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

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Latest update, postponed "indefinitely".

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket with the Zuma payload has been lowered horizontal at launch pad 39A in Florida. The mission remains postponed indefinitely.

Is starting to sound like several days at the very least.

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By now the Falcon has probably made it back inside the hangar.
 
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Even if it was a 24 hour delay and stayed vertical on the pad, they'd drain the Liquid Oxygen. Also since the "FT" version of the Falcon uses chilled RP-1 for fuel, they'd drain that too to re-chill for later since they already have enough of a problem with it getting "warmed up" sitting on the pad too long after completing loading a few minutes before T-0.

If they left it vertical for a 24 hour delay..... maybe they'd keep the TEA and TEB pyrophoric liquids that ignite the motors. But to go horizontal I would expect they would drain those too. And also the Helium tanks that provide expanding gas to fill in for the LOX and RP-1 being drained out of the tanks during flight, and Nitrogen used for RCS thrusters (those last two are not flammable hazards, but they would not want ANYTHING to be under high pressure when rolled back inside of the hangar).

The LOX, RP-1, and presumably the TEA/TEB tanks would be purged with Nitrogen gas, pumped in at the pad as those are drained. There may be some small/trace amount of RP-1 that does not drain out completely, but even so, Nitrogen gas prevents any explosive vapor levels (RP-1 being highly refined Kerosene, it does not have much of a flammable vapor issue to begin with).

Now, when they launch the CRS mission with Dragon spacecraft, the Dragon's Draco thrusters use some nasty hypergolic fuels. The X-37 spaceplane uses a hypergolic engine for orbital maneuvers, and it was transported already encapsulated in its fairing from a secure USAF facility to be mounted to the Falcon. But SpaceX probably has the capability for umbilicals to load (and drain/purge) hypergolics when vertical at the pad.

Certainly for ground crew safety, especially inside the hangar, it would be highly preferable to do all that at the pad and NEVER have any highly hazardous / toxic chemicals onboard when inside the hangar. Toxic leaks could kill everyone inside (lungs liquifying), and a fire / explosion would wipe out all of the cores stored inside the hangar and probably destroy the hangar which required MANY "6 months" to build (right now, there is the Zuma Falcon, plus the three cores of the first Falcon Heavy stored inside of it).

So I'm pretty sure they do handle all of that onload/offload at the pad..... but can't point to a comprehensive source.

Oh, the Hydraulic Fluid that is used for the actuators to steer the Grid Fins..... I have no idea. It can be flammable, but then jet aircraft are not usually drained of hydraulic fluid before going back inside of a hangar, it's left alone. And there are definitely some explosive devices onboard when inside the hangar, the linear shaped charges that are part of the self-destruct system. Of course they go to great lengths for them not to be armed until at the pad and disarmed once a launch is scrubbed, but the explosive charges are not removed.
 
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Was hoping to see the launch from sea, our cruise liner sailed right past the barge, I though hmm this looks familiar and took a picture IMG_2973.jpg


Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum
 
Really nice pic, Nick@Jet!

An update on Zuma. Not good news.

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Looks like no Zuma launch until December:

https://aviationweek.com/awinspace/spacex-classified-zuma-launch-delayed-until-least-december

Have to be a subscriber to read the whole thing, I'm not.

A tweet by Irene Klotz , referencing the above, indicates the range will be down for maintenance Dec 1st (and presumably a few days after).

#SpaceX Zuma off range at least until it reopens after annual maintenance Dec 1

https://twitter.com/Free_Space/status/932689217599213568

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Presuming that the Fairing issues get solved soon, then SpaceX may have THREE Falcon launches in December. Zuma at 39A would join CRS-13 (at LC-40) resupply for ISS set for early December. And Iridium Next 31-40 set for launch December 22nd at SLC-4 at Vandenberg. But it was testing for that Iridium launch's fairing that brought to light some problem. And SpaceX does not have spare fairings laying around.

If not already, this pretty much confirms no Falcon Heavy launch this year. Heck, it too will need a fairing. No info on what the dummy payload might be inside, but it is definitely going to fly in payload/fairing configuration (as needed to count as a test for USAF payloads), and not some re-used Dragon spacecraft on a lunar joyride test as some had speculated early.
 
