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

SES-12 launch is scheduled to launch for just after midnight Thursday May 31st
(Friday June 1st 12:29 AM Eastern ) from SLC-40.

Launch window is 4 hours. The booster (reused Block 4 #1040.2) will be expended.

UPDATE - Delayed to June 4th, see next message.

Launch day probability of violating launch weather constraints: 60%
Primary concern(s): Thick Cloud Layers Rule

Click to expand...

So, 40% chance it'll fly.

Delay day forecast is 40% chance of weather violation, so 60% Go.

SES-12 launch POSTPONED to June 4th at 12:29AM EDT (after midnight June 3rd), same time.

Images of a fairing from the Iridium-6/Grace-FO launch last week. Landed about 50 meters (160 feet) from Mr Steven

Source: https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1002268835175518208



Original image before being cropped: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=37727.0;attach=1494029;image

Article the Teslarati page (this is a pro-Musk website, interesting articles but I take it more as pro-Musk info source than a journalist site).

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-photos-falcon-9-fairings-parasailing-splashdown/

Fairing seems to be gliding from right to left (nose of fairing pointed forward). Part of the left outer trailing edge of the chute is damaged. This would affect the steering accuracy quite a lot. I think it would tend to make the steerable chute pull to the right.

Some also note some broken lines in the photo below,



As well, what seem to be brown scorch marks on portions of the fairing. But may not be a problem, more on that in a bit.

And here’s the fairing after landing.




I THINK the scorching may be residue of paint or decals for the logos getting burnt, not the fairing itself. The fairing "belly flops" into the atmosphere for re-entry (little thrusters point it), so the charred paint/vinyl residue would be streaked "up" from the belly to the sides in the manner. But I do not know if the half seen in the photo below is the one shown above, or not. AFAIK such fairing logos are only put on one side (side facing away from the launcher), not two sides.

The first and second photo are not the same half. If you’re right about decals then the first is the back and the second is the front (when viewed from launch pad). It looks like the third picture (floating) is the back, also shows the nose seems to take a fair amount of the scorching. By comparison the decal scorch is very well defined (no gradual transition). So I expect that the decal goes right round the half and is completely clear, possibly this is to make sure it does not peel off going up. Having said that the top part of the decal doesn’t do this or perhaps it fell off.

Interesting to see the evolution of the harness. They've "spread out" that single pinch point we talked about earlier. I bet it acts more calm in this configuration.

I don't see any broken lines in the picture you posted. Are you referring to the two slack loops on the rear lines?

SpaceManMat is right, both fairings are in the photos. The one without the logos is the 1st and apparently also the 3rd, which have no brown scorching residue effects visible. I’ve since read that that fairing half has the US Flag on it but the flag is painted on with heat-resistant paint. The logos have been confirmed as decals which melt/char on re-entry. Well, once they get this dry landing thing solved for re-use, they’ll need to replace mission logos anyway.

Ravenex said:

I don't see any broken lines in the picture you posted. Are you referring to the two slack loops on the rear lines?

Click to expand...

Some on NasaSpaceFlight Forum (NSF) had pointed it out but did not get into specifics.

The line bundle on the right side of the 3rd photo shows something different compared to the left side - they would be expected to be mirrored. At least one line dangling on the right bundle. Enlarged that area and adjusted the contrast/brightness to make it more visible (click on photo and open as a new tab, then click again to see it at max res.)

SES-12 launch is scheduled for TONIGHT. At 12:29 EDT (just after midnight Eastern, June 4th).

Again, the booster will not be recovered since it is a Block 4 only Block 5's will be recovered from now on (think there are only 2-3 one-flight Block 4's left). The UPPER stage, however, is a Block 5 upper stage.

SpaceX is targeting launch of the SES-12 satellite to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The four-hour launch window opens on Monday, June 4 at 12:29 a.m. EDT, or 4:29 UTC. The satellite will be deployed approximately 32 minutes after liftoff. A four-hour backup launch window opens on Tuesday, June 5 at 12:29 a.m. EDT, or 4:29 UTC.

