SpaceX Falcon 9

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Stephen C. Smith‏ @WordsmithFL 1 ч. назад

Breaking: @SpaceX Crew Dragon access arm moved to Pad 39A for installation.

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Stephen C. Smith‏ @WordsmithFL 8 ч. назад

More crummy photos from my smartphone.

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https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-first-reused-falcon-9-block-5-drone-ship-landing-photo/

SpaceX shows off first reused Falcon 9 Block 5 landing on drone ship OCISLY

ByEric Ralph
Posted on August 16, 2018

For the first time in a year (356 days to be exact), SpaceX has published a photo of a Falcon 9 booster recovery aboard one of its autonomous spaceport drone ships (ASDS), in this case showing the first reused Block 5 rocket just prior to landing on the Florida-based drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You" (OCISLY).

SpaceX published the last routine drone ship rocket recovery photos all the way back in August 2017, following the successful West Coast launch of the Formosat-5 imaging satellite. Prior to Formosat-5, SpaceX regularly routinely posted photos fr om their West and East Coast drone ships alongside the launch photos they have shared after every launch the company has ever conducted, only once skipping landing photos for the slightly off-nominal drone ship recovery after Falcon 9's launch of BulgariaSat-1.

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Iridium-1 landing January 2017 (SpaceX)


After launching SES-10 in March 2017, the Falcon 9 first stage was recovered for a second time aboard the drone ship OCISLY. (SpaceX)


Iridium-2's June 2017 launch saw the first Falcon 9 flight debut of titanium grid fins. (SpaceX)


Falcon 9 lands on drone ship JRTI after launching Formosat-5, August 2017. (SpaceX)

Adding additional intrigue to the abrupt year-long drought of drone ship landing photos, SpaceX continued to publish official launch photos for all missions and posted at least one or two images of booster recovery whenever the mission allowed for a return to launch site (RTLS) landing at the company's Cape Canaveral Landing Zone-1 (LZ-1).

Given the experimental nature of most drone ship booster recoveries in 2016, 2017, and even 2018, there is little doubt that SpaceX has continued to capture extensive video and photos of drone ship landings, just as the company does during launch with arrays of dozens of cameras inside the rocket and throughout their launch facilities. Why official drone ship photos stopped will likely remain a mystery, but there are several obvious possibilities ranging from an internal undercurrent of concern that the camera views might give away too much proprietary detail to potential competitors to a much more mundane conclusion that the company's energy would be best directed elsewh ere.

SpaceX ✔@SpaceX

Falcon 9 lands on the "Of Course I Still Love You" droneship and returns to port after delivering the Merah Putih satellite to geosynchronous transfer orbit. This mission marked the first re-flight of a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket booster. http://instagram.com/p/Bmg3v4jlnCN/ 

12:11 AM - Aug 16, 2018

None of the obvious explanations are very convincing or satisfying. However, the most important thing here is to remember that SpaceX is by no means required to make anything public, including the company's live launch coverage, official photos, factory and facility information, activity updates, and even providing press access to launches to set up their own remote cameras. Although many of those dramatically improve the company's public perception and bolster its standing among typically tight-lipped competitors, none of it is guaranteed to last forever.

Regardless, I and (presumably) the entire spaceflight fan community will be crossing our fingers and hoping that the year-long drought of Falcon 9 drone ship landing photos has at long last come to an end.

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SpaceX's 1st 'Block 5' Rocket: A Tale of 2 Launches

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https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-second-usaf-mission-december-gps-satellite-launch-target/

SpaceX's second dedicated USAF mission targets Dec. 2018 for GPS satellite launch

By Eric Ralph
Posted on September 3, 2018

One of a number of 2018 SpaceX missions pushed into this year's fourth quarter, SpaceX's second-ever dedicated US Air Force payload is tracking towards a tentative mid-December launch, hopefully kicking off the deployment of the first ten third-generation GPS (Global Positioning System) satellites.

Set to launch the first and second GPS satellites on upgraded Falcon 9 Block 5 rockets, SpaceX and the USAF could potentially decide to fly one or several of the company's contracted GPS missions on flight-proven boosters.

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James Dean‏Подлинная учетная запись @flatoday_jdean

Air Force reports first GPS III spacecraft -- nicknamed "Vespucci" in honor of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci -- has arrived in Titusville to prepare for December launch on SpaceX Falcon 9.



16:45 - 22 авг. 2018 г.