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No info on what the dummy payload might be inside, but it is definitely going to fly in payload/fairing configuration (as needed to count as a test for USAF payloads), and not some re-used Dragon spacecraft on a lunar joyride test as some had speculated early.

I reckon they'll fly a Tesla. Not sure which model.
 
Zero news regarding the Zuma launch.

The Payload Shroud issue affects both that and the Iridium Next 4 flight set for Dec 22nd (but could slip due to this). SpaceX has not revealed the nature of the problem (say a latch, simple part, fabrication flaw), so this could be something that drags on for quite awhile.

UPDATE - I was wrong, the fairing issue is not going to cause a delay for Iridium Next 4:

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/11/iridium-next-4-december-launch-vandenberg/

The CRS-13 launch to resupply ISS is now set for NET Dec 8th, launch at 2:52 PM, EST. Booster will do an RTLS landing. First launch from SLC-40 since the AMOS-6 pad explosion in September 2016.

Meanwhile, the reality of scheduling has hit the fan:
(from: https://twitter.com/stephenclark1/status/935619345182543872)

SpaceX confirms Aviation Week report that the Falcon Heavy’s debut test flight is now expected in early 2018, a few weeks after a hold-down static fire test at KSC in December.

Seems like Zuma will be postponed until after FH, or possibly could be set to launch from SLC-40 some time after CRS-13 flies. In any case, Falcon Heavy as well as Zuma need to have the payload shroud issue solved. If (my speculation) the shroud issue was expected to cause delays of weeks (or more), it certainly makes sense to swap out Zuma on 39A to go full bore on getting 39A 100% ready for FH, and do as much FH testing as they can in December, and into 2018, when finally, sometime they'll have a payload shroud to use to launch FH. After the Amos-6 pad explosion, SpaceX no longer does any pad tests with payloads attached anyway.
 
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Zuma may use a different payload addapter, or just be a bigger payload. Hence not an issue to Irridium. Alternatively it could be Zuma payload is a more sensitive payload, think heat, noise, vibration, radio interference etc, so the issue may have little impact on other payloads.

CRS of course does not need a faring so no issue there.
 
SpaceX only has one common payload shroud configuration. That is, structurally, dimensionally, and functionally they are the same.

However there are some mission-specific modifications made such as a limited number (two, IIRC) of access or interface holes cut into the shrouds, with maximum size limits, and those holes cannot be made just anywhere. Some of that was new info I read recently. Which explains why they can't necessarily take a shroud meant for launching Payload "X", and use it for a launch of Payload "Z" (Unless Payload "Z" is the same kind of payload "Y") . However, they TRY to use a common shroud for all missions, the custom modifications are allowed when certain payloads require it.

The custom shrouds thing will be more of a problem if SpaceX ever perfects shroud recovery for re-use. Then they'd need to charge the customer more for one-shot custom shrouds, or for the customer to be able to get a discount on future flights of the same payload type that could re-use the same custom shroud. Starting to sound more like SpaceX is now focusing shroud recovery for R&D for the future, that they won't plan to re-use any of them, given the "BFR" that they plan to by flying by 2021 ("6 months" for Falcon Heavy), that will be reusing the second stage and use BFR to launch a lot of payloads flown by Falcon 9 (I'll believe it when I see it).

What would make a lot of sense to me would be for some Falcon-9 missions to eventually fly with a highly modified second stage that would be a small-scale test of the planned second stage for BFR. Because the BFR's second stage has to survive a nose-high belly-into-the-plasma reentry from orbital speed, and then somehow flip to fall tail-first, to later fall backwards under precise aerodynamic control despite lack of the deployable Grid fins and lack of tail-first stability that the F9 booster has. I suspect the design shown is going to end up different in some way to address that problem.

Back to the CURRENT Falcon and shrouds:

Internally there apparently there are some differences regarding add-on materials such as to limit vibration, cameras, and especially on SOME flights SpaceX's own experimental equipment for fairing recovery (a small attitude control system, but mostly a gliding parachute system and guidance system to control it).

