Slashdot Mirror
SpaceX Launch Achieves Geostationary Transfer Orbit
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket this afternoon in a bid to deliver a large commercial satellite into geostationary orbit. The flight was successful: "Approximately 185 seconds into flight, Falcon 9’s second stage’s single Merlin vacuum engine ignited to begin a five minute, 20 second burn that delivered the SES-8 satellite into its parking orbit. Eighteen minutes after injection into the parking orbit, the second stage engine relit for just over one minute to carry the SES-8 satellite to its final geostationary transfer orbit. The restart of the Falcon 9 second stage is a requirement for all geostationary transfer missions." This is a significant milestone for SpaceX, and it fulfills another of the three objectives set forth by the U.S. Air Force to certify SpaceX flights for National Security Space missions.
More national security bullshit.
The media is totally biased in its coverage... the old-space industry launches satellites all the time. Yet, when SpaceX does it, there is an endless stream of news articles announcing the fact. When will the media stop ganging up and play fair?
The United States relies too much on ULA for its space-launch, ULA has easily raised its price and the tax-payers ended up having to cough up the dough.
FTFY. This is the first commercial satellite launched in the US since November 23, 2009 when Intelsat 14 launched on an Atlas V from LC-41.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
> What if one day Russia or Iran or China ends up owning SpaceX ?
What if one day large corporations could pay-off american politicians, on a large and wide scale, with many people knowing it happens. And those people end up determining how the country is run?
We both know that already happens, and *this* is what your worried about?
What does it even matter if Russia or the Chinese own SpaceX, they dont, but who cares. They have their own space agencies... ones that actually still operate.
that existing space providers are in big trouble.
Even the Chinese are quaking in their boots, as they can't do it as cheaply as SpaceX. And EADS is frantically redesigning their new Ariane 6 to try to be more cost competitive with the Falcon.
SpaceX has completely rocked the space industry upside down, and A LOT of naysayers need to eat crow now. As recently as 2012 (see this article), managers at NASA were poo-pooing Elon saying rockets are hard and noobs shouldn't try.
Doubtful. For services of this kind, who else is able to pay and needs these services? There are a few, but losing US contracts would kill them.
This is more akin to the mutually beneficial relationship between China and US sovereign debt. Sure, they could divest, but *where*, exactly, would they get a safer investment vehicle? The only reason one party would pull out is for non-economic reasons, because it sure isn't beneficial to do so.
No one wins if SpaceX starts trying to milk the US too hard. And in the end, the US government could always play the national security card with the IP and incubate another company or bring it back inhouse.
What's the alternative? The majority extorting funds from the minority?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Well it's not like it hasn't already happened.
*tskcentralbanks*
Wow, who do you work for? Lockheed Martin? Boeing? The US has plenty contractors on hand for cost-plus contracts. And if all else fails I'm sure ESA would give you Ariane rockets for a price. And worst case if everyone had collective amnesia you should be able to pull off an Apollo program much faster and cheaper today than in the 60s. And when it really comes down to it the real "space" war is still 99% ICBMs, which I doubt the military will forget how to make. The ISS isn't exactly critical defense infrastructure.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I claim that it really is bullshit. People with power can do anything they want and get away with it in the name of national security.. There is no oversight and no accountability. It is completely orthogonal to anything related to democracy.. The world today is based on corruption and secrecy, not democracy and openness. Why are we feeding our children with lies about how the world works? Why don't we tell them the truth? Where are the school books that teach how elections are REALLY won, how to REALLY get a job and how to REALLY succeed?
And don't give me yet another "Oh, but that's how it's always been".
And that would be different than having Boeing build rockets and planes and so on, how exactly?
Even in your crazy scenarios there are a bunch of obvious options:
The US denies the sale to Russia or Iran or China - just like they have always done with sales and mergers that impact national security.
The US nationalizes SpaceX.
The US dusts off its old NASA stuff and goes from there.
SpaceX could easily raise its price 100-fold and the tax-payers will end up having to cough up the dough.
What the heck are you talking about? Why would Boing or Lockheed (the current owners of the US govt launch monopoly) be and different? How is *more* competition from SpaceX going to lead to price increases and fewer options?
What if one day Russia or Iran or China ends up owning SpaceX ?
And what if some day Russia or Iran of China owns General Dynamics, Lockheed, Honeywell, Northrup, etc? Then those companies will no longer be US defense contractors, and others will *happily* step up to take over their cushy multibillion dollar cost-overrun laden US military contracts. So it's a totally absurd concern that would be no different 30 years ago than it is today.
When your #1 customer spends more than the rest of the world combined, you don't piss them off.
Merlin vacuum engine ignited to begin a five minute, 20 second burn that delivered the SES-8
A 20 second burn that lasted 5 minutes - truly awesome.
I thought they were going to try controlled descents with each Falcon launch. Anyone see a reference to this? Couldn't find any news.
A day or so ago there was a discussion about whether amateurs could do real science. The consensus among professional researchers was that no amateur could do significant research without first getting an advanced degree.
One poster challenged the readers to give an example of an amateur scientist who had contributed in a meaningful way to an existing field of study.