Designed and built by Lockheed Martin, each of the first group of a dozen satellites will weigh approximately 3900 kg (8900 lb) and will be placed in a circular orbit 20,000 km (12,500 mi) above Earth's surface, resulting in one completed orbit every 12 hours. Both as a result of each satellite's significant mass and orbit requirement and the desire to spread risk over multiple launches, the first eight GPS Block IIIA spacecraft will ride into space on their own dedicated launch vehicles – five aboard Falcon 9, one on a ULA Delta IV, and the rest yet to be determined.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 was certified to launch national security-sensitive USAF payloads in May 2015 after spending years fighting for the reintroduction of competition into the Department of Defense's rocket launch procurement apparatus, killed back in the mid-2000s when Lockheed Martin and Boeing merged their space subsidiaries into the United Launch Alliance despite protests from NASA and some in the DoD.

SpaceNews‏ @SpaceNews_Inc

SN Military Space | Air Force wants new GPS in orbit before year's end • DoD big on OTAs • Space Force by 2020 a long shot - https://mailchi.mp/f9adf2caf8fe/sn-military-space-air-force-wants-new-gps-in-orbit-before-years-end-dod-big-on-otas-space-force-by-2020-a-long-shot ...




7:19 - 28 авг. 2018 г.

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That launch is now aiming for December 15th, 2018, although such a specific date nearly three and a half months out should be treating as purely for planning purposes. Originally planned to launch on a ULA Delta IV rocket, the USAF decided (for unknown reasons) to switch the order of launch, making SpaceX the launch provider for the first and second spacecraft, with ULA following up on the third launch. In March 2018, SpaceX was additionally awarded one more GPS IIIA launch with the option for two more, at a total contract cost of roughly $290 million or ~$97 million apiece. Of the remaining four satellites to be launched after Space Vehicle 06 (SV06) reaches orbit, contracts have yet to be competed, although that process is likely to begin within a year or so.

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Falcon 9 B1046 returned to Port Canaveral in mid-August after the first Block 5 booster reuse, hopefully the first of dozens or even hundreds to come. (Tom Cross)


The second Block 5 booster, B1047, debuted at LC-40 last week, July 21. (Tom Cross)


The scale of Falcon Heavy. (Photo: Tom Cross)

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Barring any unforeseen developments or anomalies, SpaceX's December launch of GPS IIIA SV01 ought to kick off a series of Falcon 9 GPS missions every 4-6 months between now and 2021 or 2022. After SV08 is launched sometime in those final years, the US Air Force will open competition slightly further, allowing launch providers SpaceX, ULA, and perhaps even Blue Origin to offer multi-satellite launches on their more powerful rocket offerings, including Falcon Heavy, heavier Atlas 5 variants, and New Glenn.

Beginning in March 2019, largely symbolic but still revolutionary language to be included in 2019's defense procurement authorization may explicitly require the USAF to explain before Congress – in the event that a launch contract does not allow a reusable rocket to compete – why an expendable launch vehicle was privileged. Currently NET March 2019 as well, SpaceX's third dedicated USAF launch – STP-2 on Falcon Heavy – is being set up primarily to help the USAF certify SpaceX's newest heavy-lift rocket for national security launches.

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Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust 3 ч. назад

Shotwell: decline in GEO business is not a "crushing blow" for us. Seeing strong growth in DOD business, but also later with commercial crew: "7 billion potential payloads"
#WSBW

2 ч. назад

Shotwell: Falcon 9 first stages come back in much better shape than anticipated. Have refurbishment time down to four weeks; goal is still a one-day turnaround next year.
#WSBW

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David Legangneux‏ @dlxinorbit 22 ч. назад

Summary of Falcon's 1st stage recovery attempts since the first success [updated after the launch of Telstar 18 Vantage / Apstar-5C]

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B1049

Julia‏ @julia_bergeron 19 мин. назад

I spy a @SpaceX booster on the horizon. The #SpaceXFleet is coming home.

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Tom McCool‏ @Cygnusx112 4 мин. назад

Booster 1049 is back @PortCanaveral after delivering #TelStar18 to orbit. @SpaceX @NASASpaceflight

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TomCross‏ @_TomCross_ 6 мин. назад

SpaceX block 5 booster 49 arrived to port Canaveral this morning looking like it hardly felt the launch. They keep getting better! #spacex #block5 #telstar18v #rocketscience @SpaceX @Teslarati

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https://www.spaceflightindustries.com/2018/09/11/spaceflight-offers-rideshare-launches-to-geosynchronous-transfer-orbit/

SPACEFLIGHT OFFERS RIDESHARE LAUNCHES TO GEOSYNCHRONOUS TRANSFER ORBIT

By Jodi Sorensen
SEPTEMBER 11, 2018

Partnership with SSL reflects growing need for frequent, affordable access to GTO/GSO; SpaceIL's Israeli Lunar lander secures ride on first rideshare mission

Paris – September 11, 2018 — Spaceflight, the leading satellite rideshare and mission management provider, announced today at Euroconsult's World Satellite Business Week's conference that it has procured upcoming launches to Geosynchronous Orbit – a popular destination for communications satellites. The company anticipates offering rideshare opportunities to Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) approximately every 12-18 months, or as customer demand requires.

