SpaceX - Tests, Launches, Developments

zanl188 · Sun Jan 21, 2018 8:15 pm

JetBuddy wrote:

Geosynchronous moon orbit in a postition towards the earth would make sure we always could communicate. Any other position would require satellites in orbit around the moon, but that might be something we should do anyway.

But as far as I understand, the proposed moon space station will act as a refueling / resupply / slingshot / crew quarters station for future Mars mission. But I could be wrong.

If I’m not mistaken the Earth already occupies the geostationary moon orbit.

Isn’t there leading and trailing LaGrange points for the Moons orbit? That might work better with a 2 or 3 satellite system.

aviationaware · Sun Jan 21, 2018 9:27 pm

JetBuddy wrote:
aviationaware wrote:
Regarding the idea of a space station in a moon orbit vs a geostationary orbit, wouldn't a geosynchronous orbit not be much better with regards to radiation and overall reachability?

Geosynchronous moon orbit in a postition towards the earth

How would that work? Like, an L1 point location?

JetBuddy · Mon Jan 22, 2018 12:06 am

zanl188 wrote:
If I’m not mistaken the Earth already occupies the geostationary moon orbit.

Isn’t there leading and trailing LaGrange points for the Moons orbit? That might work better with a 2 or 3 satellite system.

aviationaware wrote:
How would that work? Like, an L1 point location?

I'm no rocket scientist, but basically yes like an LaGrange 1 point. It might not be the right position for it, depending on what exactly the use for the space station of course. It's still a bit unclear.

If the point of the Lunar Space Station is to refuel / resupply and slingshot a Mars mission, it would make much more sense to have the station orbit the moon. Easier to catch up to it on arrival, and then slingshot out again when leaving. But then we would probably need 2 or 3 lunar comms satelllites as well.

MatthewDB · Mon Jan 22, 2018 12:44 am

How does the delta-V work out compared to all of the options? Geosynchronous orbit sucks, it takes a load of delta-V to circularize the orbit, and when you leave it takes a bunch to get to escape. That's part of the benefit to a lunar orbit or a lunar base, the moon helps capture and adds energy. I have no idea what L1 does going into it and to exit.

mxaxai · Mon Jan 22, 2018 8:09 am

JetBuddy wrote:
I'm no rocket scientist, but basically yes like an LaGrange 1 point. It might not be the right position for it, depending on what exactly the use for the space station of course. It's still a bit unclear.

Right now it is supposed to serve as a gateway between earth and moon and also replace the ISS as the international microgravity research center. That might change inn the future, though.

KarelXWB · Mon Jan 22, 2018 8:12 am

Well, FH static fire test may now slip into February:

The Jan. 20 suspension of non-essential U.S. government services will prevent SpaceX from conducting a long-awaited engine test of its new triple-core Falcon Heavy rocket at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

parapente · Mon Jan 22, 2018 8:48 am

Thx Karel.Shame but expected.
Regarding an orbiting Moon station.I can't see - from a refuling to Mars POV - why you would want to lug the fuel all the way out there.Must be far easier to do it in Earth orbit ( and quicker) no?
Spacex have ( I believe) said that the BFR could go to the moon ,land and take off for Earth return without the need for Lunar refuling.
If there was a need it would be after Earth T/O I would imagine.
But no doubt you could create a Bigelow style moon orbiting station if required.But not sure of the need.

moo · Mon Jan 22, 2018 9:17 am

parapente wrote:
Thx Karel.Shame but expected.
Regarding an orbiting Moon station.I can't see - from a refuling to Mars POV - why you would want to lug the fuel all the way out there.Must be far easier to do it in Earth orbit ( and quicker) no?
Spacex have ( I believe) said that the BFR could go to the moon ,land and take off for Earth return without the need for Lunar refuling.
If there was a need it would be after Earth T/O I would imagine.
But no doubt you could create a Bigelow style moon orbiting station if required.But not sure of the need.

It makes sense if you get the fuel from the moon, rather than the earth...

The moon has good reserves of water, so mining fuel in situ and shipping it to lunar orbit means it's a lot cheaper than shipping it from the earth.

ZaphodHarkonnen · Mon Jan 22, 2018 9:50 am

Something that just came to mind with the US government shutdown. Looking at the schedule there are two commercial launches next month. It will be interesting to watch the shutdown and if this then impacts SpaceX's future launch opportunities.

Yes I know I'm coming perilously close to politics here but this could have a huge impact on SpaceX's operations if the shutdown goes on for more than a couple of weeks.

