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

The FAA has signed off on the accident investigation report and has issued licences for all of the upcoming Iridium/NEXT launches.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/01/06/faa-signs-off-on-spacex-mishap-investigation/

Update on RTF launch from Vandenberg - Monday, Jan 9th 10:22 am PST (1:22 EST).
https://blog.iridium.com/2017/01/06/static-fire-test-complete/

FCC license:
https://www.faa.gov/about/office_or... LLS 17-096 License and Orders_01_06_2017.pdf

Anyone know if it's going to be Televised?
I haven't seen a launch in a real long, long time.

Woody's Workshop said:

Anyone know if it's going to be Televised?
I haven't seen a launch in a real long, long time.

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SpaceX usually live streams all of their launches and landings. Check their website or Youtube channel the day before, and it should tell you when the live stream will start.

Good to see you guys posting updates.

I'm really glad this will still be a daytime launch, so the landing attempt on the barge JRTI will be in daytime. JRTI has already been towed out to sea, on its way to the landing coordinates.

Usually SpaceX has links the day before a launch, if not earlier, to live stream the launch on YouTube. Usually two streams, one with human commentators, and a technical broadcast without commentators and usually some difference in what is shown on screen. Ideally I have both going in two browser windows and jump back-and-forth. As it gets closer to landing time, I jump to the technical webcast as they may show something landing related before the commentator cast.

So when I see those links I will post them here unless someone beat me to it.

Looking so forward to the launch and hopefully another great landing.

They need to get the real world Falcon 9's flying reliably, dozens and dozens and dozens of launches without failures. If they keep on doing a dozen or two successes and then a failure and another dozen or two successes and a failure, then kiss Mars goodbye.

It's part of why I am not big into the SpaceX humans to Mars hoopla, ITS, the money and resources to do that has to come from somewhere, and the only viable way I see SpaceX as being able to fund developing that, is with profits from extremely reliable Falcon nine launches in a pretty good number of additional flights from reusing Falcon cores.

I wonder how many more satellites they can put up there to operate safely?
It's pretty crowded up there now with all the space junk on top of the satellites.

Woody's Workshop said:

I wonder how many more satellites they can put up there to operate safely?
It's pretty crowded up there now with all the space junk on top of the satellites.

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I read that Musk wants to use a lower orbit on sats to decrease the ping rate and make sat based internet faster. And yes , there is more stuff up there than most think.
I do DISH installs , and from time to time if a cust asks, I show them the Sat AR app on my phone- " those are all sats" is usually the first response, followed by " holy crap "

Andy Greene said:

I read that Musk wants to use a lower orbit on sats to decrease the ping rate and make sat based internet faster. And yes , there is more stuff up there than most think.
I do DISH installs , and from time to time if a cust asks, I show them the Sat AR app on my phone- " those are all sats" is usually the first response, followed by " holy crap "

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This is a pic of the LEO objects only and about 95% of these are debris, not functional satellites.



This is a pic of GEO, same idea 95% junk



Same GEO but a polar view from above the North pole



And to further illustrate the growing issue, here is a video

[video=youtube;_NVX7t0-76A]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NVX7t0-76A[/video]

mpitfield said:

This is a pic of the LEO objects only and about 95% of these are debris, not functional satellites.

This is a pic of GEO, same idea 95% junk

Same GEO but a polar view from above the North pole

And to further illustrate the growing issue, here is a video

[video=youtube;_NVX7t0-76A]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NVX7t0-76A[/video]

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It's probably obvious, but each of those computer generated points of light, meant to depict a satellite, is magnified several magnitudes actual size however.


Steve Shannon

Steve Shannon said:

It's probably obvious, but each of those computer generated points of light, meant to depict a satellite, is magnified several magnitudes actual size however.


Steve Shannon

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Yep! same as this : https://flightaware.com/live/ It isn't quite as crowded as it looks!

rcktnut said:

Yep! same as this : https://flightaware.com/live/ It isn't quite as crowded as it looks!

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Exactly and thank God! [emoji28]


Steve Shannon

Here we don't go again.

Not confirmed yet, but indications that weather issues may delay the launch. Possibly as far as the 14th or 15th.

That's all I have about it for now.