Falcon 9’s first stage for the SES-12 mission previously supported the OTV-5 mission from Launch Complex 39A in September 2017. SpaceX will not attempt to recover Falcon 9’s first stage after launch. You can watch the launch live below and find out more about the mission in our press kit.

Click to expand...

(the OTV-5 mission was the one that launched one of the X-37B Spaceplanes into orbit, it's still up there doing whatever the heck those long duration X-37B's do).

Press kit: https://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/ses-12missionpress_kit_6.2.18.pdf

NSF article about the SES-12 satellite and launch: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/06/falcon-9-cape-canaveral-night-launch-ses-12/



[video=youtube;2hcM5hqQ45s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hcM5hqQ45s[/video]

Another nice SpaceX launch. May the successes keep rolling in.

Will be nice when they nail that fairing recovery

SpaceX related photo? Photos taken at the Port of Los Angeles, but not where the ASDS barge JRTI docks and unloads after a retrieval. There's no ASDS barge here, no Falcon boosters.. Click on the panoramic view and open in a new tab, then click again to see it at full resolution.



"Officially in early 2018, SpaceX is leasing Berth 240 with the explicit intent of constructing a dedicated facility for production of their first Mars rocket prototypes, as well as the relocation of Falcon 9 and Dragon recovery ops, which are quite space-constrained at their current berths. By all appearances, contractor Buntich is staging equipment ahead of initial demolition, refurbishment, and construction operations at Berth 240. Known predominately for pipeline and utility construction and refurbishment, it’s likely that the contractor is in the very early stages of modernizing the decades-abandoned shipyard, particularly, utilities like water, gas, electricity, and more."

Another image.

So, the above was an unannounced version of "Where's Waldo?"

The above post actually is part of an article whose purpose was about something totally different:

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-bfr-factory-four-falcon-9-fairing-halves-spied/

The photo of that single old building, had four Falcon parts in plain sight:



Four fairing halves from recent missions, two apparently from SES-12.

So, read the article link above. I know this is a bit backwards, but wanted to have a bit of fun with the "boring" photos of old graffitied buildings, when there actually was some neat stuff visible in one of them, before mentioning the article.

BTW - Going to be a mostly boring month. Next launch is CRS-15, currently set for June 29th. July has a launch set for mid-July and two for late July.

CRS-15 Resupply mission to ISS.

Launch is EARLY tomorrow, June 29, 2018 at 05:41 EDT (09:41 UTC).

Using a reused Block 4 booster (1045.2), launching from SLC-40 at the Cape. It will not be recovered. They’re almost out of Block 4’s (which only fly twice). The Block 5’s are the ones that’ll be recovered for nearly all flights (except when flown in expendable mode for very heavy payloads to very demanding orbits)

Webcast link not posted yet.

When it is, it’ll be posted at: https://www.spacex.com/webcast
(currently shows SES-12 webcast as I type this)

Since this is a launch from the Cape, if (a big if) they try any fairing recovery tests, they'll land in the ocean, as "Mr Steven" with the big net system is on the West Coast.

Webcast:

"Mr Steven", the Califoria-based ship rigged with arms and a net to catch a fairing half, has had an upgrade.

https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1017807493311811584?s=21

Mr. Steven—now with more net. SpaceX’s fairing recovery vessel has been fitted with a 4x larger net ahead of its next recovery attempt targeted for later this month.

Click to expand...

Reminds me a little bit of this:


(I said a "little" bit)

georgegassaway said:

"Mr Steven", the Califoria-based ship rigged with arms and a net to catch a fairing half, has had an upgrade.

https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1017807493311811584?s=21

Click to expand...

