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SpaceX Successfully Lands Two Falcon Heavy Boosters Simultaneously After Rocket Launch [Update] (spaceflightnow.com)
After nearly a decade of development, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket has successfully launched from pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida today. After reaching orbit, the two side boosters simultaneously landed at Landing Zone One. We do not know the status of the central core of the rocket, which was destined to land on the "Of Course I Still Love You" drone ship roughly 8:19 minutes into the flight.
According to Space.com, the Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket to launch since NASA's Saturn V -- the iconic vessel that, with 7.5 million pounds of thrust, accomplished the definitive Apollo-era feat of putting astronauts on the moon. Elon Musk says that Falcon Heavy is "twice as powerful as any other booster operating today." As for the payload, it includes a Tesla Roadster electric car. "The Falcon Heavy will send the vehicle around the sun in an elliptical orbit that will extend farther than Mars' orbit," reports Space.com.
UPDATE: SpaceX has confirmed The Verge's reporting that the middle core of SpaceX's Heavy Rocket missed the drone ship where it was supposed to land. "The center core was only able to relight one of the three engines necessary to land, and so it hit the water at 300 miles per hour," reports The Verge. "Two engines on the drone ship were taken out when it crashed, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in a press call after the rocket launch. It's a small hiccup in an otherwise successful first flight."
According to Space.com, the Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket to launch since NASA's Saturn V -- the iconic vessel that, with 7.5 million pounds of thrust, accomplished the definitive Apollo-era feat of putting astronauts on the moon. Elon Musk says that Falcon Heavy is "twice as powerful as any other booster operating today." As for the payload, it includes a Tesla Roadster electric car. "The Falcon Heavy will send the vehicle around the sun in an elliptical orbit that will extend farther than Mars' orbit," reports Space.com.
UPDATE: SpaceX has confirmed The Verge's reporting that the middle core of SpaceX's Heavy Rocket missed the drone ship where it was supposed to land. "The center core was only able to relight one of the three engines necessary to land, and so it hit the water at 300 miles per hour," reports The Verge. "Two engines on the drone ship were taken out when it crashed, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in a press call after the rocket launch. It's a small hiccup in an otherwise successful first flight."
That I had to double-check that I was watching a live stream and not a CGI of what they expected to happen.
It's like they know what they are doing or something over there at Space-X.. Time to make some money!
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Quite amazing to watch the two boosters land simultaneously (at 37:58).
I guess Mr. Musk was sandbagging a bit when he said he would be happy if the pad wasn't destroyed.
Everyone at SpaceX must be very proud, and rightly so.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Slashdot has breaking news!?
As I write this, still no word as to whether or not the core stage landed on the drone ship successfully.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
many things are shitty nowadays - islamic fundamentalism, dying off of coral reefs, melting of permafrost, plastic pollution in the oceans, spreading of idiocracy.... one bright, very bright spot is Space X and a community of people (of which I am a member) that fervently follows the space programs, our steps into the new frontier.
I feel lucky that there are other people like me, and I can interact with them through the Internet (mostly on reddit).
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Undoubtedly the coolest technology test in history. Epic. Well done SpaceX! You've just inspired kids again like NASA did in the 60's.
What a shitty Slashdot summary for such an important event!
Don't bother reading that shitty article. Just go to SpaceX's website directly, where there is video footage. Or look at the SpaceX tweets.
Did the core of stage 1 land successfully?
Awe-inspiring to watch those 2 boosters land in a flawless ballet of dust and fire. This is one for the history books.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I have to admit I was watching it live and it looked like everything went smoothly as can be. I'm guessing SpaceX probably simulated everything for the launch but as they say sometimes you have to try it out in real-life to see if it really works! I imagine the United Launch Alliance might be panicking now as SpaceX is well on their way of making "Heavy" launches significantly cheaper as former heavy launches were all done by them with a significantly more expensive rocket.
Sure, what they've done isn't exactly easy, but it's not as groundbreaking as you make it out to be. This is an incremental improvement on 1960s-era technologies. The hardest work underlying this technology was done before 1970. That earlier work was truly groundbreaking, and even more impressive because so much of it predated practical digital computing. They aren't 'stepping into a new frontier'. That was done decades ago by our grandparents, or even our great grandparents on some cases. The most innovative aspects of SpaceX are more when it comes to the economics and financing of space launches. The technological advances are actually quite minimal.