It isn't like they have a launch facility that does not make use of US federal government services.

parapente · Mon Jan 22, 2018 10:46 am

MKes good sense Moo if they can find this wTer in craters where the sun don't shine!
Btw did you see the articles last week on the huge amounts ( frozen layers) of water that they think they have spotted at 'normal' middle latitudes on Mars.These places would obviously become prime targets for early landing sites.

Trololzilla · Mon Jan 22, 2018 9:32 pm

ZaphodHarkonnen wrote:
Looking at the schedule there are two commercial launches next month. It will be interesting to watch the shutdown and if this then impacts SpaceX's future launch opportunities.

Yes I know I'm coming perilously close to politics here but this could have a huge impact on SpaceX's operations if the shutdown goes on for more than a couple of weeks.

It isn't like they have a launch facility that does not make use of US federal government services.

Yeah, I'm not sure they'd be able to launch even with the Boca Chica facility completed. Wouldn't they still have to get permission for each launch from the FAA, which is a 'nonessential' service they provide, I'm assuming?. Anyone know for sure if this is the case?

MatthewDB · Tue Jan 23, 2018 1:59 am

ZaphodHarkonnen wrote:
Something that just came to mind with the US government shutdown. Looking at the schedule there are two commercial launches next month. It will be interesting to watch the shutdown and if this then impacts SpaceX's future launch opportunities.

Well the good news is it looks like it was a 1 workday shutdown. Bad news is the prediction that this might not be the first. It will be interesting to see how much the ripple effect is.

ZaphodHarkonnen wrote:
Yes I know I'm coming perilously close to politics here but this could have a huge impact on SpaceX's operations if the shutdown goes on for more than a couple of weeks.

In general, this seems like a great, non-confrontational thread. So long as people are sticking on topic: how it affects Space, and away from pointing fingers, castigating blame, and name calling, it is on topic.

ZaphodHarkonnen wrote:
It isn't like they have a launch facility that does not make use of US federal government services.

That will be another advantage of the South Texas launch site. The public land is owned by the State of Texas and I'm sure they're interested in keeping the bringer of jobs to the area happy.

MatthewDB · Tue Jan 23, 2018 2:24 am

parapente wrote:
Thx Karel.Shame but expected.
Regarding an orbiting Moon station.I can't see - from a refuling to Mars POV - why you would want to lug the fuel all the way out there.Must be far easier to do it in Earth orbit ( and quicker) no?
Spacex have ( I believe) said that the BFR could go to the moon ,land and take off for Earth return without the need for Lunar refuling.
If there was a need it would be after Earth T/O I would imagine.
But no doubt you could create a Bigelow style moon orbiting station if required.But not sure of the need.

The fact that there is so little delta-V to go from the moon to mars is the feature that makes the moon station attractive. What you can do is lob lots of equipment up to the moon, taking the time needed to get it there. What you don't need much of is the fuel as the extra delta-V to go to the Mars transfer orbit is small. Equipment stores well, fuel doesn't as much.

"Back home safe" when you have a lunar base is a much easier capture. Your interplanetary space vehicle can be left in lunar orbit until it heads back to Mars instead of coming back to LEO.

casinterest · Tue Jan 23, 2018 2:18 pm

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ite-s-loss

Looks like the Air Force is still ok with Spacex after Zuma mission. Seems to indicate whatever went wrong, it probably wasn't with the rocket.

JetBuddy · Tue Jan 23, 2018 5:13 pm

casinterest wrote:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-22/spacex-keeps-u-s-air-force-s-confidence-after-satellite-s-loss

Looks like the Air Force is still ok with Spacex after Zuma mission. Seems to indicate whatever went wrong, it probably wasn't with the rocket.

I don't think it was lost at all, or that anything went wrong. But regardless, it's good to see that the Air Force has confidence in SpaceX.

QuarkFly · Wed Jan 24, 2018 6:31 pm

Well, they performed the FH static fire -- nothing looks like it exploded!...ten second burn ...

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/01/09/f ... parations/

casinterest · Wed Jan 24, 2018 6:41 pm

QuarkFly wrote:
Well, they performed the FH static fire -- nothing looks like it exploded!...ten second burn ...

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/01/09/f ... parations/

Nice.

Can't wait to see when the schedule the launch.

KarelXWB · Wed Jan 24, 2018 6:58 pm

Done & done

SeaKing4 · Wed Jan 24, 2018 7:01 pm

Falcon Heavy Static fire video. https://www.pscp.tv/w/1OyJAdZqNjzGb?t=2 Fast forward to 16 minutes.

KarelXWB · Wed Jan 24, 2018 7:28 pm

Well, they didn't blew up the launch pad. Must have been quite the bang.

