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SpaceX Launch - Official Webcast
- ramidarigaz 13y agoInteresting post from the spacex subreddit. It looks like we might get to see a recording of the first stage return (if it works). http://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/1nd0qc/american_islander_is_sailing_into_the_expected/ http://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/1nd0qc/american_isla...
- trothamel 13y agoMusk's private jet is also in the area. http://uk.flightaware.com/live/flight/N887XF http://uk.flightaware.com/live/flight/N887XF
- jpgvm 13y agoIt is worth mentioning that the first stage successfully was successfully relit. I would expect footage in the coming days of the first stage soft-landing.
- trothamel 13y agoUnfortunately, it looks like American Islander now has a destination of San Diego, which would seem to make it unlikely that the stage will be recovered intact. http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/default.aspx?mmsi=367035570¢erx=-120.3313¢ery=29.25173&zoom=10&type_color=9 http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/default.aspx?mmsi=367035570... It'll be interesting to find out what happened, if SpaceX tells us. It could be anything from a breakup at hypersonic velocities to the stage sinking after dropping from three feet over the water. (Or maybe they were just there to observe that a destruct charge went off?)
- MaggieL 13y agoAmerican Islander is indeed returning to San Diego. But sister ship American Spirit is steaming purposefully SSW... I wonder why... :-)
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- option_greek 13y agoAll these launches seem to be so noisy (with chatter from a thousand people). Wonder how the engineers focus on their work.
- rtkwe 13y agoThere's a separation between the viewing areas and the mission areas so it's not an issue.
- abcd_f 13y agoI wish they were showing more of the rocket and the launchpad than just some heads talking about "pushing the boundaries" and some such. Let them talk, but in the background.
- mikeash 13y agoSince nothing was happening with the rocket or the pad, what purpose would that serve?
- cryptoz 13y agoThere's a lot riding on this launch. Pretty much every component is brand new. This is the first flight of this rocket, which has new engines, a new engine configuration, the payload fairing, and a much bigger body than their previous F9. Most exciting of course is the attempt to test the re-entry part of the re-usability program to connect with all the grasshopper tests. If this works, they're going to be much closer to building completely and rapidly re-usable spacecraft. I think their end goal is to have about a 1-hour turnaround time. Spaceships will become like airplanes, and we'll have the new frontier on our hands. This type of re-usability is what makes SpaceX's Mars plans so possible in the short term and why everyone else seems to think humans on Mars won't be until the 2030s or 2040s. With this type of technology, shipping supplies and people to Mars will be so much cheaper than anyone has ever really envisioned. I can't wait to move there! I'm quite certain that Elon plans to have a massive ramp-up in trips to Mars over the next 5 years. The software team that did their AMA on reddit a while ago was very clear that we should expect to buy tickets to Mars inside a decade - this certainly means that SpaceX will start ferrying supplies, fuel reactors and everything else necessary to Mars (via Red Dragons?) in about 5 years. Here's hoping.
- w1ntermute 13y agoFrom the video stream, it looks like it reached orbit (?) without any problems.
- jpgvm 13y agoYes. The mission component reached orbit in a very un-eventful fashion. :) What we are really holding out for is tidbits about the actually fully new component of the rocket.. it's stage 1 recovery system.. if it's as mature as the grasshopper tech looks it probably was 100% successful but it's probably going to be a little bit before they let people in on how it went.
- w1ntermute 13y ago'Partial Success' for Falcon 9 First Stage Re-entry: http://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/1ne36t/partial_success_for_falcon_9_first_stage_reentry/ http://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/1ne36t/partial_succe... Key points: * 1st stage rolled, causing the fuel to centrifuge, shutting down the engine early * 2nd stage couldn't be restarted
- InclinedPlane 13y agoNew launch pad. New rocket with new engines. New customers for SpaceX (Canada). New flight profile (test of a simulated first stage return and powered landing over the open ocean, to validate the same flight profile for use on the Falcon 9-R with retractable landing gear). Pretty exciting.
- visakanv 13y agoI got goosebumps hearing all the people saying "X, go". So many people working so hard, coming together to achieve something. Wow. Edge of my seat.
- twinge 13y agoOT but you should watch http://www.firstmenonthemoon.com/ http://www.firstmenonthemoon.com/ -- several times all the flight controllers do their checks, concluding with "stay/no stay".
- jdiez17 13y agoYeah, the final poll. That is one of my favourite parts of a launch as well, second only to the engine ignition. Both of these things are very powerful - dozens of incredibly bright minds working together to lift thousands of kilograms into the sky.
- blackdogie 13y agoFive minutes and counting. Edge of the seat stuff. Wishing them all the success !
- pgrote 13y agolift off. still get excited as I did as a kid when watching something like this.
- baq 13y agoslightly OT: for anybody interested in rockets i greatly recommend ignition!: http://www.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf http://www.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf - a story of liquid rocket propellants. foreword by asimov, should i say more?