According to twitter posts, it seems that it did not. 2 out of 3 is not bad ;) Also, they had to have something not go perfect in order to learn from the test flight :)
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Even if the center core turned out to not land correctly, this is still absolutely amazing. The simultaneous landing of both the side boosters was literally awe-inspiring. SpaceX had initially said they might stagger their landings by a little in case one went wrong, but it looks like they had the hubris to land them both literally at the same time. And lesson there is hubris is fucking awesome, and those obnoxious Greek gods can go suck it.
More seriously, this is going to have a massive impact on the heavy end of the launch market. Even without reuse, it looks like Falcon Heavy is going to be cheaper for almost all big payloads than any of the other heavy launchers, especially Ariane 5 and Delta Heavy. The only issue right now limiting its use are twofold: First, it has a relatively small fairing, so it is possible that some payloads will have volume issues- but that will be rare, and making a new fairing is something SpaceX may do if a customer is interested in it. Second, the Falcon Heavy is for pretty obvious reasons not man-rated. That may change in the future, and the current plan right now is to just man-rate the Falcon 9, but if the Falcon Heavy does get man-rated then there will be almost no market for anything else. If Grey Dragon or others can go on a Falcon Heavy it will be a very different situation. And of course, the Falcon Heavy doesn't have the same lift capability as the SLS, but the SLS still hasn't flown yet, and will cost literally a billion dollars or so a launch.
I wouldn't assume conspiracy. Elon is the sort who'd just let the feed roll. He's been quite open about how "space is hard" and honest and forthcoming when things go wrong. Whatever took out the video feed was accidental.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B_tWbjFIGI&feature=youtu.be&t=2299
Why would it suspiciously be cut short? Elon Musk actively celebrates the learned experiences of failure when rockets blow up. He was even joking around yesterday that if the entire mission was a failure with the entire thing exploding (the entire heavy, not just the central booster), that it would still be an awesome experience.
The only way this could be cooler to hear about is if it was a 60's Corvette convertible; that's what this reminds me of. :-)
Wow, not bad for a first try.
Question:
It is hard to make a rocket nozzle that works well in the atmosphere and in space.
With that many engines to steer, I wonder if there is some way to use the extra degrees of freedom to shape the plume to get a bit more thrust?
The simultaneous landing of both the side boosters was literally awe-inspiring.
Oh man, you said it. I lost it somewhere between the lift-off and that awesome visual of both boosers landing simultaneously.
A tiny, little, shy but manly tear rolling down them old cheecks.
OK, maybe not that manly. I don't care.
Even without reuse, it looks like Falcon Heavy is going to be cheaper for almost all big payloads than any of the other heavy launchers, especially Ariane 5 and Delta Heavy.
I agree, but reusing the boosters would be more than just icing on the cake.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
BFR is progressing nicely according to reports. I think the Heavy will have a short lifetime with the BFR taking over its role over the next 5 - 7 years. So amazing watching it lift off, i literally hung up after a fight with a sr. dev. right as it was taking off and so wasn't in the best of moods but it was pretty incredible nonetheless.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
Did they FINALLY prove the Earth is ffffffflllllllaaaaaaaaaaatttttt?!?!?
becomes the fastes car ever built... currently travelling well past 15000MPH
WooHoo!
Very exciting, though I couldn't help but notice that the supposedly different booster feeds were actually one duplicated feed. If you watch carefully at the buildings and roads you can see that they both show an identical landing on the bottom-right-most "X-only" pad, while the ground-level cam clearly shows the nearer one landing in the X-in-circle pad. You can even see circle-pad destined booster's flame at the top of both feeds.
I assume somebody goofed with the feeds, and didn't notice in all the excitement - they would have likely been nearly identical until the last few seconds.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
The range has to be clear of all boats, so an external feed would require a second drone ship tailing the first... a difficult proposition, but not impossible. Probably not worth it, since it has nothing but entertainment value.
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
Yes, "whataboutism" is bad.
But what about other stupid forms of argument such as ad hominem?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Here is a tweet with a view of monitors showing smoke clearing from the drone ship deck with no rocket aboard. It seems it missed the ship. Not too surprising as the centre core is a new machine that has never flown before. Also, the re-entry profile was likely one of the hottest ones they have tried.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
His Geek Cred just went up over the limit...
What an amazing historical day...
Congrats to all those involved.
What a pleasure it was to see rockets land like God and Robert A. Heinlein intended!
Why is all the good stuff already modded 5, when I have mod points?
Now thats the kicker... this launch clears my doubts that he may actually do it. And from the looks of things on this planet... just in the nick of time. https://science.slashdot.org/s...