But the chain of events was SpaceX found some issue with the shroud for the upcoming Iridium mission. They were concerned that the Zuma shroud might have the same kind of issue, so they postponed the upcoming launch for two days then outright cancelled the scheduled launch indefinitely. I was sort of surprised when they swapped the Falcon Heavy Launch back into the queue to launch from 39A, but then if (if) the shroud thing would take weeks to resolve then not much point in holding up FH preparations. Of course FH also needs a payload shroud, but whatever the issue is.... the shroud for that apparently was still at the factory (or wherever) and may not have eve been completed yet (possibly easier to fix than the Zuma shroud in the sense it is easier to fix a thing being built than to fix it after completion and shipped thousands of miles away). Unless it is some fundamental design flaw or some "bad batch" of composite materials that somehow missed quality check.
 
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The truth behind how Elon Musk perfected the landings:

[video=youtube;A_T0C7HtzZY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_T0C7HtzZY[/video]
 
Here is a real tweet by Elon Musk, about the payload and mission of the first Falcon Heavy. I do not know if he's 100% serious or not. The SpaceX Fanboi-universe is going nuts assuming it is:

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

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/936782477502246912

Glad the payload won't be a yellow school bus as some suggested (Which would have been good for showing what it could launch but IMHO would have been horrible public relations regarding priorities in education).

The "cherry" I pick out of that news is the implication that they have SOME means of doing course corrections and putting the payload into Mars orbit. The 2nd stage's Lox would boil off within hours, so they must have some sort of module attached to the payload, with an RCS system for steering and thrusters to slow it down to put it into orbit around Mars (making orbit around another planet is not like the ultimate golf putt.... you do not want to actually go into the hole, that's a crash. You want to get really close to the rim and slow down. Or with aerobraking, "lip" the cup but you need some aerodynamics, a bit of a heat shield, and a bit of strength to survive the aerobraking. And still need to do a small maneuvering burn at apogee after aerobraking in order to raise the perigee above the atmosphere or it's going to aerobrake at perigee of every orbit until it gets trapped and falls to the surface if not burn up altogether)

This also implies an electrical power system that can run for months, probably using solar panels. Of course they could cobble together some of that from Dragon spacecraft hardware, such as the panels and Draco thrusters, perhaps even a very stripped down Dragon. Indeed they they were planning "Red Dragon" missions to Mars (and actually land on it) to launch in 2018, later pushed to 2020, before cancelling it earlier this year. But probably not "just" a modified Dragon with a Tesla mounted on top, as the Tesla would be a lot of mass on top that that the Dragon's front end and docking tunnel is not designed to handle. Of course, Dragon modifications COULD involve a lot of structural enhancement, if that's the way they wanted to go.

Also of course, they probably would not install the battery pack into the Tesla. That would save a lot of mass, and reduce the structural stress for launch. I suspect that a common Tesla battery pack would not fare well in a vacuum, never mind the issue of extreme temperatures.

Or they could be doing something far simpler like using the same sort of satellite maneuvering module that other companies use for putting commercial satellites into geostationary orbits. Contracting that part out.

So, yeah, while a lot Fanbois are all a-Twitter about the Tesla, I'm more intrigued about the rocket part. By what means of rocket/spacecraft hardware are they intending to operate for months, to get the payload to Mars, and into orbit around Mars.

All the above assumes Musk's tweet is serious and not a dumb joke.
 
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So I was right (probably not the only one:wink:). I didn't think they would fly a used car though. Although if it were my actual car it would be pretty cool. So that makes Elon seriously :cool: (not that he wasn't cool before)

BTW, I think he is fair dinkum. It isn't 1st April.
 
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Pretty sure this is just a PR stunt. To do it for real would be a huge amount of work and for what advantage? Well it would get you lots of PR, but so would pretending you are going to do it. If it was me I would fly a dragon (possibly used) and put it in a highly elliptical orbit to simulate a moon return re-entry. This would then open the way for the moon trip that they actually have paying customers for. Of course there may be plenty of other possibilities they can try that would advance their goals but pretty sure the car isn’t going to help.
 
Pretty sure this is just a PR stunt. To do it for real would be a huge amount of work and for what advantage? Well it would get you lots of PR, but so would pretending you are going to do it. If it was me I would fly a dragon (possibly used) and put it in a highly elliptical orbit to simulate a moon return re-entry. This would then open the way for the moon trip that they actually have paying customers for. Of course there may be plenty of other possibilities they can try that would advance their goals but pretty sure the car isn’t going to help.

Have you not caught on that Every announcement made is a PR stunt in one way or another? It's a very narrow peak into their (somewhat volatile) planning and development process which space enthusiasts lap up immediately with excitement or skepticism. Either way, X-space is what's being talked about with 0$ spent in the budget for marketing.
 