- shocks 13y agoAwesome! Thanks for this.
- eksith 13y agoWhat a fantastic resource! Thank you for sharing this. A bit of an FYI for anyone else downloading: It's 223 pages, so if your Adobe reader croaks or feels glitchy while scrolling, try Sumatra PDF instead. It will be almost like opening a plain text document. Plus you can easily highlight text. Millions of words have been written about rocketry and space travel, and almost as many about the history and development of the rocket. But if anyone is curious about the parallel history and development of rocket propellants — the fuels and the oxidizers that make them go —he will find that there is no book which will tell him what he wants to know. There are a few texts which describe the propellants currently in use, but nowhere can he learn why these and not some- thing else fuel Saturn V or Titan II, or SS-9. In this book I have tried to make that information available, and to tell the story of the de- velopment of liquid rocket propellants: the who, and when, and where and how and why of their development. The story of solid propellants will have to be told by somebody else.
- ericcumbee 13y ago"Awaiting Vehicle Downlink" is that a cute way of saying buffering? Because the flight control audio and mission clock disappear when that pops up.
- eksith 13y agoNope. That just means, they totally lost video down. I'm guessing they're dedicating a more robust connection for actual telemetry. To be fair, the video is mostly eyecandy. The actual meat is sensor data.
- ericcumbee 13y agoWell aware of that. But given the fact that the Mission Clock and Flight Control audio were disappearing as well.
- eksith 13y agoThat just means whoever does the video merge for the live stream decided (inconsistently) that the video downlink should coincide with control room chatter... cut out and all.
- jlgreco 13y agoIt seems that sometimes flight control audio cuts when that happens, sometimes it doesn't.
- ericcumbee 13y agoIt only did that the first couple times.
- nknighthb 13y agoAt a guess, two different failure modes. One the "ground server problems" case, and one the "I wish we could hang a giant directional antenna off the side of the rocket" case.
- yogipatel 13y agoAre they not going to cover the first stage re-entry/landing? Or am I mistaken about what this flight was actually testing?
- prawks 13y agoThat's a minor part of the event from a press standpoint, the focus is the launch. The recovery is only given a ~10% chance of being successful.
- syncerr 13y agoI missed take off by a few minutes. Is there a recording up yet?
- InclinedPlane 13y agohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf-T3KeLbuM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf-T3KeLbuM
- Sunlis 13y agoMuch longer version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFefasS6bhc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFefasS6bhc
- vassvdm 13y agoFull version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj4C9bydkX8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj4C9bydkX8 Complete with the intro from SpaceX employees. Is that Elon I hear at 10:41 saying 'CE is go' ? Assuming CE means chief executive...
- deletes 13y agoApart from the deep tone the voice is different.
- jpgvm 13y agoThat was a surprisingly smooth ride up. Congratulations to the SpaceX team on another massive milestone. Looking forward to more from the Falcon 9 and Merlin 1D.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago"Picture perfect launch". Congratulations Spacex!
- emp_zealoth 13y agoI've got a technical question: Does anybody have any idea what a ring that comes off second stage nozzle right before the engine fires is? You can see it at 1:21:27 on the SpaceX webcast
- ericcumbee 13y agoProbably just a protective cover they put over the engine. my guess is a glorified garbage bag.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- rrmm 13y agoDidn't see the exact place in the video, but perhaps you are talking about the nozzle stiffening ring? http://www.spacex.com/news/2013/02/09/falcon-9-flight-1-pictures http://www.spacex.com/news/2013/02/09/falcon-9-flight-1-pict... has a still of it happening on a previous flight towards the end of the page.
- trothamel 13y agoAccording to http://www.spacex.com/news/2013/02/09/falcon-9-flight-1-pictures http://www.spacex.com/news/2013/02/09/falcon-9-flight-1-pict... , it's the nozzle stiffening ring. I'm guessing that it's there to help with handling the incredibly thin nozzle extension in gravity, and that once the craft is in freefall (or under exhaust pressure) it's no longer necessary.
- emp_zealoth 13y agoThank you so much, I'm nearly sure this is what I was asking about
- ZoFreX 13y agoAs a software engineer currently learning test-driven development, it's fascinating to see all the parallels in SpaceX's approach to aerospace. It's well worth jumping back to around T-40 in the stream to hear and see lots of what they're doing.
- christiangenco 13y agoYeah! I've thought the same thing. Really makes you appreciate that you can re-run a failing test a hundred times before it passes at negligible cost, while applying the same ideology to spaceflight means tens of millions a pop at minimum.
- robomartin 13y agoAnyone know ETA for splash-down? Will that be streamed?