[($)]
They are streaming a live view of the star man here It is rolling a bit...I believe this called a BBQ roll, to prevent the car from getting too hot in the sun.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Just hear it hear from spacex stream itself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B_tWbjFIGI&feature=youtu.be&t=2310
Yup. It takes a lot for me to cry, but watching that was, well, goddamit, one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. This is the beginning of the Second Space Age. You've got to give Musk credit. He may seem like a money-burning madman, but maybe that's what it takes.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Hes in development mode... error reports are still turned on. :) It would have sucked if nothing went wrong... it leaves you wondering and waiting for that bug to show up.
[($)]
Right from the start you could tell they were the same: both feeds had the connection to the center core at the top, and the background land was in the same orientation. To be correct, one or the other should have been flipped by 180 degrees.
Having said that, I only suspected we were getting a duplicate feed up to the point when they headed for the same landing pad. I had to rewatch to get confirmation it was the same feed from the start.
Also, there is a live feed of Starman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
As I type, you can see south east Australia in the background.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
That's part of Musk and his team's brilliance. They understand that failure is as good a teacher, sometimes even a better teacher, than success. Those earlier rocket engineers blew up a lot of hardware in the quest for space. You cannot be afraid to take chances.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Yeah, I recall him saying that he'd consider the test flight a success if they just managed to get far enough away to avoid damaging the launch pad.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
There's one more burn, I believe, in several hours.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
I wondered about that as well, but if you watch and compare closely, the feeds have a slightly different perspective AND if you follow them all the way down, you'll see that the burns are different and just before landing, you'll see that one of the feeds has the engine burn of the other.
The technology is really awe-inspiring.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
SpaceX plan to send tourists (and possibly also NASA astronauts) around the moon in a Dragon launched by FH. Unless plans have changed, that means they will be man-rating FH.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Starman's live feed is giving us amazing views of the spherical earth, and the moon occasionally. I suspect I'll have this streaming an awful lot.
I noticed the words "Don't Panic" displayed in large, friendly letters on the Tesla's console.
Let me make sure I have a firm grip on my towel.
There's also a live feed from the car. It's pretty amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
"I was only cutting onions, really!"
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
He may seem like a money-burning madman, but maybe that's what it takes.
I see little madness in burning money this way. What better can a man do with lots of money? Get a nice car, maybe two, get a beautiful villa... a yacht, a place to spend the winter... and then? Another villa? Two more, three more? After a certain point, magabucks are just a number on your bank account, and purely pointless.
What Elon is doing with his money is awe-inspiring, electrifying, actually transcendent. One of the best damn thing you can do with your life before kicking the bucket.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
"I'm seeing on Fox News that the 2nd stage fired successfully putting a Tesla roadster towards Mars.."
Watching TV again in bed with a cheeseburger?
Very much so. I wish I could have been there, but just watching it on TV was awe inspiring. I'm now really curious what the battery/solar setup on the payload is. Obviously Musk does both, and with dragon has the space experience. I'm wondering if we're going to get video from Spaceman in his Tesla for just a little while, or if he's got it set up to broadcast for the next decade.
Knowing Musk, it's the latter.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
The simultaneous landing of both the side boosters was literally awe-inspiring. SpaceX had initially said they might stagger their landings by a little in case one went wrong, but it looks like they had the hubris to land them both literally at the same time. And lesson there is hubris is fucking awesome, and those obnoxious Greek gods can go suck it.
Thank you for my QOTD!
I think you summarized this better than I could have. If I had Musk money, I'd like to think I'd be doing stuff like this, but honestly, I'm not sure I would. I bet I'd be pretty happy on my tropical island, and I wouldn't be trying to change the world.
Kudos to him.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
When the sun angle is right, I see little bright specks zipping away from the car. Evidently there is outgassing carrying away small particles. (speed and direction are wrong for them to be bright background stars.)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Falcon Heavy has a much smaller payload capacity than Saturn V.
Good thing they can send 2 or 3 for less money.
As Airbus is learning quite painfully, larger payload isn't the ultimate metric.
The Saturn V was an amazing thing for its day. But needs and the optimal equipment changes. In the era of a few big missions, that Saturn V made sense. But now we are in the era of lots of small to medium sized missions, the Falcon Heavy makes more sense.
Reusable launch systems aren't new. Nothing about it is particularly remarkable.
Except the boosters that fly themselves back to the launch site and land on their tail. That, until Space X, was sci fi movie stuff.
