6 ms·
You almost forget that it was an NRO spy sat payload.
by wand3r 10y ago
You almost forget that it was an NRO spy sat payload.
- criley2 10y agoNo, they didn't forget to add that extra detail which adds nothing to their post.
- mmjaa 10y agoBut, wouldn't it be interesting if one of the reasons we had such great ground coverage was somehow related to the NRO being a customer?
- ragebol 10y agoThey couldn't/wouldn't show footage of the 2nd stage, so more attention for the 1st stage. Fine by me, it was amazing to watch
- rtkwe 10y agoCouldn't, it's a NRO launch which are very secretive. Usually the most description you get out of an NRO launch is that it's for the NRO and a video from the ground of the launch.
- valuearb 10y agoThe first stage is such an attention whore. It usually gets most of it anyways, this time it punted the first stage entirely off the show.
- gus_massa 10y agoI guess the better coverage of the first stage is that they landed in land and not in a small ship in the middle of the sea. It's more difficult to put cameras in the sea and keep a good connection. I think it's indirectly related. Probably, the satellite has a low orbit to have a better sight, and they don't expect to have the satellite for too long so care about some drag. So the rocket has more fuel to a return to land maneuver. Also, it was very strange that they cut the transmission so soon. Usually they continue with the second stage and they highlight many times that the main mission is the satellite and they transmit as much of the satellite as possible in case they have an RUD. This time they closed the transmission as soon as the first stage landed. Anyway, an amazing transmission.
- rohit89 10y ago> Also, it was very strange that they cut the transmission so soon. That's an NRO requirement.
- Symmetry 10y agoYes, to keep the position secret in theory. Though I bet Russian and Chinese space surveillance radars will pick up it's orbit the first time it passes over their territory and amateurs will find out where it is eventually too.
- ceejayoz 10y agoYep. Same reason the cheering crowd at SpaceX was much smaller than a usual launch - only folks with clearance allowed in.
- dtparr 10y agoI wonder how much was that, and how much was the fact the launch window opened at 4am.
- joezydeco 10y agoPretty sure the NRO wasn't want anyone to know which direction and how high up that satellite was heading.
- VLM 10y agoOr its mass. You can determine that by the second stage acceleration.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- rtkwe 10y agoI wouldn't be too surprised if that view was something they'd had before but didn't use because you had the more interesting second stage feed during a normal launch. Today they couldn't show anything from stage 2 because it was an NRO launch and there's a lot of secrecy around what those even look like.
- wand3r 10y agoThis is the first military payload but they have landed and recovered the first stage several times. I guess the NSA should do more technical demos because no one seems to find this NRO tech unethical if it's coupled with an amazing technical display. Wonder if they took the octopus of the patches
- ceejayoz 10y agoDo you feel that Google Maps imagery is similarly unethical?
- dtparr 10y agoYou don't have to wonder: https://twitter.com/NatReconOfc/status/857619425373167618 https://twitter.com/NatReconOfc/status/857619425373167618 For all the patches, wiki has us covered of course: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_Launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_Launches Looks like only NROL-39 had the octopus.
- dwaltrip 10y agoPeople can very much dislike NRO spy satellites and, at the same time, be excited about Musk's end goals for SpaceX. Life is complex and paradoxical. We do the best we can.
- tsomctl 10y agoI thought it was a pretty important detail. It shows that the government thinks they are competent enough and competitive enough to succeed at this. Since this launch was successful, they've sent spacecraft to the ISS, and they are launching a GPS satellite pretty soon, the government is going to have them do more launches. The government is a huge customer with lots of satellites and lots of money.
- sctb 10y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14237002 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14237002 and marked it off-topic.