- cmod 13y agoIf you want some extra context for the awesomeness that's happening here (especially around the power of reusable components), try watching When We Left Earth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_We_Left_Earth:_The_NASA_Missions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_We_Left_Earth:_The_NASA_M... It runs through the making of Gemini, Apollo, Shuttle, Hubble, and the ISS.
- velodrome 13y agoThe launch will included a number of Falcon 9 v1.1 "firsts", including: - First use of the upgraded Merlin 1D engines, generating approximately 56 percent more sea-level thrust than the Merlin 1C engines used on all previous Falcon 9 vehicles. - First use of the significantly longer first stage, which holds the additional propellant for the more powerful engines. - The nine Merlin 1D engines on the first stage are arranged in an octagonal pattern with eight engines in a circle and the ninth in the center. - First launch from SpaceX's new launch facility, Space Launch Complex 4, at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, and will be the first launch over the Pacific ocean using the facilities of the Pacific test range. - First Falcon 9 launch to carry a satellite payload for a commercial customer, and also the first non-CRS mission. Each prior Falcon 9 launch was of a Dragon capsule or a Dragon-shaped test article, although SpaceX has previously successfully launched and deployed a satellite on the Falcon 1, Flight 5 mission. - First Falcon 9 launch to have a jettisonable payload fairing, which introduces the risk of an additional separation event. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9
- pbreit 13y agoIt's amazing that there is so much variance from launch to launch. I realize they are in a very progressive stage of the company but you'd still might think there would be more commonality from launch to launch for such a error-prone exercise.
- kiba 13y agoWhy would you believe that? One of the big point about Falcon 9 is how simple it can be and how easy it is to manufacture the product.
- pbreit 13y agoBecause launching rockets is hard.
- Gravityloss 13y agoI think that's one of the big things that's different with SpaceX. They move quite quickly.
- Lily23 13y agojust as Jeremy implied I am impressed that you can get paid $7702 in 4 weeks on the internet. Read Full Article ............ <b>http://bit.ly/1aL7N9L</b> http://bit.ly/1aL7N9L</b> Open <b>HOME</b> tab for more details
- quentusrex 13y ago(T-20 Min To Webcast End) SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 Makes Its First Launch From Vandenberg, AFB http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj4C9bydkX8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj4C9bydkX8
- turing 13y agoUpdate from Musk: "Launch was good. All satellites deployed at the targeted orbit insertion vectors." https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/384392608350367744/photo/1 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/384392608350367744/photo...
- ChuckMcM 13y agoVideo of it (for those who missed it ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFefasS6bhc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFefasS6bhc I'm looking for video of the first stage landing, you can hear them call it out on the audio but its not in this video.
- rst 13y agoPer SpaceX post-launch press conference: all payloads delivered safely into orbit. First stage did not land intact. The first burn went OK. The second (single-engine burn braking to the surface) cut off early: the stage spun, and the roll was centrifuging fuel in the tanks. Pieces of the stage have been recovered. (FWIW, this was with the tanks nearly drained. This may be different from Grasshopper, which has ballast to get its weight up and make it easier to control, possibly in the form of extra fuel.) Next recovery attempt will be on the fourth Falcon 9 v1.1 launch (for space station resupply, after two communication satellite launches). There was also a problem relighting the second stage after payloads were deployed; they've identified the issue, and will correct. (This would have been an issue for the comsat launches, as delivering them into their desired orbits requires relighting the engine.)
- trafficlight 13y ago> First stage did not land intact. Intact as in it broke up during descent?
- rst 13y agoNot during descent --- it got to the point of doing the second burn, but that sputtered out early because the stage was spinning too fast, and the spin was centrifuging fuel to the edges of the tanks. They haven't actually said that it hit the water too hard to stay in one piece, but that's the (fairly clear) implication. The spin was due to "aerodynamic torque" (i.e., it was spun up by the atmosphere going down), per Elon's twitter stream.
- w1ntermute 13y agoThe tweet in question: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/384407846349062144 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/384407846349062144
- Gravityloss 13y agoInteresting how the rocket is so skinny with a huge "hammerhead" payload fairing. The upgrades to the Merlin 1 engine series seem to have worked out so well that they have stretched Falcon 9 quite a lot. The loads in the center of the rocket must be huge. To increase diameter, they would probably need to invest so much more in either risk analysis, flight control, manufacturing or transport that it wasn't deemed necessary. (Resistance to buckling is roughly relative to rotational inertia of the cross section, which for a circle grows with the square of radius assuming a constant shell thickness, and the thickness would actually increase with increasing radius because it is a pressure vessel. Also the actual bending loads increase supralinearly with length.)
- tonyarkles 13y agoI've been waiting and waiting and waiting for this launch. I worked on the Cassiope payload about 5 years ago, and it's so awesome to know that it's finally made it to orbit. And it got to ride on a Falcon 9! Originally, it was meant to be strapped to an old Soviet rocket in Kazakstan. This is so much cooler!