I wouldn't assume conspiracy. Elon is the sort who'd just let the feed roll. He's been quite open about how "space is hard" and honest and forthcoming when things go wrong. Whatever took out the video feed was accidental.
The twitter image of the drone ship smoke clearing to an empty deck + the technical webcast quite clearly saying "We've lost the center core" while the non-technical webcast not saying anything at all and ending pretty abruptly is quite compelling evidence to the contrary. And while the camera feed could have been interrupted it's highly unlikely they'd lose all telemetry anyway, they'd know if it landed or not. I don't think it's a greater conspiracy than that they'll spill the beans in an hour or two once the Tesla promo is over, but right then and there they covered it up.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Absolutely!
Unfortunately, space itself is curved so that it still looks like a spheroid from any direction. You can only tell it's actually flat if you rapidly consume at least a week's supply of heavily spiked Kool-Aid and welcome the truth of Jebus-Under-The-Mountain into your heart.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
After several years of our so-called "leaders" casting their eyes down, looking to the past, and pitting one against another in a zero-sum game, it is exhilarating to see what happened today.
America is greatest when we look for hard - some might say impossible - challenges and go for it.
And all this because of an immigrant.
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
If they're two feeds, they're from adjacent cameras on the same booster - which seems unlikely but not impossible. Where's the big black circle around the X on the landing pad? The ground cam clearly shows it, while both booster feeds clearly show a landing on the smaller X-only pad.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Indeed. In his latest September "Becoming a Multiplanet Species" speech (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gFxiOR8UTw ) he said that construction of the first BFR would likely begin sometime this summer, with the optimistic ambition to be able to launch for Mars by 2022. And I think he said the plan was to entirely phase out Falcon 9 Block 5 production in the same timeframe to focus all available assets on the BFR, once enough Falcon 9s were built to satisfy forseeable demand for more conservative customers. And presumably to tide them through any early problems with the BFR.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
You can actually see the plume from the other rocket during the landing burn if you watch closely.
It's time for Operation Crazy Plan.
I'd say the man-rating probably has more to do with carrying crew to the ISS. I'm not sure if NASA rating is even relevant to tourists - other than making the tourists more comfortable taking the risk.
I didn't see anything on that page to suggest NASA astronauts would be sent around the moon though - only to the ISS. Which makes sense - it would be rather pointless sending astronauts on a joyride around the moon - there's nothing they could do from orbit that unmanned satellites couldn't do better. I suspect that when NASA gets involved with manned moon missions again it will be either the proposed lunar space-station, or an actual moonbase - either of which will probably wait for the BFR with its massively increased payloads and planned ability to land on the Moon and return.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Do you have a link?
I'm hoping the book was part of the navigation system. :)
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
I'm hoping Elon helps us escape the Vogons. :)
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
You just gave me the idea for a new Crypto. Heres my whitepaper. MuskCoin can only be mined by launching a spaceship. One MuskCoin is 90 million dollars. I have already premined 0.5 MuskCoin as my fee for this Whitepaper
**Life is too short to be serious**
I hope "Of Course I Still Love You" is still alive; the rapidity of the "engine firing" to "we lost the center" was pretty quick.
A rocket stage falling thru you could be bad; M'Kay? :)
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Nope. Watch the video again, they both seem to be focusing on one pad, as you say, but in the last few seconds the other pad comes into view on one of the feeds.
They're really close, but they are different.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
From what I've been able to tell, the payload (Musk's roadster and the dummy in the space suit) are in some giant elliptical orbit around the sun with an orbital diameter as far out as Mars.
Is this right? Also, is the payload configured to have long-term telemetry like a probe, or is it just dead weight in a perpetual orbit?
Nope, you're right - I suspect somebody goofed on the feeds. The ground-cam clearly shows the near rocket landing on the bigger pad with the X inside a black circle, while the supposedly-different booster feeds show both landing on the same X-only pad (look at the buildings and roads in the last seconds to confirm it's actually the same pad)
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
In the press conference today he said he's hoping that the cameras on the drone ship turn out to be intact, he expects there to be some good explosion footage on them ;) I love how it always gets posted.
One interesting thing from the press conference: of all of the parts of the rocket, he's most pleased to get the titanium grid fins on the boosters back. The central core didn't have the new grid fins, but the boosters did - and they're very expensive, and currently a production bottleneck for them.
It's time for Operation Crazy Plan.
First off, there is no obvious reasons to NOT man-rate FH, other than BFR coming up quickly. FH is as safe as F9.