Pretty sure this is just a PR stunt. To do it for real would be a huge amount of work and for what advantage? Well it would get you lots of PR, but so would pretending you are going to do it. If it was me I would fly a dragon (possibly used) and put it in a highly elliptical orbit to simulate a moon return re-entry. This would then open the way for the moon trip that they actually have paying customers for. Of course there may be plenty of other possibilities they can try that would advance their goals but pretty sure the car isn’t going to help.
A ballast which is useful to counter this:

Carmageddon for Tesla
Dec 1, 2017

https://wolfstreet.com/2017/12/01/carmageddon-for-tesla/
 
Not the first car used on a rocket as ballast.

[video=youtube;3ACGzbu8LbA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ACGzbu8LbA[/video]
 
Here's a silly idea. The man-rated Dragon has the Draco engines for controlled landing and presumably a lot of computer power, battery capacity, and communications systems. The standard Dragon skirt used for delivery to ISS has solar panels and a fair amount of cargo capacity. Is there any reason that couldn't be used as the tow vehicle connected up to a standard Dragon payload skirt with a roadster inside? With "just a few" structural mods to take a car instead of boxes and for the Draco engines to fire while still attached to the skirt, it might all work. It gets you power, a structural frame, attitude control motors, and an engine powerful enough to put the payload into orbit. If the car doesn't fit inside the regular skirt, they could hide it all in a fairing instead.

There's probably lots of reasons this wouldn't work, but that's my bet.
 
OK, well, Saturday morning Musk said he "made it up", that it wasn't going to happen. But by late Saturday afternoon Musk and other SpaceX officials confirmed they will launch a Tesla. Chain of events described here:

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/elon-musk-on-the-roadster-to-mars

But NOT into Mars orbit. An elliptical orbit that hopefully will fly as far away as the distance from the Sun that Mars happens to be in (the orbit of the planet Mars around the sun). It's NOT going to be anywhere near the planet Mars. NOT going to a "destination" of Mars orbit.

Imagine if I built my own rocket and said I would launch a satellite that would later be boosted from low Earth Orbit, to an elliptical orbit with an apogee of 260 thousand miles. But for publicity I would say I was sending my satellite into "Lunar Orbit", but it would not be true. It would never go into orbit around the moon, never intentionally encounter the moon, it would just be in an elliptical orbit from say 200 miles to 260 thousand miles. ( Although eventually an orbit would end up close enough to the moon to affect the payload's orbit in some manner).

So, anyway, if things go as they now indicate, the 2nd stage will boost the Tesla to escape velocity, with an apogee that will be somewhere about the same distance, maybe a bit more than the distance of Mar's orbit around the sun. It will be an elliptical Heliocentric orbit around the SUN, very slim (though not zero) chance of a later encounter with the gravity fields of either Earth or Mars.

The next semi-decent (not ideal) launch window to actually send something to Mars, is in April. Hopefully FH will have flown long before then. But that puts another nail into the idea of some random launch date like mid to late January would work for sending anything to Mars itself, even as a one-shot fly-by. FH doesn't have the extra Delta-Vee capability to do that for a non-optimal launch window.

It's bizarre. If Musk had SAID FH was going to launch a Tesla to fly as far out as the orbit of Mars, that would have been astounding news as it was. But by IMPLYING it would go into orbit around Mars, that ends up with a degree of disappointment, and as another example of being unable to trust what he says. And never mind the confusion Saturday morning where he was then saying no he made it up, they were not going to launch a Tesla on FH.... then later said oh yeah, OK, yes we are (and then sadly needed MORE CREDIBLE people at SpaceX to back him up on that so that aerospace reporters would know what to go with!!!). Of course the SpaceX Fanbois excuse all of this behaviour and don't care about SpaceX's credibility.... just hang on and believe every word "Elon" tweets. Sigh.

Below is an image that was posted on the NasaSpaceflightForum. It shows a speculative configuration of how Musk's 2008 Roadster could be configured and mounted horizontally inside the payload fairing. Showing both how big the fairing is and how short the 2008 Roadster is.

2amDz9E.jpg
 
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If FH doesn't come apart on the way up, the Tesla will roughly get to Mars orbit, as he promised.

