SpaceX

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tnt22

https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/04/12/spacex-retrieves-falcon-heavy-fairings-from-sea-for-reuse-on-future-launch/
ЦитироватьSpaceX retrieves Falcon Heavy fairings from sea for reuse on future launch
April 12, 2019Stephen Clark


One half of the Falcon Heavy's payload fairing after retrieval from the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday night. Credit: Elon Musk/SpaceX

SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk said Thursday that the company's recovery fleet in the Atlantic Ocean recovered the two halves of the Falcon Heavy's payload shroud after the heavy-lifter's second launch from the Kennedy Space Center. Musk said the company plans to reuse the fairing for the first time later this year.

In a series of tweets Thursday night, Musk wrote SpaceX retrieved both halves of the Falcon Heavy's payload shroud from the sea, and the hardware appears undamaged after riding to the edge of space and back.

Musk said the fairing halves will launch again later this year on a mission carrying a batch of satellites into orbit for SpaceX's Starlink global broadband network. Two Starlink test satellites launched last year, and SpaceX's next set of Earth-orbiting broadband relay spacecraft are scheduled for launch on a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida in the coming months, according to regulatory filings.
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On several missions since early 2018, SpaceX has tried to catch the payload fairings using a giant net on a ship named Mr. Steven, which tried to maneuver under the fairing as it descended under a steerable parachute. After several near-misses, SpaceX installed a bigger net on the vessel, but the company has not yet snatched a fairing using the ship.

SpaceX has recovered numerous fairings from the ocean. The concept of catching the fairing with Mr. Steven was intended to keep the hardware from being damaged by salt water. SpaceX's experience with refurbishing Dragon cargo capsules that splash down at sea has shown the effort to be time-consuming.

In recent months, Musk has said cleaning fairings recovered from the ocean may not be a show-stopper to reusing the shroud.


Mr. Steven, SpaceX's fairing recovery ship. Credit: SpaceX

After Mr. Steven narrowly missed catching a fairing after a Falcon 9 launch from California in December, Musk tweeted: "Falcon fairing halves missed the net, but touched down softly in the water. Mr. Steven is picking them up. Plan is to dry them out & launch again. Nothing wrong with a little swim."

Mr. Steven sailed from California through the Panama Canal to Florida earlier this year, but was not deployed to catch the fairing Thursday.

Musk said Thursday night that the fairing halves from the Falcon Heavy launch Thursday will be the first to be re-flown.

The payload fairing typically jettisons from the rocket three or four minutes after liftoff, once the launcher has climbed into space. The aerodynamic shroud, or nose cone, shields satellite payloads from the airflow as the rocket ascends through the dense lower layers of the atmosphere.

Once in the vacuum of space, the fairing is no longer needed. It separates in two pieces, like a clamshell, and falls back to Earth.

The fairing used on Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches is about 43 feet (13 meters) long and 17 feet (5.2 meters) in diameter.


Part of a Falcon 9 payload fairing from an April 2018 launch from Cape Canaveral descends under a parafoil over the Atlantic Ocean. Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX has outfitted its fairings with avionics, thrusters and steerable parachutes to aid recovery. The company wants to reuse the fairing, eyeing it as the next step in reducing launch costs after proving the landing and reuse of Falcon booster stages.

Musk told reporters last year that the fairing costs around $6 million.

He said the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket comprises about 60 percent of the cost of a launch, with the upper stage responsible for 20 percent, and the fairing another 10 percent. The remaining 10 percent of the cost of a Falcon 9 mission come from charges stemming from launch operations, propellant and other processing expenses, Musk said last year.
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кукушка


 15 апреля 2019 года Илон Маск посетил Командование воздушно-космической обороны Северной Америки (NORAD), где он участвовал в круглых столах, обсуждая будущие космические миссии с инновациями в оборонной области.

 Появилась предварительная дата запуска миссии STP-2 

Центр космических и ракетных систем ВВС США (AF SMC): "Возвращённые боковые ускорители из миссии Arabsat-6A потребуют анализа для определения возможности повторного использования. В ожидании состояния боковых ускорителей целевой датой запуска можно считать дату - не ранее 19 июня".