12:30pm Jan. 24, 2018 | The first Falcon Heavy static fire rumbled the Earth here at our location 3 miles away!! 3-Falcon 9 cores, 27 engines, 5 million lbs. thrust! It was reported to be heard 30 miles North of this location.

Tugger · Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:10 pm

I like what Musk had to say (especially the last part):

Falcon Heavy hold-down firing this morning was good. Generated quite a thunderhead of steam.
Launching in a week or so.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/956233892637286400

Tugg

SeaKing4 · Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:43 pm

And another video this time from Spacex’s Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/p/BeV6tOhFUor ... -by=spacex

moo · Wed Jan 24, 2018 9:59 pm

Excellent - now, onto the next step

Not long until my prediction of "no sooner than February" is met. Would be happy to be shown to be wrong on this one.

parapente · Wed Jan 24, 2018 10:47 pm

Great hors d'oeuvre.Looking forward to the main course!

KarelXWB · Thu Jan 25, 2018 9:08 am

Tugger wrote:
I like what Musk had to say (especially the last part):
Falcon Heavy hold-down firing this morning was good. Generated quite a thunderhead of steam.
Launching in a week or so.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/956233892637286400

Tugg

With 3 more launches in the coming weeks (SES-16, Paz & Hispasat), that's quite a busy schedule. Either FH launches before January 30, otherwise the first week of February is more likely.

moo · Thu Jan 25, 2018 10:25 am

KarelXWB wrote:
Tugger wrote:
I like what Musk had to say (especially the last part):
Falcon Heavy hold-down firing this morning was good. Generated quite a thunderhead of steam.
Launching in a week or so.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/956233892637286400

Tugg

With 3 more launches in the coming weeks (SES-16, Paz & Hispasat), that's quite a busy schedule. Either FH launches before January 30, otherwise the first week of February is more likely.

SpaceFlightNow already have it as "February"...

casinterest · Thu Jan 25, 2018 2:24 pm

moo wrote:
SpaceFlightNow already have it as "February"...

They have had it at February since last week. However I think that is the likely scenario. Maybe instead of a Flyby for the Super Bowl, they can show a Falcon Heavy launch.

tommy1808 · Thu Jan 25, 2018 5:30 pm

KarelXWB wrote:
For reference, Space Shuttle had a Loss of Mission rate of 1 to 90. And while I don't have the official number for Soyuz, it had 16 failures out of 140 missions (thus 1 to 9).

Not quite, Soyuz had 2 fatal (!) accidents, as had the space Shuttle. In both Soyuz cases a repeat of the same failure would not have been fatal on follow-on missions, in both Space Shuttle cases a repeat would have been just as fatal as the first time. Well, probably a slight chance to survive a Challenger repeat.

The burocracy is probably about the same, but if you have 100+ real missions with error logs to use to proof the 1:270 reliability is probably quite simple.

Best regards
Thomas

Tugger · Thu Jan 25, 2018 8:40 pm

tommy1808 wrote:
The burocracy is probably about the same, but if you have 100+ real missions with error logs to use to proof the 1:270 reliability is probably quite simple.

One thing we don't know is where the 270 number came from. Also you could have a design failure rate of 1:270 and still have the first three launches fail. (Not that the program would ever be allowed to proceed beyond those failures but statistics are funny things)

Tugg

tommy1808 · Fri Jan 26, 2018 5:53 am

Tugger wrote:
tommy1808 wrote:
The burocracy is probably about the same, but if you have 100+ real missions with error logs to use to proof the 1:270 reliability is probably quite simple.

One thing we don't know is where the 270 number came from. Also you could have a design failure rate of 1:270 and still have the first three launches fail. (Not that the program would ever be allowed to proceed beyond those failures but statistics are funny things)

Tugg

Probably simply a negotiated, but quite arbitrary number. If the Space industry wants to grow up, fatality rates have to get on the order of 1:10.000, just like for people working in other potentially catastrophic work environments have.

I could also imagine that the 1:270 rate is designed to keep there average annual career risk of an astronaut at or better than 1:1000/year, which is about as dangerous a job can get without your employer getting into too much hot water as long as all safety standards are met.

best regards
Thomas

77west · Fri Jan 26, 2018 8:16 am

I think the problem is space flight will never, for many, many years, approach the level of safety of commercial aviation. There is just way too much to go wrong when you have 8 minutes to accelerate to 27,000km\h on a vehicle thats paper (OK, cardboard) thin and carrying more than 80% of it mass in highly flammable cryogenic propellants.