The first mission will launch fr om Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 which was procured by SSL, a Maxar Technologies company. It will represent the two companies' first combined launch and Spaceflight's first mission beyond Lower Earth Orbit (LEO).

"We're focused on getting our customers' spacecraft into orbit in the most expeditious, cost-effective manner possible," said Curt Blake, president of Spaceflight. "The rideshare model is beneficial to everyone; the primary spacecraft as well as all the secondaries pay less than if they contracted to launch individually. In addition, working with a reliable partner like SSL to fulfill our first GTO mission increases our ability to service this growing destination. We're looking forward to making GTO a routine and affordable destination for our clients."

The manifest for this Falcon 9 GTO rideshare mission is completely full. It features several undisclosed payloads along with an unmanned lunar spacecraft from SpaceIL, an Israeli nonprofit organization that was competing in the Google Lunar XPrize to land a spacecraft on the Moon. The first rideshare satellites will separate in GTO and then the SSL host spacecraft will continue on to Geostationary Orbit (GEO) wh ere the remaining rideshare satellites will be separated.

"Spaceflight has taken an innovative approach to aggregating launches and bringing a more cost-effective launch model to the industry as a result," said David Bernstein, senior vice president of program management at SSL. "Working as a team with Spaceflight and SpaceX, we are enabling a unique mission that ultimately accomplishes a translunar injection, prior to dropping off other payloads on our way to geostationary orbit for the primary communications satellite."

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https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-falcon-9-rideshare-commercial-lunar-lander-2019/

SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare launch to send a commercial lander to the Moon in 2019

By Eric Ralph
Posted on September 12, 2018

According to a press release published on September 11 in conjunction with the 2018 World Satellite Business Week conference, satellite rideshare organizer Spaceflight Industries and SpaceX are on track for the first functionally dedicated rideshare mission to a relatively high-energy geostationary transfer orbit.

Expected to occur as soon as early 2019, Spaceflight has arranged the addition of "several undisclosed payloads" but was able to confirm that Israel-based company SpaceIL's lunar lander spacecraft – deemed Sparrow – will be onboard Falcon 9 come launch, potentially paving the way for the first-ever commercial spacecraft landing on an extraterrestrial planet (or moon).

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Spaceflight@SpaceflightInc

Did you hear? We're offering rideshare to GTO/GSO now. https://www.spaceflightindustries.com/2018/09/11/spaceflight-offers-rideshare-launches-to-geosynchronous-transfer-orbit/ ...

Spaceflight Offers Rideshare Launches to Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit - Spaceflight Industries
Partnership with SSL reflects growing need for frequent, affordable access to GTO/GSO; SpaceIL's Israeli Lunar lander secures ride on first rideshare mission Paris – September 11, 2018 — Spaceflight,...
spaceflightindustries.com

6:09 PM - Sep 11, 2018

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A BIT MORE THAN "UBER FOR SPACE"

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Although any rocket or satellite launch on its own is already a sort of wildly complex symphony, rideshare missions – potentially carrying dozens of individual satellites – up the intensity by a significant degree, demanding magnitudes more separation events (i.e. satellite deployments), a labyrinth-like hell for the payload organizer tasked with herding dozens of distinct spacecraft into one payload fairing come launch time, and often multiple orbit drop-off points.

Still, at the cost of some amount of added risk (of both failures and launch delays) and less flexibility to pick and choose orbits, rideshare customers are granted launch prices that should – in theory – be fundamentally unbeatable with dedicated launches, using an entire rocket for no more than a handful of payloads. Intriguingly, at least in the case of Spaceflight Industry's first organized rideshare to geostationary orbit, Falcon 9's capabilities are truly unbeatable at SI's cost per customer, thanks to the reality that such a high-energy orbit is functionally unreachable to the array of dedicated smallsat rockets with purportedly imminent commercial launch debuts (Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, Vector, and others).

