down a rocket in free fall you would need way more thrust to displace the kinetic energy and pull of gravity then you would need on the way up. You would need twice as much thrust or more. The whole idea is ludicrous. No matter what you do you will hit hardware limitations. Unless we start discovering new types of materials and population systems landing rockets vertically will stay an impossibility.

Jonathan Halsey- Those kids would have enjoyed the Jonestown KoolAid

Mike Haley - THIS is what mass-brainwashing looks like.

Otto Matic - SpaceX hires straight from Snowflake central casting.Such a crock.
 
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LOL.
I couldn't resist - here's the chatter from the dogs barking, in case any of you wanted to know the sorry state of affairs in this country :


Bu.... The......Thr.......Yi........ NO!

Everything they just said is...........wrong!

Smokey Jay is the closest to hacing a clue about the challenges, but he exaggerates his values absurdly.
He also completely discounts control theory being robust enough to PREDICT the rocket's path/momentum and make preparatory engine adjustments as friggin necessary!

Someone please throw up the Old Luke Skywalker meme for me, I don't have it on my work computer.....
 
And of course, none of them would ever dream of going to the Cape to watch one for themselves because, in their minds, there's nothing there to see so it would be a wasted trip. :eyeroll:
 
My favorite:

"My guess is that 'space bound' rockets are helium/hydrogen filled and the thrust is only to assist...common sense will tell you that space rockets are ascending much too slowly, in reality they would spin wildly out of control going that slow solely on rocket thrust. "


Someone tell Elon that he's actually got balloons lofting satellites... with some rocket thrust "assist."
 
Glad I can go back and at least edit if not delete posts.

What George quotes are fine examples of sophistries. A sophistry is a well-reasoned argument that reaches an erroneous conclusion.

I like to "collect" words. Sophistry and sophisticated come from almost exactly the same root - "wise", except that one is in Latin, the other Greek.
 
LOL.
I couldn't resist - here's the chatter from the dogs barking, in case any of you wanted to know the sorry state of affairs in this country :
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TerribleTim - A rocket landing backwards in reverse is not even physically possible. Rockets can only go forward.There is no reverse gear. I also noticed that they used mostly young people to promote this garbage. Probably craigs list people trying to make a few bucks.

Darth Vader - Apart from all the other nonsense the only principal of a rocket working is the enormous thrust expelled at the bottom end of it and therefore a controlled landing with diminished thrust is an absolute impossibility. What stabilizes the rocket is the speed that is achieved by thrusters at the opposite end of where it's going essentially, the same principal why a bullet can be fired in a controlled fashion with a realistic chance of hitting it's target (written in simple terms so Millenials also have a chance of understanding it), the reversal of this principle only works in Cartoons or CGI. A rocket can't do what a helicopter can do even if SpaceX pretends they land rockets on helipads. So for the Millenials: If you have a rocket whose thruster(s) don't generate enough power for forward motion it falls down to the ground in a non-controllable fashion, there's nothing on a rocket from an aerodynamic standpoint that would enable it to make a stable landing with the rear thrusters facing down. C'mon, how stupid can you be.

Darth Vader - Why is so hard for you to understand that the output of the thrusters is what stabilizes the flight path of a rocket stage in the atmosphere, sensors and engine gimbals are simply there for corrections. Keep trying to sound smart and make an even bigger fool out of yourself if you so wish.

Curious Life - Darth Vader exactly!!!! My guess is that 'space bound' rockets are helium/hydrogen filled and the thrust is only to assist...common sense will tell you that space rockets are ascending much too slowly, in reality they would spin wildly out of control going that slow solely on rocket thrust. Clown show

smokeyjayshouse - Grim Engineer hmm do you work for spacex? Cuz that's the only way you would be able to see one land and even they only see it on a monitor. The gyro controls the nozzle thrust vectoring motors the move the nozzles left right forward backward.. but you leave out one very important thing. For any of this insanity to make a landing you would need precise real time control of the throttle of each engine independently with a actuator and pump response time of less then .0000001 seconds. Which probably won't be possible for another 200 years or more. Most rockets fail during take off by making a slight error due to rebound speed limitations of thrust vectoring motors. This is usally bad enough that the rocket can't recover and the range officer initiates the shape charges strategically placed to blow up the fuel tank. They have never used independent thrust throttling to adjust course heading (steering) why because they are using turbo pumps that can suck dry an Olympic swimming pool in seconds and making split second adjustments in fuel flow rate from let's say 80% thrust to 30% thrust is impossible not to mention a millisecond adjustment. Also to slow down a rocket in free fall you would need way more thrust to displace the kinetic energy and pull of gravity then you would need on the way up. You would need twice as much thrust or more. The whole idea is ludicrous. No matter what you do you will hit hardware limitations. Unless we start discovering new types of materials and population systems landing rockets vertically will stay an impossibility.

Jonathan Halsey- Those kids would have enjoyed the Jonestown KoolAid

Mike Haley - THIS is what mass-brainwashing looks like.

Otto Matic - SpaceX hires straight from Snowflake central casting.Such a crock.

Were I a Millenial, I would take that exchange as an enormous vote of confidence. If these moronic gas bags are that down on you, you must be doing something right. Just epic stupid being spewed in a well crafted echo chamber for idiots.

On a different note, the car thing was an absolute success. I think half of the people at work sought me out to talk about the launch, and not just the car, but that hook pulled them in to way more about the launch and why it was such a big deal for acces to space. These are people who don't think or care about space flight in the least, and they were genuinely excited. Most of these people only know me only by reputation as the resident moody mad scientist, so seeking me out for a casual chat is not normal.

Also, I've watched the video over and over, and the visual of the simultaneous booster landings still makes me laugh in that awe-inspired, slightly freaked out, this can't be happening kind of way.
 
SpaceX Falcon History thread.

NOT Flat Earther's or Space Hoaxers/Deniers thread. Please create your own for that.


Below, a photo of one of the side boosters, returned to the HIF at 39A. By Bill Carton of the SpaceX Facebook group, during a bus tour.

27657656_10210993147451415_1283873465714881254_n.jpg


The black soot on the nose is from the plume of the center core as the booster fell away (RP-1, Kerosene type soot). From the onboard videos you can see a momentary "flash" as each booster fell behind into the core's plume. Most likely there's no significant damage to the nose. While those boosters will never fly again (second flight for each), they can re-use the parts they can recycle like the noses, grid fins, legs, and the unique FH attachment/strut assemblies. Unless they donate one or both to a museum and keep some parts for them like the noses and legs.

In theory they can have mock-up grid fins made for future museum displays. Or even have some made up out of aluminum. Those Titanium grid fins are reportedly VERY expensive. Do not know how much, but many times the cost of aluminum. But the Titanium ones will last many many flights. And are bigger, as needed for the side booster control authority. Oddly enough, coming back tail-first, the blunt interstage for the regular F9 and FH center core provides a bit of stability. The nose cones act as boat-tails and ironically reduce the stability coming down, so more effective fin area was needed. The center core had the original size Aluminum fins.
 
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