The preflight announcement should read "In the reasonably likely event of a rapid unscheduled disassembly, escape path lighting will be provided automatically by the 500 tons of liquid propellant and oxidizer exploding in a giant fireball. Thank you for choosing SpaceX, we know you had the choice"

That said - If they offered me a ride on a Falcon 9, I would sign the liability waivers in a heartbeat.

WIederling · Fri Jan 26, 2018 5:39 pm

Tugger wrote:
tommy1808 wrote:
The burocracy is probably about the same, but if you have 100+ real missions with error logs to use to proof the 1:270 reliability is probably quite simple.

One thing we don't know is where the 270 number came from. Also you could have a design failure rate of 1:270 and still have the first three launches fail. (Not that the program would ever be allowed to proceed beyond those failures but statistics are funny things)

Soyuz shew "infant mortality". The Fatals were all grouped in the early project phase.
Shuttle "unexpected failures" ( in theory. The O-ring failure was an accident with "I told you so", shit ).
Indicative of a system that had lost focus.

casinterest · Fri Jan 26, 2018 10:12 pm

Feb 6th Falcon Heavy is tentatively scheduled, with a backup window on Feb 7

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-falcon ... r-payload/

DigitalSea · Sun Jan 28, 2018 2:33 am

I'm so happy to see SpaceX doing so well. I believe the more we are able to reach out and touch the universe, the smaller our problems and differences here on Earth will become.

Tugger · Tue Jan 30, 2018 3:00 pm

Next SpaceX launch is today, Jan. 30, at 4:25 p.m. EST (21:25 GMT).

This is the launch of the GovSat-1 communications satellite and is using a "flight proven" F9 booster. The booster launched the NROL-76 last year on May 1, 2017 and there will be no booster return today as it was only designed to fly twice.

Link to view the launch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScYUA51-POQ

Tugg

JetBuddy · Tue Jan 30, 2018 4:51 pm

Tugger wrote:
Next SpaceX launch is today, Jan. 30, at 4:25 p.m. EST (21:25 GMT).

This is the launch of the GovSat-1 communications satellite and is using a "flight proven" F9 booster. The booster launched the NROL-76 last year on May 1, 2017 and there will be no booster return today as it was only designed to fly twice.

Link to view the launch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScYUA51-POQ

Tugg

Thanks for the info, looking forward to the launch. Interesting that they will not return the booster because it was built to fly only twice. One would think that salvaging the Merlin engines would be profitable, but this means that the refurbishment of 9 Merlins (and other booster components) that have been flown twice each is more costly than building new ones. I'm guessing this will change with the Block 5 boosters.

Regarding the Ariane launch discussion, it's very interesting information - but maybe we should create a (or find an ancient) space launch thread for ULA, RocketLab, Ariane and so on?

ZaphodHarkonnen · Tue Jan 30, 2018 5:59 pm

The idea is the reuse will not require rebuilding of the engines. As that takes time and effort and thus money. When it's cheaper to just churn out a new one on the existing production line. The earlier engines just don't have the design and build of the later ones that have been tweaked to explicitly support this usage.

SeaKing4 · Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:55 pm

Tugger wrote:
Next SpaceX launch is today, Jan. 30, at 4:25 p.m. EST (21:25 GMT).

This is the launch of the GovSat-1 communications satellite and is using a "flight proven" F9 booster. The booster launched the NROL-76 last year on May 1, 2017 and there will be no booster return today as it was only designed to fly twice.

Link to view the launch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScYUA51-POQ

Tugg

Today’s launch is off. They need to replace a sensor in stage 2. The SpaceX FB page says they will try again tomorrow.

Tugger · Tue Jan 30, 2018 10:38 pm

Does anyone have a guesstimate as to how much a delay, a one day delay for the sake of argument, costs?

Tugg

Nomadd · Wed Jan 31, 2018 3:44 am

I've seen this thing about Block 3 boosters only being designed to fly twice in a dozen places now, and like most commonly accepted facts, it's completely wrong. There's no need to fly any of them more than twice because they have plenty of once flown used boosters to take them to Block 5. It's getting to the point where Block 5 boosters will be flying by the time they could refurbish Block 3s that flew now. A lot of customers still want new boosters for now, but that will change in a year or two if the used ones keep performing.

WIederling · Wed Jan 31, 2018 9:58 am

Nomadd wrote:
I've seen this thing about Block 3 boosters only being designed to fly twice in a dozen places now, and like most commonly accepted facts, it's completely wrong. There's no need to fly any of them more than twice because they have plenty of once flown used boosters to take them to Block 5. It's getting to the point where Block 5 boosters will be flying by the time they could refurbish Block 3s that flew now. A lot of customers still want new boosters for now, but that will change in a year or two if the used ones keep performing.