He never promised an orbit around Mars. In fact, if you combine his "Mars orbit" goal with his "billion years in space" you shouldn't even have assumed he meant that it would come near the planet itself, should you?
 
If FH doesn't come apart on the way up, the Tesla will roughly get to Mars orbit, as he promised.

My Kingdom for a Dynamic Test Stand!

For want of a test, a link strut was lost?
For want of a strut, a booster was lost?

I honestly want the thing to be successful and the company to continue making progress. Sometimes the scrappy is a bit of a rollercoaster though.
 
DESTINATION Mars Orbit.

The term "Destination Mars" has been used for years as a rallying cry for actually going to Mars, as a destination. Not an elliptical empty orbit around the sun, whose apogee happens to go as far away from the sun as the planet Mars' distance from the sun.

Lots of space experts took what he said to mean it was going to Mars.

Space.Com and so many others:

Elon Musk Will Launch His Tesla Roadster to Mars on SpaceX's 1st Falcon Heavy Rocket

https://www.space.com/38968-elon-musk-falcon-heavy-rocket-tesla-roadster.html

Of course, as I said to being with, I didn't take it as 100%.

Just another example to take what he posts with more gains of salt until either someone else at SpaceX confirms or explains what he said (as had to be done the next day). Or he finally "officially" clears up what he MEANT to say.

I vividly recall the first booster attempt to land on an ASDS, SES-9, which crashed in the most extreme manner. It ran out of hydraulic fluid for the grid fins, so was out of position laterally. The guidance programming steered the Falcon at the ASDS barge like a Kamikaze missile. Well , it was tilted at about 45 degrees, flying a diagonal path at the ASDS. No chance at all to slow down and land safely. In any case it hit the ASDS at high speed and was totally destroyed.

Well, heck, it was the first try. They underestimated how much hydraulic fluid would be needed, and solved that problem. What got me was this:

Musk tweeted that: It had a "hard landing" (No, in aerospace a "hard landing" may cause damage to the vehicle but it may be repairable and passengers/crew usually survive unless there is some other complication like an ensuing fire). it CRASHED. A Hard landing was what some of the next few landing failures had.

He tweeted there was no video of the landing attempt.

And he tweeted that "It was too dark to see anything, anyway" (or words that effect).

Days later, turned out there was video and it was not too dark to see THIS massive crash.

[video=youtube;6Zq8-MHInig]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zq8-MHInig[/video]


In other news, the CRS-13 static firing was pushed back from today to Tuesday. May make it tight for launching on Friday the 8th as scheduled.
 
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CRS-13 launch has been delayed a day to Wednesday the..... 13th.

Launch time 11:26 AM, EST. No launch window, it either goes on time or waits for another day.

Booster will go for a RTLS landing back to the Cape, at LZ-1.

Since this is a launch for NASA, a Dragon resupply mission to ISS, it's recommended to watch/record NASA TV as well as follow the SpaceX webcast.

Webcast link (It currently indicates launch is tomorrow, but has not been updated. Hopefully they won't change the link to a new one).

[video=youtube;OPHbqY9LHCs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPHbqY9LHCs[/video]

Mission patch:

index.php
 
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Well, the launch date for the 13th wasn't lucky. Now delayed to Friday the 15th, no reason known.

Launch time is supposed to be 10:33AM, EST.

If it does not launch Friday, it won't launch until after the 25th. Reason for that is in this twitter post by James Dean of Florida Today:

SpaceX now targeting NET Fri. morning for launch of #CRS13 from Cape Canaveral. That's the only shot before Christmas due to beta angle cutout and Soyuz comings and goings at ISS.

https://twitter.com/flatoday_jdean/status/940699969115316229

Solar Beta angle as regards ISS and approaching spacecraft.... I had to look that up. Here's one of the links that seems to contain some good answers:

https://space.stackexchange.com/que...iss-orbit-align-with-the-day-night-terminator

.......Thus, it happens between 2-4 times per year, always in near one of the solstices.

And they don't allow for more than one spacecraft to be arriving or departing on the same day, thus the Soyuz relevance.

UPDATE by SpaceX as to why they delayed to Friday:

Taking additional time for the team to conduct full inspections and cleanings due to detection of particles in 2nd stage fuel system. Now targeting CRS-13 launch from SLC-40 on Dec. 15. Next launch opportunity would be no earlier than late December.
 
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