SpaceX--Spacecraft, rockets, and Mars

[SpaceChampion]

For the rest of us, here's the webcast link:

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

That was cool.  I wish it was a landing mission but neat to see regardless.

[SerHaHa]

Falcon 9 launch to the ISS for a resup mission is about 1.5 hours out, it's live on Space's website as well as Youtube. 

[SpaceChampion]

Scrubbed until Saturday due to weather.

[SpaceChampion]

Technical webcast:

Hosted webcast:

 

[SpaceChampion]

Beautiful launch and landing.  The Dragon is in the sky and headed to the space station.  This marks the first re-use of a previously flown Dragon capsule, which is another milestone in SpaceX's quest for full reusability.

In terms of payloads, this is more than just food and water and the usual resupply mission.  Dragon is delivering the NICER instrument that uses the Shapiro delay effect (light slows down near heavy masses like stars) to measure mass & radii of neutron stars; and the SEXTANT instrument to test a new system that derives navigational information from tracking x-ray pulses from pulsars, allowing GPS-like navigation throughout the solar system (and beyond).

In other news, SpaceX is still targetting late summer / early fall for pad SLC-40 to be restored for use, so that's about when the Falcon Heavy will be first test flown.  They want SLC-40 back online before they risk damaging pad 39A if a mishap with the FH happens.

Next scheduled launch is a commercial sat on June 15th for Bulgaria.

 

ALSO:  Word is SpaceX is selling deliveries to Mars at $2M/kg.  There is capacity for 700 kg of cargo, but only selling 100 kg of it, as they have their own cargo to get to Mars.  Seems like their starting price is set to be comparable to a very cheap NASA mission (~$300M for an entire Red Dragon).  Makes sense for the first one, if NASA or other space agencies are customers.  But SpaceX can go way cheaper, eventually.  All things considered, it's probably maybe 50% the price of a NASA Discovery class mission?

I don't know how reliable those numbers are though, since previously Musk said Red Dragon can deliver 2-3 tonnes to the surface of Mars.

 

[SerHaHa]

Great launch and landing today.

 

I've been reading about Bigelow Aerospace a lot lately, what with his recent comments about being 100% that ET/UFO/etc are here already.  That aside, his company is building a full sized autonomous space station based on their tech that is already an attached room on the ISS, and plan to be ready to loft it in 3 years in 2020.  A space station without NASA control and classified clamp down on thing already in earth orbit, be interesting times. 

[SpaceChampion]

Meanwhile, up in space...

I think inflatable modules will be great for building stations and bases quickly, but I've heard some grumbling that Bigelow Aerospace isn't a well managed company, and Bob Bigelow makes decisions not on sound engineering, and doesn't listen to his own people.  But that may be sour grapes from an old guard that are scared of the changes happening in the industry.  The inflatable modules work (I think they've had two modules free floating in space, plus the one attached to ISS), and despite what some people have said, they didn't simply take the technology developed by NASA but in fact engineered their own improvements to it.

[drawkcabi]

NASA's Wallops Island launch for this evening scrubbed once again, apparently due to high winds. Looking forward to when they finally are able to launch it, I can see any launch from Wallops Island from my front yard.

[SpaceChampion]

At the Cape the launch of the BulgariaSat-1 was suppose to be today but is not pushed to Friday.  At Vandenburg the next set of Iridium sats are scheduled for launch on Sunday.  Six days after that an Intelsat is scheduled to launch at the Cape (8 days between the previous launch there) making for three launches in 8 days a new record for SpaceX, if schedules hold.

 

[Ghjhero]

So this paper was just published. Fascinating stuff! http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/space.2017.29009.emu?download=true&

[SpaceChampion]

From a reddit thread today: [my edits in brackets]

Quote

So it looks like [SpaceX President] Gwynne Shotwell had an interview today and the folks at the [NASAspaceflight.com] forum summarized it, and I wanted to share it with you.

1- The maiden flight of Falcon Heavy is still scheduled to happen later this year. It seems part of the mission will involve a long coast period for the second stage. The payload on the second flight will be Arabsat-6A early next year, followed by STP-2 after that.

2- There are 3-4 customers that are interested in flying on reused rockets this year.

3-2020 would be "very aggressive" for Mars landing. Not committing to landing a Dragon before new generation vehicle.

4- Apparently there were more people interested in space tourism than they initially expected.

5- They are looking at the utility of using the Raptor on Falcon.

6- Size of the Raptor at full scale will be 2-3 the size of the current subscale version.

7- DM-1, flight abort test and DM-2 are all scheduled for H1 of next year.

8- The Lunar flight will only come after NASA commitments are done (probably 2019+ IMO)

9- The Merlin 1D is rated for 190 klbs thrust, but current version has been tested up to 240 klbs (I'll have to double-check this one).

10- More than 20 rockets will be produced this year with Block 3 reaching the end of the line, Block 4 entering service shortly and Block 5 scheduled to enter service later in the year. (It also seems that it takes just over a year to build 1 F9)

Please keep in mind I've not been able to see the broadcast myself, so there may be a few errors in this summary. Any corrections in the comments would be welcome.

