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SpaceX Launches NASA's Planet-Hunting Satellite, Successfully Lands Its Falcon 9 Rocket (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the infinity-and-beyond dept.

SpaceX launched NASA's TESS spacecraft Wednesday evening from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and successfully landed its Falcon 9 rocket on a drone ship following takeoff. This marks 24 successful landings for SpaceX now, notes The Verge. We will update this post once TESS is deployed into orbit. From the report: TESS is NASA's newest exoplanet hunter. The probe is tasked with staring at stars tens to hundreds of light-years from Earth, watching to see if they blink. When a planet passes in front of a distant star, it dims the star's light ever so slightly. TESS will measure these twinkles from a 13.7-day orbit that extends as far out as the distance of the Moon. The satellite won't get to its final orbit on this launch. Instead, the Falcon 9 will put TESS into a highly elliptical path around Earth first. From there, TESS will slowly adjust its orbit over the next couple of months by igniting its onboard engine multiple times. The spacecraft will even do a flyby of the Moon next month, getting a gravitational boost that will help get the vehicle to its final path around Earth. Overall, it will take about 60 days after launch for TESS to get to its intended orbit; science observations are scheduled to begin in June.

13 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. News from the future by ComputerInsultant · · Score: 2

    Slashdot has gotten out of sync with the real world. In the real world, the webcast of the launch is still going on and TESS has not yet been released. Heck, the final burn has not even started.

    --
    engineers are all basically high-functioning autistics who have no idea how normal people do stuff
    1. Re:News from the future by ComputerInsultant · · Score: 2

      And TESS has been released, to Slashdot to real world synchronization can now move to the next stage. With any luck full synchronization can be achieved in just a few days.

      --
      engineers are all basically high-functioning autistics who have no idea how normal people do stuff
  2. It still amazes me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    That those rockets fall on a drone ship, upwards and reusable.

    I guess there will be one day that the news is that they didn't land successfully one of their rockets.

    1. Re:It still amazes me by Rei · · Score: 4, Interesting

      From a rocket perspective, the next launch is the interesting one: the first launch of Block 5. Designed to be fully reusable without refurbishing for 10 launches. 100+ with refurbishment every 10 launches.

      Obviously, I'm sure it'll be a while before they're confident enough to actually do that; early on they'll surely tear it down between every launch and inspect to make sure it's holding up as well as they expect it to. But they've learned from where wear and tear was occurring on past rockets, and Block 5 is designed to prevent it.

      --
      I will pull over this spaceship right now!
    2. Re:It still amazes me by jabuzz · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It is still pretty amazing, but take a look at a picture of a GBU-43/B bomb.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Basically a Falcon 9 first stage is a large grid fin stabilized precision bomb with landing legs. In effect the military paid for development of the technology that allows the Falcon 9 to hit the land zones pretty much spot on every time. They where originally a Soviet invention.

  3. "24 successful landings" by Balial · · Score: 2

    So how much has Space X saved already by not junking that may rockets?

    1. Re:"24 successful landings" by mschuyler · · Score: 4, Informative

      There is a serious savings when they re use a booster, but few of the existing recovered boosters will be saved in the future due to the advent of the Block 5 series which are slightly bigger, have retractable landing gears (rather than removable) and other improvements. Those are the more valuable boosters to save and re use. . The earlier ones are effectively out of date. They may very well use the older used boosters they do have on those missions where recovery is not an issue and they intentionally ditch them.

      --
      How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
    2. Re:"24 successful landings" by thesupraman · · Score: 3, Informative

      Ummm, no.

      As of February they had reused 8 times, and 25% of their 2017 launches reused.
      Book value on the first stages is estimated to be around $30 million.
      Even if you imagine it costs them 1/3 of that to refurb, thats still $20 million saved per reuse.
      By 8 times is 160 million.

      Now, unless you are going to claim all possible development expenses against that, which would
      be a bit foolish on a technology that is obviously in ongoing use, then it is easily going to be
      a win already.

      Note that in the start of 2018, they reused 7 stages for 9 launches...

    3. Re:"24 successful landings" by Karhgath · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Also people do not realize this often, but right now SpaceX has done 8 flights this year. The total worldwide is 38 at this time in 2018. This is 20% of worldwide flights. Last year was also around 20% worldwide. They launched more often than Soyuz, and more often than Long March LVs in 2017 (both have multiple type of vehicles, config and profiles, while the Falcon is mostly a single design). Of their 18 launches last year, 5 were reused, so until they are all at block 5 we won't really know the impact of reusability. But man, they are getting contracts after contracts and can launch at a pretty fast pace. Any normal corp would sit on this cash cow, but they are still pushing for reuse, falcon heavy, BFR and not slowing down.

      Even if on the fence about reuse, or outright think it is foolish for any reason or are vocal again Elon/SpaceX (and yes, some criticism are valid), if you remove those from the equation, they have a pretty nice launcher: fast deploy, can do a lot of mission, incredible primary mission success rate. Sure they did not invent anything new in rocket science, but they still got here quite fast.

  4. Next up block 5! by RhettLivingston · · Score: 2

    And the start of the final leg to manned flight certification - seven block 5 flights to go!

    1. Re: Next up block 5! by spire3661 · · Score: 5, Informative

      You know what Falcon Heavy cost the taxpayers? Nothing, zilch, nada. How much money are we going to waste on ULA before we finally admit it exists to funnel tax dollars and nothing more? SLS is a sad joke in the face of the modern reality.

      --
      Good-bye
    2. Re: Next up block 5! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They aren't buying the results. They can't afford the price. They are simply outrunning ferocious attempts to put a leash on them and protect the pork their business model threatens.

      I've been where you're at. At the engineering level, we always either railed about the excessive requirements or drank the koolaid just to have peace of mind. The higher ups always whined too, but at least they knew that the engineering "requirements" are simply the means to keep the engineers employed long term. I didn't truly understand that until I accidentally let myself get lassoed into a position that was involved in negotiations.

      The management doesn't believe that there will be anything else if they get the job done. The sad truth is, they are probably right because congress didn't give approval out of an interest in space - it was given to feed money and jobs into their districts.

      On the other hand, SpaceX is always ready to get a job done so that they can go on to the next job, and the next, and the next. The real fun is yet to come.

      If it upsets you, take action and send them an application.

    3. Re: Next up block 5! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It seems as though ULA is going to be putting people on a first flight of a completely new design as opposed to possibly an eighth flight of a modification of a product line with around 60 flights by then. There is no amount of engineering that makes that safe. If you think you've achieved it, then you've both way over-engineered the product and blinded yourself to reality.