 "Первая пилотируемая миссия Crew Dragon названа DM-2 или Demo-2. Вторая пилотируемая миссия (и первая долгосрочная миссия на МКС) названа Crew-1 или Crew One", — сообщил Victor Glover, астронавт и член экипажа Crew-1.

 Один из боковых ускорителей Falcon Heavy с Миссии Arabsat-6A замечен возле ангара горизонтальной сборки SpaceX. 

Кстати, оказалось, что Arabsat- 6A стал 200-ым запущенным спутником связи, построенным Lockheed Martin! 

 Вторая ступень Falcon 9, используемая для запуска Eshail-2 в ноябре прошлого года, сошла в 02:10 UTC 15 апреля между островом Явой и Австралией.


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Чебурашка

У Илона Маска в твитторе аватарка баран.
Что бы это значило?   :D  


opinion

ЦитироватьЧебурашка пишет:
У Илона Маска в твитторе аватарка баран.
Что бы это значило?  :D  

Это space sheep.
There are four lights

DiZed

ЦитироватьЧебурашка пишет:
У Илона Маска в твитторе аватарка баран

https://www.bbc.com/russian/other-news-47990847

ЦитироватьВ среду эксцентричный миллиардер затвитил фото барана, заметив, что он тоже тот ещё экземпляр, а затем поменял свою аватарку на животное, снятое в английской сельской местности в 1962 году

Наутро Музей английской сельской жизни, будучи правообладателем фото, отреагировал на такую фамильярность основателя Tesla поставив его улыбающееся лицо на свой профиль

В ночь на пятницу музейные работники пошли ещё дальше и переименовали аккаунт в "Маскей Илонской сельской жизни"

ради читаемости и содержательности форума в настройках аккаунта отключено отображение всего, что можно отключить; я не вижу ваши (и свои) юзерпики, подписи, посты персонажей из блеклиста  ("старый", "бендер","аникей", "nonconvex" "alexandru" "streamflow" etc ) и т.п. бесполезности

tnt22

ЦитироватьMichael Baylor‏ @nextspaceflight 5 мин. назад

#SpaceX has been granted FCC approval to fly 1,500 #Starlink satellites at an altitude of 550 kilometers.
Full statement:

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=36552.msg1940441#msg1940441 ...


tnt22

https://spacenews.com/spacex-to-launch-dozens-of-starlink-satellites-may-15-more-starlink-launches-to-follow/
ЦитироватьSpaceX to launch "dozens" of Starlink satellites May 15, more Starlink launches to follow
by Caleb Henry — May 7, 2019


Shotwell said SpaceX aims to launch at least three Starlink missions this year, but could reach seven missions depending on the conclusions reached from a May 15 launch. Credit: Caleb Henry for SpaceNews.

WASHINGTON — SpaceX's first launch to carry a large number of Starlink broadband satellites is scheduled for May 15, according to a company executive.

Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president and chief operating officer, said the launch will carry "dozens of satellites," adding more prototypes to the two currently in low Earth orbit.

"This next batch of satellites will really be a demonstration set for us to see the deployment scheme and start putting our network together," she said at the Satellite 2019 conference here. "We start launching satellites for actual service later this year."

Shotwell said SpaceX anticipates launching two to six more times for its Starlink broadband constellation in addition to the May 15 launch. How many Starlink launches occur this year depend on the results of this first batch, she said.

SpaceX is planning a constellation that could number close to 12,000 satellites, according to filings with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. The company said in 2017 that it would need 800 satellites in orbit for commercial service — a target estimated for the 2020 to 2021 timeframe.

Shotwell said the demonstration satellites launching May 15 will be scaled down "test satellites" that lack intersatellite links. The test satellites will have very capable onboard antennas and electric propulsion, she said.

Shotwell said the launch, anticipated in early May, was pushed back to May 15 as a consequence of delays with an earlier cargo mission to the International Space Station for NASA. SpaceX launched a Dragon supply capsule on a Falcon 9 rocket to the ISS on May 4 after a power problem on the station and a subsequent electrical issue with SpaceX's rocket retrieval droneship delayed the mission from May 1.

