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

Onebadhawk
Wildman Rocketry
eggtimer rocketry
The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
georgegassaway said:
So, another successful launch, and booster landing. 60th successful Falcon-9 flight.

Next launch is for SAOCOM 1A, NET October 7th, from Vandenberg. This launch is expected to be the first RTLS booster landing back to Vandy.

Photo below from SpaceX's Flickr:

43881223704_51c8b5773c_b.jpg
Click to expand...

What a great pic!
 
Photo of the SpaceX Landing Pad at Vandenberg AFB. Next SpaceX launch is supposed to be from Vandy late next week (NET Oct 6th), and they plan the first RTLS landing there, at this pad.

The pad is reportedly named "LZ-4" (Landing Zone 4), implying there's an planned LZ-3 somewhere. Possibly at KSC for a possible Falcon Heavy core landing someday (a video long ago showed four planned landing pads at the Cape, back when FH was going to fly in 2014. And there still are (?) plans to eventually RTLS land a FH core back at the Cape). But LZ-3 might be at their Boca Chica site in south Texas, where a prototype BFS (upper stage of BFR) will make "test hops" (they have so, so, so much stuff to work the bugs out on that stage, that the first stage will be "simple" in comparison).

arq9ff5.jpg
 
Launch of SAOCOM 1A satellite is planned for Sunday Oct 7th at 7:22 PM PDT (10:22 PM EDT), from Vandenberg AFB.

The booster will RTLS to land back at Vandenberg, the first RTLS there. The booster for this flight is #1048.2, which was also used for the Iridium NEXT launch.

Launch will be after sunset, so it may have a spectacular exhaust plume once it gets into the sunshine above the horizon, as has happened on some previous flights (sometimes spurring calls about UFO’s or whatever).

I looked into this some more, this will be about 45 minutes after sunset, previous ones have been 30 or less, so it may not show a plume until the 2nd stage fires. But perhaps some good plume-age (not bird feather plumage) as the booster does the boost-back burn for RTLS (that might be very special, previous F9’s that have had this after sunset plume effect occur were not RTLS). So, then anding itself will be at night, so not a great view as it lands on the concrete pad at LZ-4, but the sky is supposed to be clear so it should be a clear view all the way down (I had wondered about this since so many Vandy launches are in foggy conditions)

Webcast link is not up yet.

If the launch is postponed, the next try will be Thursday.
 
I went up in the hills near my house, I'm 275 miles away and saw it go up and come back down. It was much better then what I was expecting. My daughter in law texted me this from down town here.

45170720441_2b1cc95538_c.jpg


Tony
 
Video caught by a channel I follow.
He normally does slow motion shotgun slug experimentation (and the occasional mercury science(ish) experiment)


 
Fairing recovery attempts are to try to catch a single one, though they have lately been adding the recovery/chute system to both fairing halves when they try this, original tests only did one fairing half (With both halves having chutes lately, presumably they can choose to go for "Fairing B" if is working/steering better or in the position better than say "Fairing A". Some of the failures involved chute damage and/or steering handling problems). No need to try to catch both until (starting to wonder a bit "if"?) they perfect the system, to justify a second ship. No news (yet) on whether they caught one.

Fast motion view of launch.


Next Falcon launch not till November. Supposedly SpaceX has "caught up" with most backlogged payloads and are waiting for payloads. But hard to tell how much of that is true (SpaceX has not claimed so) and how much is SpaceX Fanboi excuse-making. They won't make the 28 they planned for 2018. Have flown 17, 5 left for 2018 if none slip into 2019. I had guessed they'd do 24 out of planned 28 and seems I was optimistic. :( I don't think Falcon Heavy's customers are the reason why the second FH launch has slipped and slipped out of 2018 and into 2019 (after the first FH launch I think they planned launch #2 in summer. Maybe back to the "1 month more delay for each month that goes by" thing again - as indeed in September it was scheduled for December, and possibly in August it was scheduled for November).
 