Secondly, according to musk, FH will NOT be man-rated because the BFR's development is moving much faster than anticipated. Basically, the raptors are close to ready. Likewise, the tanks are tested. As such, they should be capable of putting together stage 1 within 1-1.5 years.
And assuming that FH gets man-rated, that changes nothing. America has lost our space access 2x for years. The GOP wanted all the money to go to ULA for doing manned launches, but NASA wanted MULTIPLE launchers so that they will NEVER lose space access again. As such, that is why they defied the GOP and gave TWO manned launchers and then gave a 3rd cargo launcher to SNC so that they could develop it into a manned launcher. But for this to work, we need 2+ systems that are distinctly different. Hence ULA or BO will ALWAYS have the ability to launch humans along with SX.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
pretty much, except that you missed an important part. IF SX uses just mars for BFR, then it will be too expensive. As such, it will be used for everything including the moon. While Musk says that BFR will go to mars by 2022, what he is not saying is that they expect to launch next year or sometime in early 2020. And it will be used for LEO, GEO AND LUNAR missions.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The plans Changed. Musk said on the media interview that they were NOT going to man rate FH because BFR will be ready much sooner than they thought and it will handle the moon. It sounds like end of 2019.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Mostly agreement. One point: The main reason to not man-rate the FH that I was thinking of was that the primary customer for it would be NASA using the Dragon, and the Dragon can get to the ISS fine on a Falcon 9. I agree that if they want to do other stuff, then manrating it makes sense, and in that context, the fact that they think BFR is going to be very soon coming down the pipeline is a good reason not to, but the location of the primary destination is also pretty important.
destination is everything. For sending man beyond LEO, it will take FH or better. And even then, FH can ONLY orbit around the moon. It is not capable of dealing with landings.
Personally, I was pissed that he killed red dragon and now manned FH. BUT, if he really can get BFR first stage done in another 1-1.5 years, AND have it man rated rather quickly, then things are not bad. BUT that second stage will actually take a lot of work. 3 different types. 1 for ppl; 1 for cargo; 1 for tanker. I would guess that cargo makes the most sense to do first and then send that to the moon for at least several trips.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It wasn't quite live. There is obviously a long enough delay inserted that they were able to shut down the feed before the world saw the main rocket crash. I wouldn't call that part catastrophic. I don't intend to rain on the parade, because all in all this is a brilliant achievement, but losing the main vehicle isn't the small blip that SpaceX said it was either. Two of the three engines failed. That's significant in and of itself. Losing the main vehicle because of that isn't a minor event. Still, it represents mission success, which is the main thing. And it's nice to see something outside of government with that kind of heavy lift ability.
FH is as safe as F9
How do you figure that? FH is basically three F9s strung together. Whatever the chance of a catastrophic failure is on a F9 launch, FH will be basically 3 times that.
Tell that to the poor, spectating whale pod. If only they had streaming capabilities in the ocean, the whole tragedy could have been avoided :(
There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom!
Elon said in the news conference that the battery on the second stage is good for about 12 hours after launch.
Enigma
..I have ever seen.
What happens to the whales is tragic, but what happens to the bowl of petunias is a crime against Agrajag.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
And the more corporate egotists we have in space now, the better off we are. It means competition, new ideas and assumption of risk.
You are correct: the EELV Program started because of the Challenger accident. DoD/NRO found it unacceptable to lose their access to space due to the STS safety/reliability issues. So EELV (Atlas/Delta) became their backup. Elon Musk opens up the field again, and they're not going to accept closing it down.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
NASA has on several occasions launched with nothing more than a block of metal into space to test a new vehicle. I am sure that if someone on the team wanted to donate a car to replace the dummy load no one would have argued against it... At least not on any economical grounds.
Your life must suck badly.
Quite - I tried to capture the timing in "launch for Mars by 2022", not get there.
And yeah - I could have been clearer that the revised BFR is intended to completely replace the Falcon 9 and Heavy - being cheaper on a per-launch basis, while having much greater payload capacity in terms of both mass and volume, to the point that the initial version of the BFR is projected to lower the per-pound launch cost to LEO 5-fold compared to the F9.
Plus the second stage is being designed to be able to, with orbital refueling around Earth, be able to land on the moon and return on a single tank of gas. As well as being able to land on Mars and, once refueled with locally-produced fuel, be able to make it back to Earth in a single stage with a payload of several (20?) tons. And be able to reach and land on the moons of the outer planets. And function as a suborbital transport on Earth, making most long journeys in under 30 minutes.