SpaceX is targeting 18 to 21 launches for this year, not including the Starlink missions, Shotwell said. That rate is consistent with previous years — SpaceX launched 18 times in 2017 and 21 times last year — but lower than the 30 to 40 annual launches the company forecasted in 2017.

Shotwell said SpaceX expanded its manufacturing ability to 40 rockets a year in anticipation of a commercial boom that didn't happen.

"We thought the commercial market might expand to that, I think we probably wished it had, but [now] we've got plenty of capacity to launch our Starlink system," she said.

SpaceX has launched four times this year — three Falcon 9s and one Falcon Heavy.

tnt22

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starts-falcon-9-landing-leg-retraction/
ЦитироватьSpaceX hits new Falcon 9 reusability milestone, retracts all four landing legs


SPACEX TECHNICIANS HAVE SUCCESSFULLY RETRACTED THREE OF FALCON 9 B1056'S FOUR LANDING LEGS, A FIRST FOR THE COMPANY'S BLOCK 5 UPGRADE. (TOM CROSS)
By Eric Ralph
Posted on May 7, 2019

SpaceX appears to have sel ected Falcon 9 B1056 to become the first booster to have all four landing legs retracted and stowed. While relatively minor in the scope full Falcon 9 booster reuse, in-situ leg retraction could save SpaceX days of recovery and preflight work, a big help for truly rapid reusability.

A handful of prior retraction attempts have been made on Block 5 boosters but unknown issues prevented the process fr om taking hold. With some modifications to the legs and their deployment/retraction mechanisms, SpaceX seems to have solved those issues and is ready to graduate to a new level of rapid and easy rocket reusability. Teslarati photographer Tom Cross was on site in Port Canaveral, Florida when SpaceX began its first operational leg retractions and was able to capture photos and videos of the process.
Цитировать TomCross@_TomCross_ · 15h

After SpaceX engineers retracted and locked 1 leg, they immediately moved over to leg 2.

It took just 15 minutes for them to lift and lock leg 2!

Here's a closeup look at the locking mechanism, it has cables attached. Can't see the mechanism on leg 1. @Teslarati #Falcon9block5


 Elon Musk✔@elonmusk 11:05 PM PDT - May 7, 2019

One of the biggest reusability improvements was fast leg stow. Version 1 sometimes took days.
FALCON 9 DOESN'T EVEN LIFT
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The crux of the need for a relatively complex crane-and-jig method of leg retraction rests on SpaceX's landing leg design. Put simply, after rapidly deploying with a combination of gravity and hydraulics, Falcon 9 landing legs have no built-in way to return to their stowed state. Each of the four legs are quite large, weighing around 600 kg (1300 lb) and stretching about 10m (33 ft) from hinge to tip. They use an intricate telescoping carbon fiber deployment mechanism to give the legs enough strength to stand up to the forces of Falcon 9 booster landings.

Combined, the legs' size and telescoping mechanism makes the addition of an onboard retraction mechanism impractical. All the needed hardware would struggle to find a good place for installation and would quite literally be dead weight during launches and landings, stealing from Falcon 9/Heavy payload capacity and generally serving no purpose until a booster has been lifted off the ground with a giant crane.


SpaceX's custom Falcon landing leg retractor doubles as a crane jig used to lift the entire booster when needed. (Tom Cross)

As a result, SpaceX engineers instead decided to separate leg retraction hardware from the rocket itself and designed a custom crane jig. Pictured above, the jig attaches to Falcon 9's interstage and allows the crane operator to lift the entire booster as needed. It also features four independent motors and pulleys that are meant to attach to a specific port on the outside of each booster landing leg. The jig then lefts the landing legs up, nominally retracting the telescoping deployment mechanism, at which point latches should be able to safely secure the legs to the booster's body.

