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

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
From: 30th Space Wing Public Affairs, www.vandenberg.af.mil

Falcon 9 Paz launch delayed

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a
PAZ payload from Space Launch Co lex-4, is delayed to allow for additional
time to perform final checkouts of the upgraded fairing. The Falcon 9 and
payload remain healthy.

The launch is rescheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 21, at 6:17 a.m. PST.
...
 
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So, a surprise display at the KSC Visitor Center. One of the Falcon Heavy side boosters reportedly on display until the 20th.

From a LOT of pics posted on Facebook at this link:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...99499162.1073742056.1001930068&type=3&theater

Falcon Heavy Booster Parked at KSCVC

Photos of the Falcon Heavy side booster parked in front of the Atlantis exhibit at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex taken on February 18, 2018. (Photos by Michael Seeley / We Report Space)

From nose.....

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To Tail.

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With a lot of Grid Fin Pron in between.

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Two more photos by someone else. Unfortunately I did not note the source.

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Now that would be an awesome surprise! I suppose later on at least one of them will be on display at SpaceX HQ?
 
Rats - I won’t get to see it then....the tour for folks going to NARCON is next Sunday.

Ummm, this is at KSC (Cape Canaveral area, Florida), not JSC (Clear Lake near Houston, Texas) where NARCON is being held this year.

So..... at least you're not missing it by a week, you're missing it by 1000 or so miles (and a week).
 
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The above photo is from this article about the "Fairing Grabber" ship, Mr. Steven.

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-fairing-grabber-claw-recovery-boat/

Partial quote from article (click the link above to read the whole thing):

SpaceX recovery boat spotted with huge claw-like “fairing grabber”

Captured aboard the recovery vessel Mr. Steven, the massive claw-like appendages are almost certainly linked to SpaceX’s payload fairing recovery efforts that have been ongoing throughout 2017. Despite SpaceX’s highly successful first stage recovery program, as much as 30% or more of the cost of every Falcon 9 launch can be found in the second stage and its many components that are discarded after every mission. Being able to recover the payload fairing, a major component of the Falcon 9 that costs approximately $5 million on its own or roughly 10% of the cost of a $62 million expendable launch, would lead to further cost reductions in commercial spaceflight.
.....

Now, those four arms actually hold the corners of a huge NET.

8ehGn2E.jpg


There is some increased hopes that the PAZ launch, while expending the booster, may have one key part recovered intact. One of the fairing halves.

During the post- FH launch press conference, Elon Musk mentioned that the fairing recovery tests had problems with the steerable parachute and fairing attachment system having problems. Even when deployed correctly, the fairing wants to wobble around due to the aerodynamics. He mentioned that they had some improvements for "Fairing 2.0", which involves some changes to the fairing itself for various purposes, not just for the recovery system.

Well, it seems that the PAZ launch will be the first to use Fairing 2.0. So the changes related to the recovery system might finally result in a successful landing of one fairing half (Once perfected, then they can try recovering both halves, which will also require a second ship like this).

Currently the PAZ launch is set for Feb 21st, 6:17 AM PST (Pacific). One report was that the delay was attributed to the fairing, not the rocket or the payload.
 
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Ummm, this is at KSC (Cape Canaveral area, Florida), not JSC (Clear Lake near Houston, Texas) where NARCON is being held this year.

So..... at least you're not missing it by a week, you're missing it by 1000 or so miles (and a week).

Of course! :eek::facepalm:

And even as I was looking at the pictures and making my silly post I was wondering "why did SpaceX take one of these to Houston anyway?" D'oh!
 
LAUNCH tomorrow (Wednesday morning):

PAZ plus two small SpaceX internet satellites, launching from VAFB at 6:17 AM PST (just before sunrise). Too early for me... I'll catch the webcast replay.

POSSIBLE for some in California (and parts of Arizona/Nevada) to see the plume if the sky is clear. Similar but less ideal lighting conditions (sky brighter as time goes on, plume NOT backlit) than last December's launch just after sunset. Indeed with the launch delayed by days, the launch time has held but sunrise is a few minutes earlier than it was going to be.

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Booster is expendable. It flew before, so this will be its second and last flight. SpaceX isn't bothering to recover re-flown Block 3 or 4 boosters anymore, they have plenty of two-flight boosters that they no longer have a use for (no third flights). When the Block 5 starts flying in a few months, then they expect to get 10 flights out of them before significant refurbishment, and keep flying them (That's what they are saying, anyway. We'll see.).

Presskit PDF link: https://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/paz_press_kit_2.21.pdf

NSF Article on the Launch and New Fairing. Has a lot of info on how one of the fairing halves may finally be recovered without damage (gliding steered parachute recovery hopefully with the bugs worked out, and "Mr Steven" ship with a huge net to catch it in). The webcast almost surely will not cover the fairing recovery testing, they never have before. If it works, maybe news will leak out a few hours later. Otherwise, probably nothing until Mr Steven arrives back in port and the usual gang of port-stalkers (West Coast) take pics, perhaps Thursday.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/02/spacex-falcon-9-paz-launch-starlink-demo-new-fairing/



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Nice image shows the F9 before going vertical on the pad. Being previously flown very evident by the sooting. And the white areas near the tail that had been covered by landing legs, legs & grid fins not used for this expendable flight.