Basically a solid first step to a general purpose cargo-and-passenger mover. It should even be able to easily get the next-gen Bigelow BA2100 concept module into orbit - at least in terms of mass, and quite possibly in terms of volume - that's quite a large cargo bay.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
There are points when both falling boosters are firing where the plume coming off them are identical. Pause the video and then do the old Magic Eye cross-eyed lineup. Absolutely identical.
But at other times you can pause it and the plumes will be different.
This happens for the entire length of the video when those two shots are on screen.
I suspect we might be looking at something like even and odd frames from a single higher speed camera.
Ya, Perhaps most if not all life sustaining planets have nasties trapped in their polar ice caps... and periodically when they melt they kill most of whats alive on the planet. Great filter maybe....
[($)]
I think you [Frankzy] may be confusing some military testing with NASA's work. Do you have any citation to back that up?
Having said that, I am vaguely remembering that there may have been one Saturn V launch without a real payload, but the justification would be similar as with military testing. I do remember a lot of static testing, and much of that did consume the tested equipment.
By the way, the testing topic is linked to why I have doubts about the economic utility of the reusable boosters. They add a great deal of weight and complexity to the launch vehicles, but the costs of testing and repairing them for another flight are comparable to producing new equipment. I think it might be better to focus on ways of producing the new equipment less expensively for single use.
I also favor more emphasis on reducing the complexity, which links to the crucial question of the reliability of reused equipment. The Space Shuttle program gives us a bit of experimental data there. The failure rate was above 1%. Not so good.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
> BUT that second stage will actually take a lot of work. 3 different types.
Maybe. But maybe not nearly so much as you'd expect. Consider - the passenger version could be, essentially, a sealed-closed cargo version. Just a giant open bay with fabric partitions arranged as desired, and any desired facilities (toiletries, air recycling, etc) bolted to the walls. Have everybody lash themselves into acceleration couches on the "floor" during launches and landings, and the rest of the time it's a spacious micro-gravity habitat.
Similarly, while a dedicated tanker would no doubt be handy, the job could initially be done, somewhat more expensively, by more numerous zero-payload cargo vessels. Adding supplemental tanks in the cargo bay might be possible as well, though at that point I suspect a dedicated cargo design might be easier. Though... supplemental tanks would let them benefit from standardized "working components", with the supplemental tanks only tied into the fuel system during transfer to the destination.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
There's one more burn, I believe, in several hours.
This was an amazing accomplishment and it makes me excited for the next few years!
I found this link from the ISS showing the launch. Fast forward to 47 minutes. http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/112609768
I was waiting to see a stream of the third burn and I didn't see anything posted All I found is a tweet from Musk that it was successful. I haven't yet found any video of the event or any actual news reporting it.
If I were to have any complaint about the event is that a camera feed was not made available continually from pre-launch to final burn when the craft left Earth orbit several hours later.
On a re-watch, I think it's probably a single booster's stereo image.
Did they strip out the Tesla's main battery (to reduce weight), or is that what's powering the transmitter & camera? It seems like a fully-charged Tesla battery capable of driving 200+ miles at 80mph SHOULD be more than capable of powering a camera and 100-watt transmitter for quite a while (100 watts doesn't sound like a lot, but it's actually the same amount of power used by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter when it uploads image data from the rovers back to NASA via the Deep Space Network).
Source: Elon Musk twitter.
"Third burn successful. Exceeded Mars orbit and kept going to the Asteroid Belt. "
There is a diagram, showing aphelion 2.61AU, perihelion 0.98 AU, nearly reaching the orbit of Ceres. (By comparison, Mars has apohelion 1.67 AU, perihelion 1.38 AU.)
This surprises me. All the material I'd seen prior to this showed an orbit with aphelion at Mars orbit. I'd have thought they'd be a whole lot more organized than just "lets put peddle to the metal and see how far it goes."
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
The roadster, or something in it, is Musk's horcrux. He wanted to put it somewhere safe.
(Yes, I have been reading Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
I'm quite sure there were no batteries at all in that Tesla. They simply aren't designed for being in a vacuum and probably would have exploded from internal pressure. I'm actually quite surprised how much of the car seemed to take the vacuum without issues. None of the dashboard plastics or foams seemed to swell or deform.
> And lesson there is hubris is fucking awesome, and those obnoxious Greek gods can go suck it.
OK, comment of the year there :)
hawk
as if it was not enough that the whole city is packed with cars, now they start to send them to the orbit...