This has been significantly more difficult than expected, judging fr om a number of retraction attempts over the past six or so months. Falcon 9 Block 5 debuted in May 2018 – in fact, almost exactly one year ago – and SpaceX has since built 11 boosters that have supported 15 launches. SpaceX has thus taken ~12 months to get to a point wh ere Falcon 9's landing legs can be safely retracted, perhaps owing more to the fact that said legs are of minimal monetary value relative to the rest of a recovered booster. Improving leg retractibility is a bit of a luxury in that sense, as retracting legs offers little value proposition in terms of significantly lowering the cost of launch or reuse.


SpaceX technicians monitor Falcon 9 B1056 a second landing leg begins retraction. (Tom Cross)


A few hours later, SpaceX completed retraction of all four landing legs, a first for Falcon 9. (Tom Cross)

What leg retraction does do, however, is shave a significant amount of time off of the process of booster recovery and post-recovery processing. Instead of the normal process of totally dismantling and removing the legs piece by piece, stowing Falcon 9's legs saves not only the time it takes to remove them but also the time it then takes to reinstall said legs for the next launch. At a minimum, this could save 12-24 hours of dedicated work, up to as much as several days according to CEO Elon Musk. Taken to the extreme, it's likely that SpaceX's ultimate goal is to lift a booster off the drone ship, retract its landing legs mid-air (or close), flip the booster horizontal, and lower it onto a transporter in one fluid movement.

If SpaceX can arrive at something approximating that in the near future, the company will be well on its way accomplish Musk's goal of launching the same Falcon 9 booster twice in ~24 hours. Even further down the road, if or when SpaceX manages to optimize the reusability of its Falcon 9 boosters to the extent that almost zero refurbishment or in-depth inspection is needed between launches, minimizing the amount of human effort that goes into something as basic as preparing landing legs may actually have a significant impact on launch costs. For the time being, we get to enjoy the new and unusual spectacle of a giant reusable booster carefully stowing its landing legs for another launch attempt.
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tnt22

+++
ЦитироватьKen Kremer‏ @ken_kremer 5 мин. назад

BOOSTER DOWN! There are 4 legs attached! Today marks 1st instance 4 retracted legs stay attached #SpaceX #Falcon9 4 tilting/transport back to Cape. Marks significant advance 2 cutting booster recycling time.But 24h landing 2 launch turnaround still ways off.3 days in port so far



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перевод тезисно

На конференции Satellite 2019 в Вашингтоне Гвинн Шотвелл сделала ряд заявлений 

- Компания c нетерпением ожидает 2022 год, когда можно будет увидеть в деле новые ракеты конкурентов, и SpaceX очень взволнованы ожиданием Starship.

- Клиенты проявляют большой интерес к новым ракетам, но заметно общее падение коммерческих заказов.

- Ожидается 18-21 запусков в этом году, запусков Starlink будет много. У SpaceX производственный бум.

- Запуск спутников Starlink запланирован на 15 мая, ракета будет иметь на борту десятки спутников 

- Первые полноценные спутники Starlink — это своего рода демонстрационный вариант. Предстоящие запуски будут зависеть от того, как они будут работать на орбите. Может быть от двух до шести запусков Starlink в этом году 

tnt22

ЦитироватьSpaceXFleet Updates‏ @SpaceXFleet 31 мин. назад

GO Navigator has gained a directional antenna in the same position as GO Searcher. However, this one is not protected by a radome like GO Searcher's


tnt22

ЦитироватьRep. Mo Brooks Questioning About SpaceX Parachute Failures

Michael Baylor

Опубликовано: 8 мая 2019 г.

The questioning came during a May 8th, 2019 hearing titled, "Keeping Our Sights on Mars: A Review of NASA's Deep Space Exploration and Lunar Proposal."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZlXxHJyAFchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZlXxHJyAFc (4:07)

tnt22

https://tass.ru/kosmos/6415411
Цитировать9 МАЯ, 00:42
SpaceX провела в апреле неудачные испытания парашютной системы

Замдиректора NASA по пилотируемым программам Билл Герстенмайер уточнил, что при испытаниях три из четырех парашютов не сработали штатно

ВАШИНГТОН, 9 мая. /ТАСС/. Компания SpaceX провела в апреле на полигоне в штате Невада неудачные испытания парашютной системы для мягкой посадки космического корабля. Об этом сообщил в среду на слушаниях в комитете Палаты представителей по науке, космосу и технологиям Конгресса США заместитель директора NASA по пилотируемым программам Билл Герстенмайер.