Crew Dragon arrives at Cape; Space Station schedule to drive DM-1 launch date

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/07/crew-dragon-cape-iss-schedule-drive-dm-1-date/

"SpaceX’s Mr Steven spotted in high-speed test at sea with upgraded net"

SpaceX’s newly-outfitted recovery vessel Mr Steven was recently captured conducting aggressive maneuvers off the coast of Port of Los Angeles, just days after the vessel’s massive new arms and net were installed for the first time. The intense pace of upgrades and acceptance testing confirm beyond any reasonable doubt that SpaceX does not intend to waste its next Falcon 9 fairing recovery attempt, set to accompany the July 25th launch of Iridium-7.

More info and rest of the article at this link:
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-mr-steven-spotted-sea-trialing-net-fairing-catch-debut/amp/

Click to expand...

Wouldn't it go faster if it went forward? One would think that with radar, knowledge of the ship's mobility, and the proper software tied to the ships autopilot, an automated catch should not be that difficult.

davel said:

Wouldn't it go faster if it went forward? One would think that with radar, knowledge of the ship's mobility, and the proper software tied to the ships autopilot, an automated catch should not be that difficult.

Click to expand...

Does not seem like this is automated. Therefore, THINK about it. If you were piloting this ship, trying to get the net under the fairing, or within the desired glideslope angle.... wouldn't you WANT to be looking rearward THRU the net? Like catching a ball, you ant to be able to have an unobstructed view all the way to your hand.

But I am surprised this is how they are doing it. Indeed I expected something more like the ship would move forward, steady, and the fairing's steerable chute would make tiny corrections left/right as the ship might adjust its speed (steerable chutes can't adjust the glide slope much).

Perhaps they even tried t that way and found it it was not practical. So they may have changed plans so the chute does not steer to the ship for landing, that at some altitude it sets some "final" direction that it flies straight, holds that straight line, and it's the ships job to do 100% of the maneuvering to get to the projected landing spot and catch it.

I wonder if that drone or maybe another drone that may have been bigger or otherwise VERY visible (super bright lighting), may have done some simulated landings. Have the drone at say 1000 feet or so, descending in a similar "glide angle" as the fairing should have, and maneuver the ship to "catch" it (but not let the drone fly all the way into the net). If they did not do that (or something equally as good or better) they need to hire me to think of these things. Not much use practicing how to catch a ball without a ball.

One idea I've thought about for a while would be to use a drone to latch onto the fairing in flight. Once the drone has latched onto the fairing it could then power the fairing and it's para-sail, and fly it like an ultra-light. If it has enough fuel it could fly it to land, or maybe land it on a long barge. At the very least, the drone could be used to guide the fairing into the net on Mr. Steven.

I would think they would be automating this as much as possible with clever software. People are too slow and unpredictable for relatively tractable control-loop problems.

Predicting the catch point will not be trivial. Winds aloft can be a lot stronger and in entirely different directions to surface winds. It will be a nice challenge for SpaceX engineers to be able to pull this off, considering the invisible atmospheric perturbations. I have seen balloon pilots pull off stunning pinpoint landings, including 90 degree turns, based on winds at different altitudes. The landing crews release a balloon and it is observed as it ascends. Pilots learn the wind directions and speed from that at the different altitudes. I guess if the landing area had enough similar data points for the fairings they could feed that into the algorithms to improve the predictability of their outcome.

The video looked to me like fairly standard sea trials maneuvers where they establish maximum turning rate, crash stop distances, speed astern, etc. that gives them the data to do the autopilot/dynamic positioning programming.

If it was me designing the system, I'd program the parafoil to fly a set course track. Mr. Steven would then run a similar track underneath so that all you have to do is be in the right place along a line when the fairing lands instead of on a plane. If Mr. Steven can go the same speed as the parafoil descending, then it's even easier. You'd just stay directly under the parafoil and match course/speed. The fact that they're practicing more maneuvering indicates that it's not really that easy, and a larger net indicates that position of the fairing is harder to predict than originally thought.

IIRC, the landing boosters don't communicate position to the ASDS. Both the booster and the ASDS have a set lat/long to aim for. In that case, it's a little easier on the ASDS because it just needs to put the center of the pad at the lat/long and hold it there.