Most large payloads have volume issues, massive ones at that, GEO sats are built like origami these days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Falcon is not at a disadvantage here tho, all the heavy lift vehicles have about the same size fairing.
Yesterday's video was quite nice. Not sure about how relevant is being nice for something like space exploration, but if they deliver there shouldn't be any problem.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Yup, I noticed that too when watching it live (even when they were saying they're different). I then re-watched it this morning and I noticed that they fixed the video so the bottom panels show different feeds.
They also fixed the fairing separation - I didn't see it happen live, just heard the music and the cheers, but now you see it how it happened.
They've fixed the video, it was definitely the same feed when broadcast live.
I don't think he'd cut it off either. His Twitter banner image is debris from the failed CRS-7 launch, which shows that he doesn't hide from his failures.
My google-fu is weak this morning, could you link to the technical webcast please.
This has been explained extensively. No usefull payload was placed on the rocket because being an experimental flight the engineers were expecting the rocket would not work (anything between blowing up on the launch pad to disintegrating in orbit).
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... ;)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
One is a little nervous about those incoming boosters. If they lose thrust or attitude control, how do you protect life and property? I could imagine some bad PR there. I suppose there's a range safety procedure with some explosives, but that would convert one big bomb into lots of mid size bombs.
Fiat Lux.
They reached space and then turned around. They were going more than 10 times slower than orbital speed. Stage 2's job is to get the payload to orbital speed, and in this case put it into an aphelion-near-Asteroid-belt heliocentric orbit. This car will never come near the Earth again.
Gave me nearly as much excitement as the Saturn V launches back in the late 60's/early 70's! Seeing that car appear after the fairings fell away was AMAZING! Go Starman, GO!
The accumulation of more money is not the end goal. The money is a means to power, a way to influence society or pure ego gratification (how many rich folk have libraries or other places named after themselves?)
That is why the rick try to get richer, for the power it can bring.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Two Out of Three Ain't Bad
And yet, SpaceX manages to make money selling launches at a lower rate than anyone else. You'd almost think that your objections also occurred to them, and they worked out a solution....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Cool, I had to rewatch it in response, and you're absolutely correct. The difference is dramatic, *definitely* almost-duplicate feeds last time. Perhaps, like CL said, the two feeds from a stereo camera. But an awesome landing, and now we can follow both down to their respective pads.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
For some classes of catastrophic failure yes, but one of the more common failure modes involve loss of an engine or two. For most flight profiles the F9 has engine-out capability so it can fill most mission criteria (or at least with people abort to orbit) with an engine out. The Falcon Heavy though has more redundancy and so has an engine-out capability as high as 6 engines. That said, this probably doesn't matter much because there are very few situations where one is going to lose more than 1 engine and not have a highly catastrophic failure event.
The Space Shuttle was practically a recoverable single-use vehicle. So much of it underwent refurbishment, testing, or outright replacement it's honestly a stretch to call it reusable. It's closer to recycling :)
SpaceX has done the opposite and is working towards a model of fuel, launch, return, refuel, relaunch. They have enough telemetry to monitor, redundancy to address failures, and durability to not require refurbishment...or they are closing in on that goal. They're already closer than the Space Shuttle ever was. The heat-shield tiles on the Shuttle along required tremendous work after every launch.
Besides all that, your doubts seem to not have materialized. SpaceX has already refurbished and relaunched quite a few boosters. I expect they know very well what it costs to relaunch, particularly since they've already quotes retail prices and savings for it. Keep doubting ... the rest of us will simply enjoy watching the 'impossible' become commonplace.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
Everyone at SpaceX must be very proud, and rightly so.
I thought about all those who pulled a lot of allnighters along with 60 hr work weeks for months.
I tuned in just as FH was going through max Q, I thought it was cool they had crowds cheering behind the SpaceX PIO pair that were giving verbal updates (but if something went bad, would we hear the crowd groan?). It was nice SpaceX PIO gave thanks to Range people and FAA providing permits.
mfwright@batnet.com
6000 people at SpaceX plus tens of thousands of others in suppliers created an awesome piece of art as a stepping stone to getting humanity to Mars. It was hardly a narcissist piece: it was an homage to the hopes and dreams of all of us who enjoy science fiction and have dreamed of going to the stars ever since we were old enough to realize we could go there. Musk provided the framework and the impetus, but, I assure you, a whole lot of other people supported creating that visionary photograph of the astronaut driving to Mars.
