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

[Peartree]

SpaceX delivers Starlink satellites to orbit despite engine failure

Today's mission marked the first in-flight Merlin engine failure since a Falcon 9 launch in 2012. On that mission, the rocket continued into orbit with a Dragon supply ship heading for the International Space Station, but an Orbcomm satellite riding as a hitchhiker payload was lost.

Elon Musk, SpaceX's founder, CEO and chief designer, says one of the Falcon 9's first stage engines shut down prematurely during ascent this morning.

Yeah. There was also an early engine shutdown on ascent, but it didn’t affect orbit insertion. Shows value of having 9 engines! Thorough investigation needed before next mission.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 18, 2020

https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/03/13/falcon-9-starlink-5-mission-status-center/

 

[cvanc]

Booster was not recovered, any details out yet about that?

(oops, posted at the same time - 1 engine failed, sounds like it was one of the ones needed for the return)

 

[Crazyrocket]

Anyone else see the something fly by the camera at T+6:40 seconds (right before the reentry burn). I wonder if it was from one of the failed engines?

 

[dhkaiser]

Two lost first stages in a row?

 

[Charles_McG]

I think there was one recovery in between - the CRS flight.

 

[SpaceManMat]

Good video from Scott Manly on the failure. Has some telemetry (acceleration) from the flight (at 1:47).



Personally I think the large about of roll during and after reentry burn suggests damage to the engine and surrounding area that is causing asymmetrical drag. Wouldn’t be surprised if they decided not to show the footage of landing because they knew a failure was going to happen or was extremely likely.

 

[SpaceManMat]

Booster was not recovered, any details out yet about that?

(oops, posted at the same time - 1 engine failed, sounds like it was one of the ones needed for the return)

Not the same engine, it did fire during the reentry. Could be damaged possibly.

 

[OverTheTop]

Personally I think the large about of roll during and after reentry burn suggests damage to the engine and surrounding area that is causing asymmetrical drag. Wouldn’t be surprised if they decided not to show the footage of landing because they knew a failure was going to happen or was extremely likely.

That was my thoughts about the roll oscillations after entry burn too.

 

[Mushtang]

https://spaceflightnow.com/SpaceX has raised a Falcon 9 rocket vertical at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for launch Wednesday with 60 more Starlink Internet satellites. Liftoff from pad 39A is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. EDT (1930 GMT), and the Falcon 9’s previously-flown first stage will attempt a landing on SpaceX’s offshore drone ship.

 

[boatgeek]

Successful flight and landing!

 

[Marc_G]

Wonder if they caught fairings?

 

[davel]

Wonder if they caught fairings?

They did not attempt to catch the fairings - something about the tracking software in the middle of an update. They were planning on retreiving them from the water though. Haven't heard if that was successful.

 

[Peartree]

Falcon9 is the new "workhorse" as its launch numbers surpass AtlasV. - Ars Technica

But SpaceX also made a huge, symbolic leap on Wednesday. With the latest Starlink launch, the Falcon 9 rocket has now launched 84 times. This surpasses the total flights by United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket.

SpaceX first flew the Falcon 9 rocket on June 4, 2010, from Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida. It has caught up to the Atlas V rocket by flying an increasing cadence of missions from 2017 onward, averaging 17 flights a year over the last three full years.

 

[RocketGeekInFL]

Guess what arrived at 39A today?

 

[RocketGeekInFL]

 

[RocketGeekInFL]

Just In: NASA and SpaceX have added a third crew member to the Demo-2 launch!!!

 

[RocketGeekInFL]

 

[davel]

Any news on the fairings?

 

[manixFan]

Today (June 4th, 2020) Is the 10 year anniversary of the first successful Falcon 9 flight. Really amazing and impressive achievements in such a short period of time, considering it was done by a private company.

 

[KennB]

Any news on the fairings?

No fairings on the Crew Dragon.

 

[davel]

No fairings on the Crew Dragon.

grin..... I was thinking to the Starlink launch.

 

[RocketGeekInFL]

I heard they got them, but can not confirm.

 

[davel]

Something about 3 pieces - seems that one of them broke in half.

 

[Mushtang]

Today at 3:55pm eastern

From spaceflightnow:

Launch window: 1955-2010 GMT (3:55-4:10 p.m. EDT)
Launch site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the U.S. Air Force’s third third-generation navigation satellite for the Global Positioning System. The satellite is built by Lockheed Martin. The Air Force previously planned to launch the second GPS 3-series satellite on this mission.

 

[Marc_G]

#nevergetsold

Beautiful launch and landing of the Booster. Can't wait to hear if they got any of the fairings.

 

[Leo]

Those landings never get old.

 

[boatgeek]

Successful deployment of the satellite just now. They also reported that they "secured" both fairing halves. It's not 005 clear to me whether that means they caught them, or missed and picked them up out of the water. They said they can reuse the fairings though.

 

[davel]

They said they were not going to attempt to catch the fairings, only quickly grab them out of the water. I think perhaps they are finding that a short dip is not particualrly damaging to the fairings, and catching them is next to impossible.

 

[OverTheTop]

I think perhaps they are finding that a short dip is not particualrly damaging to the fairings, and catching them is next to impossible.

but much less fun

 

[Reinhard]

Just came across it, ANASIS-II launch: T-5min


Reinhard