"При испытании системы из четырех парашютов три из них не сработали штатно", - пояснил он, указав при этом, что спускаемый аппарат "был поврежден при падении на землю", но не уточнив характера повреждений.

"Результаты этого испытания не были удовлетворительными, мы не получили тех результатов, на которые рассчитывали, но появилась информация, которая будет учтена при создании в будущем парашютных систем, - продолжал замдиректора NASA. - Нам предстоит выяснить, была ли неудача результатом каких-то обстоятельств, возникших при самом испытании, или же проблема с общей конструкцией системы".

tnt22

К #3326#3327
ЦитироватьJeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust 12:44 PDT - 8 мая 2019 г.

Gerst: in April "single-out" test, one parachute of four was "proactively failed" but the other three did not operate properly. Don't know if it is a problem with the parachutes or the test itself.


Stephen Clark‏ @StephenClark1 12:46 PDT - 8 мая 2019 г.

Rep. Mo Brooks asks about SpaceX Crew Dragon parachute test last month in Nevada. NASA's Gerstenmaier confirms the test failed. One of four parachutes on a Crew Dragon test sled was "proactively failed" and the three remaining parachutes did not operate properly.

tnt22

ЦитироватьEric Berger‏Подлинная учетная запись @SciGuySpace 9 мин. назад

SpaceX says it has flown 19 parachute tests for Crew Dragon, with a number of additional tests planned before human flights.


6 мин. назад

(Very) unofficially, a source says they may switch to a thicker parachute design to compensate for issues discovered in the test. Although not ideal, this is a fairly normal part of spacecraft development.

tnt22

https://spacenews.com/crew-dragon-parachutes-failed-in-recent-test/
ЦитироватьCrew Dragon parachutes failed in recent test
by Jeff Foust — May 9, 2019


A SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft descends under its parachutes at the end of the Demo-1 test flight in March. A test of the parachutes for that spacecraft in April failed when the parachutes didn't open fully. Credit: NASA/Cory Huston

WASHINGTON — A test of parachutes for SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft did not go as planned last month, NASA and SpaceX confirmed May 8.

During a hearing of the House Science Committee's space subcommittee on NASA's exploration plans, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) quizzed agency officials on the testing of parachutes for commercial crew vehicles, zeroing in on a specific, previously undisclosed test in April.

"Did SpaceX conduct, in April of 2019, a parachute test in Delamar Dry Lake, Nevada?" he asked. "What happened in that test?"

"The test was not satisfactory," responded Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations and one of the witnesses at the hearing. "We did not get the results we wanted, but we learned some information that's going to affect, potentially, future parachute designs."

In that test, one of the four parachutes was "proactively failed" to demonstrate the "single-out" capability of the overall system. However, he said, "the three remaining chutes did not operate properly." That caused a test sled to hit the ground faster than expected, damaging it.

An industry source, speaking on background after the hearing, confirmed the problem with what SpaceX considered an "advanced development test" of the parachute system "specifically designed to measure loads within each parachute canopy." One of the four chutes was deliberately disabled, but the other three did not open fully.

Gerstenmaier said the cause of the failure wasn't known yet. "We still need to understand whether it was a test setup configuration coming out of the aircraft or if there was something associated with the packing of the parachutes, the rigging, all that," he said. He noted that the parachutes had instrumented lines to measure loads, which will provide important data for that investigation.

He emphasized that such failures are part of the overall testing process that will improve the ultimate design of the parachute system. "I don't see this as a negative. This is why we test. This is why we want to push things," he said. "This is a gift to us. We've gotten data that is unique that will help us design and understand if this is something that needs to be fixed or if it's something that was a nuance of the test."

Parachute development has been an issue for both Boeing and SpaceX during commercial crew development, an issue highlighted at several recent meetings of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel. "Clearly, one cannot risk crew without there being a complete confidence in the parachute design," Don McErlean, a member of the panel, said at a meeting last October that discussed issues with both companies' testing of parachutes.