Hi boatgeek. Boosters are round and subject to relatively little side-load from crosswinds I suspect. They also have decent mass. The parafoil (and fairing) would be more easily blown around by wind direction changes, but essentially what you said is I guess what they are trying to do. Just a bit more of a challenge than being the first people to land boosters

and then there is the turbulent air coming off Mr. Steven to complicate matters.
Rex

Rex R said:

and then there is the turbulent air coming off Mr. Steven to complicate matters.

Click to expand...

Definitely in the "significant" perturbations area too, although it is probably almost in the mit before it gets in that turbulence.

OverTheTop said:

Hi boatgeek. Boosters are round and subject to relatively little side-load from crosswinds I suspect. They also have decent mass. The parafoil (and fairing) would be more easily blown around by wind direction changes, but essentially what you said is I guess what they are trying to do. Just a bit more of a challenge than being the first people to land boosters

Click to expand...

Boosters are also aiming at a point, so that's a lot easier too. Again in an ideal world, I'd want the parafoil heading directly into the wind to minimize its forward motion. There should be pretty decent wind direction predictions the day before the launch for the bottom ~5000 feet of atmosphere so it could be programmed in advance of launch. Also in an ideal world, Mr. Steven could send an update to the fairing of actual wind direction to further minimize cross-wind effects. Regardless, you're right that there's a lot of dynamic stuff going on, which makes it messy.

Rex R said:

and then there is the turbulent air coming off Mr. Steven to complicate matters.
Rex

Click to expand...

In my engineering class, we always ignored turbulence, so it shouldn't be a problem, right? Seriously, at work I worry almost entirely about the water since it's so much denser than air. I don't know enough to know how far up air turbulence effects would extend. The net is pretty high above the deck, so it hopefully wouldn't be bad until the fairing was so close it wouldn't make much difference.

LAUNCH TONIGHT!!! Technically 1:50 AM EDT Sunday July 22nd. And for the first time in a long time, RECOVERY of a booster.

SpaceX is targeting launch of the Telstar 19 VANTAGE satellite to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The four-hour launch window opens on Sunday, July 22 at 1:50 a.m. EDT, or 5:50 UTC. The satellite will be deployed approximately 32 minutes after liftoff.

A four-hour backup launch window opens on Monday, July 23 at 1:50 a.m. EDT, or 5:50 UTC. 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 launch live below and find out more about the mission in our press kit."

Click to expand...

Webcast:

Launch, landing, and deployment all seem to have gone well.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/07/...telesat-with-successful-early-morning-launch/

Launch late late TONIGHT, or EARLY tomorrow (early July 25th) - 4:39 AM PDT (6:39 AM EDT) from Vandenberg

It would be expected that Mr. Steven will try to catch a fairing half. But it will be dark (sunrise in Los Angeles at 5:59 AM), so unless this process is highly automated and does not require the ship to be manually steered to help to catch it, that could be quite a problem. Yes, in theory they could add extra batteries and lights and stuff to make it visible. In any case, Mr Steven has departed from the Port of Los Angeles to try.

IRIDIUM-7 NEXT MISSION
SpaceX is targeting Wednesday, July 25 for the launch of ten Iridium NEXT satellites from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
This is the seventh set of satellites in a series of 75 total satellites that SpaceX will launch for Iridium’s next generation global satellite constellation, Iridium® NEXT. The instantaneous launch opportunity is at 4:39 a.m. PDT, or 11:39 UTC, and the satellites will begin deployment about an hour after launch. A backup instantaneous launch opportunity is available on Thursday, July 26 at 4:33 a.m. PDT, or 11:33 UTC.
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 and find out more about the mission in our press kit.

Click to expand...

View of the Vandenberg HIF and pad today.
Photo credit: photos.tmahlmann.com/Rockets/SpaceX

And....... the 3000th post in this thread.