Last edited:
eshail-2__1.jpg


"SpaceX is targeting launch of the Es’hail-2 satellite on Thursday, November 15 from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The primary launch window opens at 3:46 p.m. EST, or 20:46 UTC, and closes at 5:29 p.m. EST, or 22:29 UTC. The satellite will be deployed to a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) approximately 32 minutes after liftoff. A backup launch window opens on Friday, November 16 at 3:48 p.m. EST, or 20:48 UTC, and closes at 5:29 p.m. EST, or 22:29 UTC.

Falcon 9’s first stage for the Es’hail-2 mission previously supported the Telstar 19 VANTAGE mission in July 2018. Following stage separation, SpaceX will attempt to land Falcon 9’s first stage on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. You can watch the live launch webcast below, starting about 15 minutes before liftoff, and find out more about the mission in our press kit."

Press kit: https://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/eshail-2_mission_press_kit_11_14_2018.pdf
Webcast:

 
SpaceManMat said:
Looks like we will have a Crew Dragon test flight early next year.

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-invites-media-to-spacex-demo-1-launch

“The launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft is targeted for Jan. 7, 2019, from historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.”
Click to expand...

I wonder if they’ll have MythBusters style “Buster”s riding in the test vehicle...

https://mythbusters.wikia.com/wiki/Buster

I know for a fact it won’t actually be buster though. He’s already had his rocket trip on 250,000 Ns:

 
nay, spacex has starman, but I would guess that a wheel of cheese might find its way aboard :).
Rex
 
SPACEFLIGHT SSO-A: SMALLSAT EXPRESS MISSION

Sunday morning, 7:32 AM Eastern, 10:32 AM PST, launched from Vandenberg AFB.

It will be third flight of this twice-flown Block 5 booster.

"SpaceX is targeting launch of the Spaceflight SSO-A: SmallSat Express mission to low Earth orbit on Sunday, December 2 from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The primary launch window opens at 10:32 a.m. PST, or 18:32 UTC, and closes at 11:00 a.m. PST, or 19:00 UTC. A series of six deployments will occur approximately 13-43 minutes after liftoff, after which Spaceflight will begin to command its own deployment sequences. Spaceflight’s deployments are expected to occur over a period of six hours. A backup launch window opens on Monday, December 3 at 10:32 a.m. PST, or 18:32 UTC, and closes at 11:00 a.m. PST, or 19:00 UTC.

Falcon 9’s first stage for the Spaceflight SSO-A: SmallSat Express mission previously supported the Bangabandhu Satellite-1 mission in May 2018 and the Merah Putih mission in August 2018. Following stage separation, SpaceX will attempt to land Falcon 9’s first stage on the “Just Read the Instructions” droneship, which will be stationed in the Pacific Ocean. You can watch the live launch webcast below, starting about 15 minutes before liftoff, and find out more about the mission in our press kit." https://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/ssoa_press_kit.pdf

Note, this COULD have been an RTLS landing. But due to another launch vehicle on a nearby pad, it won't be landing back near its pad. Instead, the drone ship OCISLY will be stationed offshore at a safe distance. So it'll be sort of like an RTLS boostback, but short of the pad, landing at sea.



BTW - really neat photo of OCISLY being towed:

Zr3Toio.jpg
 
Last edited:
"Sunday morning, 7:32 AM Eastern, 10:32 AM PST, launched from Vandenberg AFB."

Ahhh, should be 1:32 PM Eastern, 10:32 AM Pacific. That makes it 12:32 PM here in CST.
 

Similar threads

K
My Level 2 Attempt - a Diurnal Flight of "Nocturnal Missions"
Replies
5
Views
616
kjhambrick
K
alexzogh
Huntsville Saturn 1b was scrapped
Replies
7
Views
601
CalebJ
CalebJ
INFX_TryHard
Astrorizzicist - My attempt at a mostly 3D printed L2 capable rocket
Replies
29
Views
2K
thzero
T
Switch
SpaceX Falcon Heavy Build 3.0 (1:90 Scale, BT-60 tubes)
Replies
6
Views
2K
Switch
Switch
Switch
SpaceX Falcon Heavy Build 4.0 (1:65 Scale, BT-70 tubes) - a work in progress...
2 3
Replies
79
Views
9K
Switch
Switch

Latest posts

Back
Top