Not only that, but in 2017 they did 17 launches with Falcon 9 variants. Seventeen!!! If you think that it's not that much, there were... 80 total launches world-wide last year. 17 of those 80 were SpaceX launches. They are not even yet fully reusing them (they are waiting for Block 5 which will be the final iteration to fully reuse them), so they can pump them out pretty damn fast to do 17 launches in a year. And the cost for a Falcon 9 is 60 million I believe, compared to 90 million for the Heavy if I remember correctly from last night's press conference from Elon.
Also, they do everything themselves, they don't have dozens of subcontractors, so they have a pretty efficient supply chain comparatively. Can't wait to see what the other new comers will bring to the table, but space launches are starting to get heavily democratized - in 1-2 years you'll see more and more startups relying on satellites because of that. Exciting times.
There are not many ways to look at this and not being impressed at least a little bit, whether you like Elon or not.
Sure it was a publicity stunt, but that was not the primary, secondary or even tertiary objective, they simply took the opportunity to use a Tesla instead of putting a block of water or metal for mass simulation. Sure, some people had a pretty cool job of making that work and a little extra challenge, but I'm sure it's nothing compared to the rest of the effort required. Anyway, he said they had no followup plan, he will not try to milk that stunt himself, they have better things to worry about now.
By the way, the testing topic is linked to why I have doubts about the economic utility of the reusable boosters. They add a great deal of weight and complexity to the launch vehicles, but the costs of testing and repairing them for another flight are comparable to producing new equipment. I think it might be better to focus on ways of producing the new equipment less expensively for single use.
That's the thing with commercial ventures. You can be assured that if it wasn't profitable they wouldn't be doing it.
Apparently they put it as a second angle of the main stream. You know, like that feature they added to DVD that gets used so rarely that nobody remembers it is there? Look for the icon in the lower right corner that you've never seen before.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
That would be the launch of Skylab. All Skylab crew missions and Apollo/Soyuz used a Saturn IB, because they did not need the cargo capacity.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
You seem to miss the joke. I state that whataboutism is bad, and then in the very next sentence engage in whataboutism to divert attention to something else. Which is exactly what "whataboutism" is used for. To derail the conversation. The joke is to illustrate this.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Do you have any citation to support that claim? On it's face it appears to be even more ridiculous than parking a car in orbit.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
So how much money have you invested in SpaceX? This seems to be a clear case where you should be asked if you have put any money where your keyboard is.
I approach this fundamentally as a mathematician. If you have to save fuel for landing, then that is fuel you cannot use to boost the payload. If you have to design the engines for longer burns, then you have to trade off against other factors such as maximizing the thrust. If you have to add complexity to control the descent phase, then that creates more places for expensive failures. Perhaps most importantly, if you have to design everything more robustly to reduce the inspections and repairs, then you are boosting the dead weight. Maximizing the payload weight for the cost is always the key.
It's FAR too early for you to claim that this approach makes more economic sense than something like recovery with a parachute or a glider or perhaps even a capture helicopter to grab the parachute. We haven't seen enough failures (or successes) yet to have any basis to estimate the true costs. I actually think the best approach would involve an air-breathing launch platform that would carry a much smaller rocket. The launch platform would essentially be a large airplane that should be as safe and reusable as other large planes.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Not a normal market. If they are claiming a profit, then I have to dismiss it as creative bookkeeping combined with the eagerness of the customers. Perhaps it's simpler to put in in terms of buyers' and sellers' markets? A buyers' market is normal in that customers can shop around for the best prices from truly competitive options, and the best options will rise to the top. What we have now is a total sellers' market with an amount of launch payload that is far smaller than the demand. Whatever price SpaceX charges, they can find someone willing to pay for it--even if there are fundamental problems with their approach (and I remain convinced there are).
On the one hand, Musk is benefiting hugely from NASA's prior investments, which were NOT based on normal economics. On the other hand, Musk is also benefiting from Moore's Law and other general improvements in technology. Will these combine to produce spaceflight that is truly economically viable? I think your time frame of 1 to 2 years is way short.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Yes, but... In such cases you're supposed to weigh the positive and negative probabilities. Seems to me like you're basically arguing in favor of cheap materials such as the consumable supplies for the space station. No major damage if they are lost, but large savings in the future if they are delivered to the space station.
In terms of the larger missions of reaching Mars or even revisiting the moon, I'm also a big believer in orbital staging. I think it makes much more sense to start from orbit after many small trips from the ground rather than trying to make one enormous effort directly from the ground. Most of the cost is the lift to orbit, and the bigger the lift the more eggs you are putting into the single basket.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.