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Webcast:

[video=youtube;-p-PToD2URA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p-PToD2URA[/video]
 
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Nice image shows the F9 before going vertical on the pad. Being previously flown very evident by the sooting. And the white areas near the tail that had been covered by landing legs, legs & grid fins not used for this expendable flight.

2018-02-21-004246-1170x708.jpg

That image looks like it has grid fins on the first stage. Are they just never deployed? I guess the aluminum ones are obsolete and they probably have lots anyway so it isn't worth pulling them off.
 
That image looks like it has grid fins on the first stage. Are they just never deployed? I guess the aluminum ones are obsolete and they probably have lots anyway so it isn't worth pulling them off.

Maybe they are testing a sea landing without legs. It would make sense to get as much landing-test data as possible. Also, better to put the booster in a known location instead of a ballistic reentry.
 
Yeah, my bad. It DOES have legs and grid fins, unlike most other expendables. So it seems they will do another landing test into the ocean.

Of course the last time they did that, the booster stayed intact and floated for days (before a hired demolition team sank it. Yes, the Air Force sinking it story was wrong, but also it seems SpaceX "fibbed" in refuting that USAF story by implying it broke up all by itself).

So, if it soft-lands the same way..... they could have a repeat of the problem, unless they have worked in a way to re-activate the automated self-destruct system to go off at say 1 second after "landing" (only for this test flight, not regular flights). Or as someone on NSF suggested, "aim" to land say 100 feet above the surface, analyze the data to see how close it came to zero velocity at a hair under 100 feet (theoretical landing, zero velocity, 1 foot below the simulated landing surface height), then shut it down to fall to crash hard enough to break up (I'm not so sure the radar altimeter can be as accurate 100 feet up as it is for the last 10 feet. But also for the landing like they did do last month, the ocean's surface has got to be doing some crazy stuff with the rocket exhaust "blasting a hole " into it those last few dozen feet of descent, spray of water and steam, so the radar altimeter for that could be weird. Not as accurate as for a steel deck or concrete pad ).

Or maybe plan to hire another demolition team if it works well and floats.

Back to the PAZ launch, same time tomorrow, hopefully.
 
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The random walk of cars and their collision probabilities with planets
14 Feb 2018

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.04718.pdf

ABSTRACT

On February 6th, 2018 SpaceX launched a Tesla Roadster on a Mars-crossing orbit. We perform N-body simulations to determine the fate of the object over the next several million years, under the relevant perturbations acting on the orbit. The orbital evolution is initially dominated by close encounters with the Earth. The first close encounter with the Earth will occur in 2091. The repeated encounters lead to a random walk that eventually causes close encounters with other terrestrial planets and the Sun. Long-term integrations become highly sensitive to the initial conditions after several such close encounters. By running a large ensemble of simulations with slightly perturbed initial conditions, we estimate the probability of a collision with Earth and Venus over the next one million years to be 6% and 2.5%, respectively. We estimate the dynamical lifetime of the Tesla to be a few tens of millions of years.
 
Neat photo I ran across here:
https://www.facebook.com/NASAKenned...86505458090/10155252371253091/?type=3&theater

A really good view of a Titanium Grid Fin. Particularly the inner part of the scalloped intersections of the grid pattern, which after deployment meets the incoming airflow during descent.

As for some of the people, the blond lady is SpaceX COO and president Gwynne Shotwell. Near her in blue flightsuits are NASA astronauts Eric Boe and Suni Williams.

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Suni Williams... I think she was the one who gave a detailed video tour of the ISS. The video is floating around on YouTube.

And that grid fin! That is a LOT of titanium. From the onboard landing videos they seem like they are a quarter of that size. They're huge!
 
As for some of the people, the blond lady is SpaceX COO and president Gwynne Shotwell. Near her in blue flightsuits are NASA astronauts Eric Boe and Suni Williams.

Who’s the one with the blue tie, looking at the grid fin like it’s the Devil’s waffle iron?
 
I don't get the joke. Care to explain?

Well, if you don’t get the joke, then that’s too bad. But completely deconstructing it would really ruin the enjoyment for others, and revealing the methods used for writing the joke would be giving away too much tradecraft. But I can tell you the main four elements of comedic theory employed in this particular joke. There is the element of surprise. There is the drawing of a connection between two incongruous and seemingly unrelated ideas. There is an opportunity for the audience to feel superior to the subject of the joke. And there is misbehavior, but in a socially sanctioned form — the mockery of politicians.
 
Well, if you don’t get the joke, then that’s too bad. But completely deconstructing it would really ruin the enjoyment for others, and revealing the methods used for writing the joke would be giving away too much tradecraft. But I can tell you the main four elements of comedic theory employed in this particular joke. There is the element of surprise. There is the drawing of a connection between two incongruous and seemingly unrelated ideas. There is an opportunity for the audience to feel superior to the subject of the joke. And there is misbehavior, but in a socially sanctioned form — the mockery of politicians.

Thanks.

Now back to our regularly scheduled SpaceX Falcon thread...
 
It’s just been through a very hot firerry re-entry without issue. How much damage can a VP do?
Living in Indiana as I do, there's a lot could say, but instead I will wish SpaceX well for today's launch, send positive waves out to the payloads, and hope for eventual video of a successful fairing recovery.
 
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