Even more intriguingly, it appears that this rideshare will go so far as to offer a ride to a true, circular geostationary orbit for a few copassengers, versus the highly-elliptical parking orbit Falcon 9 will place the whole payload stack in. It has yet to be specifically confirmed what the primary (heaviest) payload will be for this inaugural geostationary rideshare, but nearly all available signs are pointing towards a fairly large (5000 kilogram) communications satellite built by Space Systems Loral (SSL). Further, the satellite itself will serve as the mode of transportation to carry a number of copassenger spacecraft fr om SpaceX's geostationary transfer orbit to the final circular orbit roughly 22,500 mi (~36,000 km) above Earth's surface.

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SATELLITE RIDESHARES, BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE US MILITARY?

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The story deepens further still. All available signs also suggest a high probability that this launch will become one of SSL's first operational uses of a currently-experimental rideshare plan known as PODS, in which fairly small satellites would quite literally piggyback on large, commercial satellites into exotic and high-energy orbits, far beyond the low Earth orbits primarily available to rideshare payloads. This could open a whole new world of affordable, cubesat-style exploration, ranging from student-led missions with unprecedented reach to fleets of NASA-funded scientific smallsats, and perhaps even self-propelled interplanetary cubesats once miniature propulsion is available.


An SSL graphic explains the company's PODS technology. (SSL)


This condensed User's Guide lists the basics of PODS ridesharing. (SSL)


Falcon 9 B1049 lifts off from SpaceX's LC-40 pad, September 10. (Tom Cross)


A Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket will launch both SSO-A and the geostationary rideshare sometime in the next six or so months. (Tom Cross)
 
Funded and sponsored to some extent by US military research agency DARPA, it just so happens that an SSL-built satellite launched by SpaceX six months ago – Hispasat 30W-6, March 2018 – successfully debuted that PODS rideshare technology in an experimental test, deploying a secret secondary satellite funded by DARPA. That success has apparently paved the way for future PODS rideshares, and it looks like SSL may be opting to contract out the specialized task of manifesting launches and wrangling multiple copassenger satellites to Spaceflight Industries.

The primary SSL-built spacecraft, likely Indonesia's PSN-6 geostationary communications satellite, is expected to weigh approximately 5000 kg (~11,000 lb), while SpaceIL's commercial Sparrow lunar lander and spacecraft is currently pegged around 600 kg (1300 lb). Aside from that duo, SSL PODS can support anywhere from one to several satellite deployer add-ons, and each copassenger spacecraft has a mass lim it of 90-150 kg (~200-330 lb).

As a consequence, the final mass of those 3+ integrated satellites and their associated payload adapters could easily wind up around 6500-7000 kg, a payload SpaceX's Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket has proven itself capable of handling (Telstar 18V and 19V), but only to a fairly low-energy geostationary transfer orbit (18,000 km vs. a full GTO's 36,000 km apogee). It's unclear how SpaceIL's Sparrow lunar lander would handle a relatively low-energy insertion orbit, although the PSN-6 communications satellite would certainly be able to make up for the shortfall with its own propellant supply and rocket engines.


SpaceIL's Sparrow lunar lander hopes to become the first commercial payload ever to land on an extraterrestrial body. (SpaceIL)

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Prior to this geostationary rideshare, SpaceX and Spaceflight Industry's first mission together –  a rideshare of ~70 satellites to low Earth orbit – is expected to occur no earlier than October or November 2018 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

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Julia‏ @julia_bergeron 30 с. назад

Merlin engines, legs and an Octagrabber holding on tight.
#SpaceXFleet #OCISLY #SpaceX #Telstar18V

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Tom McCool‏ @Cygnusx112 6 мин. назад

#SpaceX is in the process of removing the first leg.
#SpaceFlight #Falcon9

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Tom McCool‏ @Cygnusx112 24 мин. назад

Definitely folding the legs on the #SpaceX booster.

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B1049

SpaceX - Returns From The Edge - 1049 09-12-2018

USLaunchReport

Опубликовано: 13 сент. 2018 г.

(12:33)

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Хм-м, где-то и когда-то это я уже видел... Неужели опять тренировка, а ноги снимут как обычно?

Tom McCool‏ @Cygnusx112 3 мин. назад

Interesting! #SpaceX has unfolded the leg. Any thoughts?

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К #18753

Mike Wagner‏ @USLaunchReport 1 ч. назад

В ответ @julia_bergeron @ken_kremer

#B1049 #LegRetract SpaceX is continuing to experiment with different devices and lubricants for the leg lifting procedure. Our 4K video will be out after.............

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Mike Wagner‏ @USLaunchReport 19 мин. назад

#B1049 #LegRetract Now on third ever leg retraction

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Mike Wagner‏ @USLaunchReport 7 мин. назад

#B1049 #LegRetract Third lift complete 6:20