Elon Musk has a BSc. in physics. Does this count?
(Or is this more engineering than science? Or maybe he's more of a bank-roller than a scientist?)
30-50 billion for SLS with 2-4B / launch to send 70 tonnes to LEO.
... Really?
1B / year subsidy for ULA and they are incapable of launching private sats because they are far too expensive.
And you worry about SpaceX taking over out gov.
Yes, SpaceX is cheap, and yes, they could trivially match the Indian Mars probe price. You know how I know that? The Price Sheet says a Falcon 9 launch is $56.5 million. Leaving plenty of slack to build a little Mars probe. Considering a ULA launch costs literally 10 times as much, cheap is an understatement.
They've been profitable for 5 years and their price has never been higher than that. Since they're profitable, they're obviously not loss leaders. Why would it go up now? Especially considering SpaceX has already won the lucrative government contract that was available, namely Space Station resupply.
But no, the Chinese are not quaking in their boots. Long March rockets do cost more to build than Falcons, probably a lot more, but the Chinese don't care. They're building them for national pride, not customers, and they're damn well going to make absolutely certain they work, no matter how much it costs. They have to.
I am sure that the fact that India is manipulating their money relative to others has absolutely NOTHING to do with it (it SHOULD be about 30 rupee to $1, but it is 63 to $1). BTW, it was $74 million that was spent on it.
Likewise, MOM is a 1.3 metric tonne orbiting satellite, of which less than 15 kgs is devoted to the actual 5 simple instruments that were provided by other nations. Compare that to 2.5 tonnes maven with 65 kg devoted to 8 complex instruments, all produced in USA.
In addition, it is a near certainty that NASA's sat WILL work, while it is less than 33% chance of India's actually working.
And as to spaceX vs India, India's PSLV launches 3 tonnes into LEO at a costs of 17 million. SpaceX charges 56M for their falcon 9 which launches ~17 tonnes into LEO. So, SpaceX is already cheaper than India's most successful launch vehicle. However, SpaceX will be able to drop their f9 costs in half or more within 2 years due to grasshopper, and probably another 50% due to f9 and fh moving into heavy production.
Finally, India still does not have a successful mid-size launch system. Their GSLV has had more than a few issues, and that is with making heavy use of Russian tech and engineers.
quite sucking on gass.
1 - Lockheed Martin and Boeing aren't forbidden from participating in the new truly competitive launch market. They just need to truly compete, instead of resting on their laurels, innovating at snails pace.
2 - There's Orbital Sciences two.
3 - Doesn't ITAR prevents SpaceX from being sold to the Chinese or Russians ?
This looks like a bunch of goons paid by ULA to smear SpaceX.
And guess what, you're not succeeding.
Each Space Shuttle launch cost (wasted) US$ 1,3 billion.
SpaceX total cost to date was a little more than a single Space Shuttle launch, and they already did what 4 Space Shuttle launches couldn't do !
There's no national security if the USA is broke, buried in debt.
I look forward to Congress hearings on why ULA launches are soooo expensive !
I remember congress preventing middle eastern interest from purchasing a couple of east coast ports.
If they can prevent sale of ports, then why couldn't they prevent sale of a company that produces ITAR protected equipment ?
If the US govt can't be trusted to step in, then it can't be trusted for launching their rockets.
... but about losing its cargo.
While SpaceX might be able to afford that (and perhaps even an insurance covers the loss of the launch vehicle _and_ the payload) the customer might not be in the position to replace it at all (or in a timely manner).
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Areyoukiddingme: Are you kidding me?
Yes, SpaceX is cheap, and yes, they could trivially match the Indian Mars probe price
Forget about the Indians, how about SpaceX pricematching the Russians.
SpaceX is getting paid $1.6billion for 12 flights to the ISS, that's 133million per flight.
SpaceX has only delivered 1,000LB per flight.
The Russians will deliver 5,000LB for the same $133million.
SpaceX is the most overpriced, overhyped taxpayer blackhole right now.
For all you haters, member Areyoukiddingme knows of what he speaks, you need to pay attention and respect him.
But no, the Chinese are not quaking in their boots. Long March rockets do cost more to build than Falcons, probably a lot more, but the Chinese don't care. They're building them for national pride, not customers, and they're damn well going to make absolutely certain they work, no matter how much it costs. They have to.
Some readers here might not have a PHD in rocket science like Areyoukiddingme so I'll dumb it down for you guys.
Do you not realize it cost Nissan probably a lot more than $100,000 (price of a Tesla S) to produce the nerdy Nissan Leaf, but Japanese pride compelled them to sell it at a huge loss at $30,000 retail?
Just between you and me, what's the deal with these small penis asians and their pride that they're willing to lose their shirt to look good?
Much better than ULA that already holds the US government hostage to the tune of one billion US$ per year.
It's not called ransom by the US government, but anyone looking at it with an open mind should reach the conclusion it is ransom !
The requirement should be that any launch services supplier must make no more than 50% of launch revenues from US govt launches, and keep at a minimum two completely independent suppliers (as in a CARTEL together like Boeing and Lockheed).
PS: This criteria is taylor made to force ULA to crash and burn.