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

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While everyone said that the Eastern Range was capable of doing thus, SpaceX decided instead to launch one on Friday and the second on Saturday.
Based on what was on SpaceX's Twitter feed on December 15th (the only one I look at), it sounded like it was more an internal resource issue at SpaceX that caused them to push the Starlink launch to today. The tweet said "We are prioritizing launch of the O3b mPOWER mission on Friday afternoon, and setting up for launch of Starlink on Saturday, December 17."
 
Fantastic video by US Space Launch Report, of a Falcon-9 launching 1WEB1, on Dec 8th. They used their own long-range camera, to get incredible close-up views including staging, boostback burn, thruster firings, landing burn, and landing.It was launches just after sunset, so the plumes were very visible. Their editing is "different", they begin with staging, while the SpaceX commentary is pre-launch at the time, and intersperse segments, and end up repeating some sequences later, in the order they did happen. In that way, you get to see a lot of neat stuff more than once. Note that for re-entry burns, a F9 ignites the center engine firs,t then two outer ones (plume gets wide linearly), then the two outboards shut down, then the center shuts down (has always been that way, but more obvious (close-up) in this video).

 
I think one is launching today, like in 10 minutes:

 
Falcon Heavy USSF-67 currently set for 5:56pm ET Sunday January 15.
It's going to be clear skies tomorrow night in the NJ area.... Does anyone know which direction they are shooting this thing?? If I run outside at the right moment, I might see a bright speck with some flames visible.
 
It's going to be clear skies tomorrow night in the NJ area.... Does anyone know which direction they are shooting this thing?? If I run outside at the right moment, I might see a bright speck with some flames visible.
From a story about the launch on Spaceflight Now: "The semi-classified mission for the Space Force is designated USSF-67. The Falcon Heavy will head east from Kennedy Space Center to kick off the roughly six-hour ascent to geosynchronous orbit, where the rocket will release its tandem payloads one at a time more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator. In that orbit, the satellites will circle Earth in lock-step with the planet’s rotation."
 
The second stage is surely to be blacked-out. Which is good - we get to see the boosters land full screen! :bravo: 2 are to return to launch site, the new core is to be dumped in the ocean. :(
 
A Falcon Heavy is launching in about 40 minutes.



 
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So they have two boosters landing, which is special, but they only show one booster touching down. :questions:
They were both shown on the landing circles afterward.

With the last Heavy mission, they have started staggering the landings a bit, apparently so the landing radar from one doesn't confuse the other one. The simultaneous ones were cool to watch, but if it's better operationally to separate them by a few seconds, so be it.

That said, I was kind of disappointed we didn't get to see the two of them landing, even if one was touching down while the other one was up a bit, myself.
 
Here is NASA SpaceFlight's coverage. They used a lot of cameras from other people (and their own), that they switched to/from, as well as SpaceX's. Much better views of the "jellyfish" plumes, and booster descents. Those plumes, and side booster Nitrogen RCS "firings", were visible due to the post-sunset launch, with the sunlight lighting it all up while the sky was mostly dark from ground level.

Go to the 1 hour, 22 min, 30 seconds point of the video:



Screenshot of side boosters doing boost-back burn:

jg1Roeb.png
 
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"

SpaceX rocket creates eerie blue spiral in night sky over Hawaii:"​


https://www.space.com/spacex-gps-rocket-launch-spiral-hawaii
Never saw this before! It looks way cool to me! :cool:

1674314374155.png

"space watchers have said the shape arises as the upper stage of the Falcon 9 vents unneeded fuel during its long descent into the ocean. "

"The upper stage was probably spinning on its longest axis to stabilize flight orientation, hence the spiral shape,"
 
A Falcon Heavy is launching in about 40 minutes.





Re-watching the USSF 67 launch w NASASpaceFlight.com commentators. A few things stuck out to me this time.
(I watch launches w sound muted sometimes. They always have to repeat what max Q is or some other mundane detail)

It's not often that I get to hear BECO! :cool:

The brand-new core stage was being ditched in the ocean and one commentor said:
"God's speed booster 1070" 🖖

As the boosters were landing, they mentioned:

"Fire protecting against fire..."

"using exhaust from the engine as a make-shift heat shield"

They caught (live footage - screenshot afterwards below. The video is way cooler) the "Transonic Cones" that, apparently, the boosters make as they go from super to sub sonic!

Falcon9HeavyUSSF67.jpg

The twin "Transonic Cones" are at the top right. Not exactly sure which plume is which, but they were up against the sunset. 😍

The SpaceX drone video footage after landing was pretty cool too! SpaceX sure knows how to bring the experience to us! Wish they would teach NASA that. Like, would love to see Artemis II video 24/7/20ish!
 
SpaceX's Twitter feed says they'll try again tomorrow. It has the usual verbiage about "additional checks" and also says that the weather looks good for tomorrow....so perhaps it was a bit of both.
 
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