Delay confirmed.
https://twitter.com/VincentLamigeon...8?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet

It does look crowded up there with those pictures but it's still nowhere close to as bad as it looks. Check out the picture showing the USA, there's one in northern Fl, one in MS, one over KY, one off each coast of FL, etc. These are pretty small objects too. Imagine a smooth waterless Earth where each dot was a car that was driving around at 17,000 mph, how likely are they to collide? Or even to come within sight of each other?

And here I thought some things were so obvious that there was no need to explain. The point, in case anyone missed it, is that these are man-made objects with the vast majority being space garbage.

Also these are only the large enough pieces that they have the ability to track. I have heard estimates into the millions of objects beyond the ones illustrated that are simply too small to track. When these little objects hit you or the vehicle you're in traveling at 7 kilometers per second you could easily be in for a bad day.

mpitfield said:

And here I thought some things were so obvious that there was no need to explain. The point, in case anyone missed it, is that these are man-made objects with the vast majority being space garbage.

Also these are only the large enough pieces that they have the ability to track. I have heard estimates into the millions of objects beyond the ones illustrated that are simply too small to track. When these little objects hit you or the vehicle you're in traveling at 7 kilometers per second you could easily be in for a bad day.

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It would be interesting to see which direction each is traveling. Those orbiting in the same direction and at the same distance will not have that high of velocity relative to each other.

I would really like for this thread to be about Falcon 9 launches and landings.

For things like space junk, orbital debris, how many satellites are in orbit, possible things to do about it, and other things not related to falcon 9 launches and landings, please create a different thread.

georgegassaway said:

I would really like for this thread to be about Falcon 9 launches and landings.

For things like space junk, orbital debris, how many satellites are in orbit, and possible things to do about it, please create a different thread.

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Sorry George; you're right.

So , the launch date is now set for Saturday Jan 14 at 9:54am pst, or 12:54 PM Eastern. Launching from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

This means the lending attempt will be in the daytime. Trying to land on JRTI (Just Read The Instructions). That will be the second attempt to do an ASDS barge landing from Vandenberg. The first landing try there a year ago (Jan 17, 2016) almost worked (Jason-3 launch). But a leg lock out failed (was affected by ice), allowing a leg to collapse in the rocket to fall over. They added a fix to prevent ice buildup in the lock out.

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


Below is the "patch" for the upcoming Iridium mission.

Launch is on for 9:54 a.m. Pacific, Sartuday morning. That is 12:54 p.m. Eastern.

Booster should land at about 7 minutes 49 seconds after lift off.

Here is the hosted webcast link:

[video=youtube;tTmbSur4fcs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTmbSur4fcs[/video]

And the technical (not hosted) webcast link:

[video=youtube;7WimRhydggo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WimRhydggo[/video]

I usually watch mostly the hosted webcast, but go to the technical webcast a minute or two before expected landing.

Maybe this time I'll run my iPad as well as my laptop so I can see both at the same time.

Link to a PDF file of the Iridium-1 NEXT Press Kit. Includes timelines.

https://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/spacex_iridium1_press_kit.pdf

NSF Article about the launch: "SpaceX set for Return To Flight with Iridium NEXT launch"

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/01/spacex-return-to-flight-iridium-next-launch/

Vehicle after payload and shroud attached:



And on the pad at Vandenberg. Nice pic.

Let's hope the launch goes as nicely as that picture! PERFECT!

georgegassaway said:

And on the pad at Vandenberg. Nice pic.

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You know, it's been a lot of years, and that sight -still- kicks off a sense of wonder. Every single time.

Webcasts will begin at 20 minutes after the hour. In 8 minutes after I post this.

Webcasts in message #1550, a few posts above.

https://www.rocketryforum.com/showt...p-most-recent-missions)&p=1657711#post1657711

Does it look like the live stream is not set to start until the exact moment of the liftoff? I'm trying to watch it on YouTube, and it's set to start at 9:54.

georgegassaway said:

Webcasts (see above) will begin at 20 minutes after the hour. In 8 minutes after I post this.

Click to expand...

Looks like we were posting at the same time. I'll check again at 20 after. I'd like to watch on my big screen TV with its YouTube app, so I'm going directly to YouTube.

YouTube app! Great idea. Have downloaded it to my Amazon Fire stick and now have the technical web cast up on the TV. Have the hosted one here on the Mac. Cool!

YEAH! NAILED IT!!!

Awesome, they kept the onboard "Cineroc" View going all the way down to the landing.

Finally , Just Read The Instructions has a safely landed booster onboard.

Picture perfect

Video all the way down!