NSF thread with the summaries

Broadcast here somewhere

Cheers!

Quote

Some items from my notes that are not in this thread (yet, as of the start of this comment), or in the NSF summary, plus repeating some that particularly caught my attention:

• Discussion of the planned 48-hours between two flights for this weekend: we ran the numbers, and decided that we would be comfortable with a 24-hour separation - 48 hours should be easier.

• Question on Mars, human factors / medical issues: will SpaceX be doing that or relying on others? We are starting to look at it. However, there are other organizations with a much larger body of data on these issues. We hope to collaborate, but if we have to do it, we will do it. We would prefer to focus on the transportation.

• Falcon heavy should launch this year, toward the end of the year.

• The Falcon Heavy demo flight will demonstrate capabilities for the National Security space launches (including a long coast for the second stage). Side boosters to land on land, center core on the droneship.

• The interest in reflown F9 boosters has been better than expected.

• Block 5 should be easy to reuse a dozen or so times. A lot of the active components (valves) are qualified for much higher levels and longer durations, and there are a number of improvements to Merlin.

• The first astronauts on Dragon 2 will be NASA astronauts. Don't see a current need for SpaceX astronauts. However, there has been a lot of interest in paid private flights around the moon and to LEO - can be a viable business. SpaceX has to meet its commitments for the Commercial Crew program first, which sets the timeline for the lunar flight.

• Right now only a tiny group is working on Mars. As we get the development work on Block 5 and Commercial Crew done, we will pivot to Mars on a much greater scale.

• There have been dozens of Raptor tests(!) Initially intended for Mars, we are also looking at Raptor's utility for the Falcon program.

• Internet satellite constellation - see the FCC filings for details. It's a project we're working on the side - need to develop a lot of technology.

• Hiring is department by department - depends on what each department feels it needs. In addition to technical jobs, SpaceX hires people in finance, HR, media, marketing, governmental affairs and attorneys, and has a lot of technical writers.

• Block 5 will indeed increase thrust above the rating on the web page, to 190,000 pounds.

• Initially, Elon was not sold on nuclear propulsion - his position may have changed somewhat. SpaceX is looking at nuclear power sources (not necessarily propulsion).

• I think we'll try to make carbon fiber (tanks) work, though it's not a done deal - not giving up by any stretch.

• Spaceflight is risky, but we should do everything we can reasonably do to make it safe. The folks buying the flights (e.g. NASA) get to pick their safety profile. We design a very robust system, and qualify it to operate in all flight regimes with margin. Some may ask for more analysis, etc.

• Q: What science packages on 2020 Red Dragon? There has been a lot of interest on payloads to carry. Some just branding, others more serious, such as solar and other power generators.

• SpaceX sells services, not rockets (emphatic).

• Block 4 starts shortly, Block 5 at the end of the year.

• We continually hone our landing capability, and are working on landing the fairing. Our landing team is kept very busy.

Overall, a huge number of updates, some of them very important. As noted by others, SpaceX has officially given up on a 2017 DM-1 (updating Hans' comments from CRS-11), though they still hope to get DM-1 plus in-flight abort plus DM-2 all in the first half of 2018.

 

The meaning of #3 above is that there is a chance they'd be ready to send a ITS spaceship to Mars in 2020 instead of a Red Dragon.  Crazy!  SpaceX sure is optimistic!

[SpaceChampion]

BulgariaSat-1 launch delayed one hour, should start 3:10 EST

 

[Altherion]

They managed to land the first stage today, but it was outside of the circle and close to the edge of the ship. I wonder why that happened and if it is within the acceptable margin of error or if they will have to be more careful about bringing the ship back. After all, the ship is not that big so the rocket probably changes its center of mass somewhat.

[SpaceChampion]

I think it came down on fumes, a little toasty.  This was a previously flown first stage, and first one to have landed on both their East and West coast drone ships.  It came down hard and used up most of the crush core in the landing leg closest to the X.  It usually gets one foot on the X, and it's hard to tell but it seems like it did this time too, so not too bad.

It should be fine to travel.  This flight would mark the first use of the robot "octograbber" that looks sort of like a roomba.  I believe they called it the "Optimis Prime".  It'll grab the first stage and secure it better than their regular method of just bolting it to the deck.

Now in about 48 hours their going to try launching the next batch of Iridium sats out of Vandenburg.  Doubleheader weekend looking good!

 

[SpaceChampion]

SpaceX thinks the first stage was slammed by a crosswind coming down, so that's why it touched down quite off-center.  There seemed to be a large wave that slammed the drone ship too.

Today's launch webcast:

 

[SpaceChampion]

Two for two for the weekend doubleheader.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I'm impressed we har video all the way until first stage landing.

[SpaceChampion]

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I'm impressed we har video all the way until first stage landing.

Even that doesn't shut up the conspiracy theorists who claim SpaceX fakes these.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

9 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

Even that doesn't shut up the conspiracy theorists who claim SpaceX fakes these.

They're probably flat Earth wack jobs.