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Space Launches, Landings, and Destinations - SpaceX Thread #3


SpaceChampion

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F9 launch scrubbed due to weather, but in the meantime the Starship test Hopper might be hopping today:

1st attempt:

2nd attempt:
-- Aborted due to higher chamber pressure in the engines resulting from the colder than expected propellant.

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CRS-18 launch on F9 to ISS

 

This one is cool because I have a friend (who once ran for UK parliament on a platform of sending humans to Mars) launching an experiment called BioRock, which uses microbes in order to mine rocks in a reactor with simulated (centrifugal) gravity for the Moon and Mars.

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Starhopper has hopped.  Look at that lovely blue fire and Mach diamonds:

The original Grasshopper flights to test vertical takeout / vertical landing occurred in 2012 and completed about a year later, when remaining VTVL tests were moved to production F9 rockets, for controlled "landings" on the ocean before trying to land on the drone ships. 

The landing part seems to be mastered by SpaceX so Starhopper should proceed quite quickly.  In fact, SpaceX is simultaneously building two Starships already in Texas and Florida teams competing against each other in some capacity  (while passing on lessons learned to each other as well) to race to build the first Starship for orbital test flights as soon as the end of this year.

200m hop in about a week or so.

Elon Musk believes the best case scenario for landing on the moon (uncrewed) and returning to Earth can be done by the end of 2021.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Last flight of a Falcon 9 block 5 booster stage for tonight's AMOS-17 launch:

Booster stage is not landing -- F9 is flying in expendable mode to get to Geosychronous Transfer Orbit.  So this third flight of the first stage will be its last.

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Rocket Lab now looking at reusing boosters https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/114807277/rocket-lab-to-land-electron-rockets-in-sea-and-reuse-them realising you can increase launch frequency and reduce costs. Interesting idea parachuting the booster and catching it with a helicopter. I assume a parachute is the lightest option for a booster recovery system, the question I guess is can it work.

 

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On 8/7/2019 at 7:18 PM, The Anti-Targ said:

Rocket Lab now looking at reusing boosters https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/114807277/rocket-lab-to-land-electron-rockets-in-sea-and-reuse-them realising you can increase launch frequency and reduce costs. Interesting idea parachuting the booster and catching it with a helicopter. I assume a parachute is the lightest option for a booster recovery system, the question I guess is can it work.

 

ULA is doing something similar with their Vulcan rocket they're developing.  Except instead of the whole booster the engines and everything else below the tanks would detach from the structure as a module to be caught by a helicopter.

Unfortunately ULA seems to refuse to use their own money to develop anything entrepreneurially, and is relying on NASA contracts to fund it.  If NASA ever ends funding for it then work on Vulcan would just stop, as far as I can tell.  And it'll be nearly a decade behind SpaceX's first landing of the Falcon 9.

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Somehow I missed this video the from a month ago:   F9 upper stage fairing separation and descent through the atmosphere reminds me of Dave Bowman's journey through the monolith at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

This is so cool.

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Flyover of the Cocoa Beach build site for one of the two Starship Mark 1's being built.

Shiney!

Word is the first segments of the Super Heavy booster (basically a scaled up Falcon 9 first stage with  35 Raptor methalox engines replacing the 9 Merlin kerolox engines) is being welded together.  The first test flights likely won't be a full-up test with a Starship sitting on top of it, nor have the full complement of engines risked on a flight that could go boom.  Testing of Super Heavy could begin late this year, and an orbital flight with Starship could happen early 2020.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Starhopper is approved by the FAA to fly to 150m -- about 50m short of the 200m SpaceX was asking for permission to fly.  No word on what difference that makes or why the FAA cut it down.

But flight should be today unless high winds down in Texas scrubs it.  There is only a 15 minute launch window, I assume to avoid disrupting the locals too much.
 

Primary launch window opens: Monday, August 26 at 21:00 UTC (16:00 CDT).

Primary launch window closes: Monday, August 26 at 21:15 UTC (16:15 CDT).
 

Not sure if there will be a livestream from SpaceX, but "the Everyday Astronaut" will have one.


Also, progress pic of Starship and Super Heavy in Florida:

 

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9 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Starhopper is approved by the FAA to fly to 150m -- about 50m short of the 200m SpaceX was asking for permission to fly.  No word on what difference that makes or why the FAA cut it down.

But flight should be today unless high winds down in Texas scrubs it.  There is only a 15 minute launch window, I assume to avoid disrupting the locals too much.
 

Primary launch window opens: Monday, August 26 at 21:00 UTC (16:00 CDT).

Primary launch window closes: Monday, August 26 at 21:15 UTC (16:15 CDT).
 

Not sure if there will be a livestream from SpaceX, but "the Everyday Astronaut" will have one.


Also, progress pic of Starship and Super Heavy in Florida:

 

Since we're an international forum it would be helpful to specify miles or metres when identifying distances, because to me "150m" means 150 metres. 

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17 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Since we're an international forum it would be helpful to specify miles or metres when identifying distances, because to me "150m" means 150 metres. 

Good, because it is meters.  I'm Canadian, and even in the U.S. it is standard to use metric in technical fields like the space industry.

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3 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Good, because it is meters.  I'm Canadian, and even in the U.S. it is standard to use metric in technical fields like the space industry.

Good to know we're speaking the same language. But I notice that some pop-sci video's still talk in miles, pounds etc, maybe even everyday astronaut sometimes? So I think a lot of people still think in those terms even when it comes to sciency stuff.

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3 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Good to know we're speaking the same language. But I notice that some pop-sci video's still talk in miles, pounds etc, maybe even everyday astronaut sometimes? So I think a lot of people still think in those terms even when it comes to sciency stuff.

Annoying, isn't it?

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