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

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Well, fantastic landing, not hard, legs held up, and no-kaboom.

Landed right on the very edge of the concrete landing pad.

What I've not tried to look into yet, is when they will try to fly it again, after checking it over and doing any maintenance it may require. Elon Musk said they'd make hundreds of test flights before putting a crew aboard. Supposedly the earlier prototypes were not "meant" to be reused. IIRC, SN-15 is supposed to be the first capable of that.
 
I'm hearing that they're going to move it into the high-bay and dismantle it to examine what changes worked well, what didn't, what additional changes are needed, etc. Also, the raptors are supposed to be pulled and sent back to McGreggor to have the same process done to them.
 
I can't imagine trying to reuse it when you've got developmental models in line for further testing. Makes more sense to rip it apart bit by bit to analyze how components fared.
 
Elon is already musing about reflying SN15 soon:


My guess would be: SN16 next, followed by either SN15 or SN17. SN18 and SN19 will probably be skipped, like SN13 and SN14. Parts of SN20, the next design iteration are already being assembled.


I'm wondering about the next flights. Will SpaceX simply repeat SN15s flight profile a couple times to perfect their operations, or will they start to work on envelope expansion soon (e.g. supersonic flight, higher altitudes)? SN16 will probably follow in SN15s footsteps, as happened with SN5/SN6, but beyond that?

Reinhard
 
Meanwhile, amid the hoopla about SN-15's success, and the Chicken-Little stories about the Chinese booster, a major event occurred early this morning.

Yet another Falcon-9 launch of 60 Starlink satellites. Well, that's the 3rd F9 launch in under 2 weeks.

But here's the big news: TENTH FLIGHT of the same booster.

Story here: https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-27-10th-falcon-9-rocket-launch-landing-success

And from wiki:
"B1051
B1051 is the sixth Falcon 9 Block 5 booster built. It first flew on March 2, 2019, on the DM-1 mission. It then flew its second mission out of Vandenberg AFB launching the Radarsat constellation. It then flew 4 Starlink missions and launched SXM-7, totaling 5 flights in 2020 alone, and becoming the first Falcon 9 to launch a commercial payload on its 7th flight. On May 9, 2021, B1051 became the first booster to launch and land successfully ten times and is the current Falcon re-use leader."

Video of launch:
 
Last edited:
So, SN-15 is being raised back onto the launch pedestal and WILL fly again. I guess Elon Musk didn’t not read what the experts said, when the experts insisted SpaceX wasn’t going to re-fly any Starship for some time.

Anyway, here is a video SpaceX released Thursday, showing the highlights of the SN-15 flight. Several camera views not seen in the live webcast, some of which were frozen out real-time due to WiFi issues. Others were ground camera views not shown at the time.
 
aerostadt said:
Some really big plans for orbiting StarShip are coming up.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/13/spacex-first-orbital-starship-rocket-flight-plan-revealed.html
Click to expand...

Wow. It’s kind of amazing how fast they are moving, but I’m over being surprised. It sounds like the first orbital test for Starship will be part of the first flight test for the Superheavy booster. Two birds, one stone, I guess. It also sounds like both the booster and the Starship are going to “land” in the ocean. So it seems there is no intention to reuse them, and the main goal is getting data you can’t get any other way. Maybe there’s too much risk involved with trying to land an untested booster that size on the landing pad, and landing a starship after re-entry. I’m very excited to see this test!
 
So why the boostback burn on CRS-22? The reentry profile looked a bit different too - max velocity just before reentry burn quite a bit lower.
 
From: https://www.space.com/spacex-sirius-sxm-8-satellite-launch-webcast

A two-stage Falcon 9 rocket flight is scheduled to take off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station here in Florida. Liftoff is expected at 12:26 a.m. EDT (0426 GMT) during a one-hour 59-minute window.

Perched atop the 230-foot-tall (70 meters) Falcon 9 is the high-powered Sirius XM-8 (SXM-8) satellite built by Maxar Technologies for Sirius XM. It's the second of two radio satellites launched by SpaceX for the company as part of an effort to replace outdated ones currently in orbit.

You'll be able to watch the launch on this page, as well as here and on the Space.com homepage, courtesy of SpaceX, once a webcast is available. You can also watch directly from SpaceX here about 15 minutes before liftoff.
 
Sooner Boomer said:
From: https://www.space.com/spacex-sirius-sxm-8-satellite-launch-webcast

A two-stage Falcon 9 rocket flight is scheduled to take off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station here in Florida. Liftoff is expected at 12:26 a.m. EDT (0426 GMT) during a one-hour 59-minute window.

Perched atop the 230-foot-tall (70 meters) Falcon 9 is the high-powered Sirius XM-8 (SXM-8) satellite built by Maxar Technologies for Sirius XM. It's the second of two radio satellites launched by SpaceX for the company as part of an effort to replace outdated ones currently in orbit.

You'll be able to watch the launch on this page, as well as here and on the Space.com homepage, courtesy of SpaceX, once a webcast is available. You can also watch directly from SpaceX here about 15 minutes before liftoff.
Click to expand...
I’d love to be a Sirius XM DJ but the commute would be pricey.
 
Bumped until tomorrow because there may have been a plane in the area. If that's true the pilot definitely was not following his approved flight path. I wonder how much trouble he'll get into?
 

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