Any idea of where Space X is on their path
between
"costly Shuttle Orbiter like refurbish"
and
"dust off, run a system check and refuel"

are?

parapente · Wed Jan 31, 2018 12:17 pm

Reuse.Its a good question.They have remained tight lipped on that.However being positive.They have now flown 'flight proven' F9's a number of times with more to come.By now one imagines they have spotted all the weak points and incorporated it all into Block5.

Having said that Block5 is going to be asked to refly many times -so will go into the unknown after the first2/3 flights.Whether any new areas of 'wear' start to crop up I don't suppose Even they know.
But I guess either way it should not be a problem as they can always make some new ones if necessary.
They must have got building F9's to a fine art by now.
Obviously the Russians have the most knowledge about one specific rocket (it's been flying 50 years!) but It terms of actual launches the F9 has got to be moving up the charts fairly rapidly with the incredible past,present and future bookings schedule.

KarelXWB · Wed Jan 31, 2018 1:31 pm

We should find out soon. Rumor has it that Block 5 should fly in April.

Tugger · Wed Jan 31, 2018 2:52 pm

Nomadd wrote:
I've seen this thing about Block 3 boosters only being designed to fly twice in a dozen places now, and like most commonly accepted facts, it's completely wrong.

Source?

My thoughts are that they were only designed to refly once (fly twice) because they had to be if SpaceX was going to actually test for booster return and landing and then relaunch of a used booster. In my mind, the best lowest cost path to this would be to design the booster to fly twice and no more (to keep costs down) and then through inspection find out where the wear and tear occurs and use that map for the next block design.

Tugg

Tugger · Wed Jan 31, 2018 8:26 pm

One hour till the next launch attempt starts!

Tugg

QuarkFly · Wed Jan 31, 2018 8:41 pm

I was wondering about the Texas launch site that was in the news a few years ago and supposed to be launching commercial satellites by now? SpaceX seemed to have gone quiet about it. But, picked up some recent tidbits...I appreciate what SpaceX does...but let's not forget how much tax-payer funding supports them...

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/tec ... te-funding

So SpaceX will eventually have at least four launch pads, two in Florida, one in California and at least one in Texas. Does start to look expensive unless they can maintain a launch rate to support all this infrastructure...and will Texas really happen if the taxpayers don't play along? We'll see.

Trololzilla · Wed Jan 31, 2018 9:45 pm

Successful liftoff of GovSat-1. Stage 2 is in the coast phase as of now, but looks good. Congratulations on another refurbished launch!

QuarkFly wrote:
I was wondering about the Texas launch site that was in the news a few years ago and supposed to be launching commercial satellites by now? SpaceX seemed to have gone quiet about it. But, picked up some recent tidbits...I appreciate what SpaceX does...but let's not forget how much tax-payer funding supports them...

I suspect that Boca Chica has been on SpaceX's backburner for some time now as they work on ramping up launch cadence (after also dealing with the Amos-6 investigation), engineering and introducing the B5 Falcon 9s, engineering and introducing the Falcon Heavy, and engineering and introducing the Dragon 2. I imagine that the Texas site will see a considerable increase in time and monetary investment later on this year once most of those projects begin wrapping up (more or less).

Don't forget that the Boca Chica facility has also needed extensive ground reinforcement/soil preparation due to the ground being less stable than expected. They don't have any launches planned from there till at least next year; I suspect SpaceX can get it up and running (at least in a reduced capacity) by sometime in 2019. We'll see though.

SeJoWa · Wed Jan 31, 2018 11:24 pm

Successful deployment to GTO confirmed: https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/958822086700539904

Yay! More moolah in the kitty, congratulations SpaceX! Multiple-use rockets are a regular occurrence now.

ZaphodHarkonnen · Thu Feb 01, 2018 12:28 am

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/958847818583584768

This rocket was meant to test very high retrothrust landing in water so it didn’t hurt the droneship, but amazingly it has survived. We will try to tow it back to shore.

So even though they weren't planning to recover the booster. The test they did still managed to soft land the booster in the ocean. So they're now looking at towing it back in.

Bloody show offs. I love it. ^_^

zanl188 · Thu Feb 01, 2018 12:36 am

ZaphodHarkonnen wrote:
So even though they weren't planning to recover the booster. The test they did still managed to soft land the booster in the ocean. So they're now looking at towing it back in.

"Where's the Ka-Boom? There's supposed to be an Earth Shattering Ka-Boom!"

Congrats SpaceX!

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