Patricia Sanders, chair of the panel and another witness at the May 8 hearing, noted there have been a "large number" of parachute tests conducted for the commercial crew vehicles as well as for the Orion spacecraft. "They've made a great deal of progress in understanding those uncertainties involved in that," she said. "It's one of the larger risks they have."

"There have been a number of positive tests" of parachute systems in recent months, she said. "There have been a few less satisfactory results and some tests that are indicating that there may need to be some redesign or some adjustments made to the design." She didn't get into specifics of those tests beyond the problem with the April SpaceX test.

SpaceX said that, prior to last month's test, it had performed five similar "parachute-out" tests where one of the four parachutes deliberately did not open. All of those were completed successfully. The company has performed 19 tests of the parachute system to date with "a number of additional tests" planned before the Demo-2 test flight of the Crew Dragon vehicle, with two NASA astronauts on board.

tnt22

https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/05/09/commercial-crew-capsules-still-beset-by-parachute-problems/
ЦитироватьCommercial crew capsules still beset by parachute problems
May 9, 2019Stephen Clark


SpaceX performs a parachute test for their Dragon capsule over the Delamar Dry Lake in this file photo from 2016. Credit: SpaceX

A malfunction during a drop test over Nevada last month for SpaceX's Crew Dragon program has engineers re-examining the crew capsule's parachutes, and Boeing has encountered similar parachute failures during testing for its commercial crew capsule, a senior NASA official confirmed Wednesday.

The SpaceX parachute test failure occurred the same month as the explosion of a Crew Dragon spacecraft during a ground test at Cape Canaveral. The parachute drop test over Delamar Dry Lake in Nevada last month did not involve a Crew Dragon capsule, but used a simple metal test sled.

"It failed," said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator of NASA's human exploration and operations directorate. "The parachutes did not work as designed."

The parachutes did not fully open, sources said, and the test sled impacted the ground at a higher-than-expected velocity. Gerstenmaier said the sled was damaged upon impact. The advanced development test was intended to measure loads within each parachute canopy, according to an industry source.

No one was hurt in the test accident.

"It was one single-out test for this parachute," Gerstenmaier said Wednesday in a hearing before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology's subcommittee on space and aeronautics. "So typically, that test would involve four parachutes, one was proactively failed ahead of time and the three remaining chutes did not operate properly."

Gerstenmaier was asked about the outcome of the SpaceX parachute test by Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Alabama, whose district includes Huntsville and Decatur, home of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and the rocket factory for United Launch Alliance, a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and a chief rival of SpaceX.

The parachute test failure was not publicized by NASA or SpaceX before Wednesday's congressional hearing.

"The good thing on the test was we had instrumented lines going up to the parachutes, so we know exactly what the loads were in the system," Gerstenmaier said. "But we still need to understand whether it was a test set up configuration coming out of the aircraft or if there was something associated with the packing of the parachutes, the rigging, all of that. This is part of the learning process. By these failures, we're going to learn the data and information to end up with a safe design for our crews. So I don't see this as a negative, this is why we test, this is why we want to push things."


SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft descends under its four main parachutes March 8 after a test flight to the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/Cory Huston

Engineers are investigating whether the parachute malfunction was caused by a problem with the chutes themselves, or as a consequence from the way the test was conducted.

"The test was not satisfactory, we did not get the results we wanted," he said. "But we learned some information that's going to affect potentially future parachute designs. The other thing we need to understand (are the) test-unique circumstances. Was it driven by an actual design problem in the hardware, or was it driven by the set-up of the test or the particular equipment that was used during the test?"

SpaceX has completed 19 tests of the Crew Dragon's parachute system to date, with a number of additional tests planned before astronauts fly on the spaceship. SpaceX had successfully performed five "parachute-out" tests, in which one of the chutes was deliberately disabled, before last month's test accident, according to an industry source.

NASA officials have long identified parachutes as a concern for SpaceX and Boeing crew capsules, which are in the final stages of development before they carry astronauts into orbit for the first time. After completing their test programs, the SpaceX and Boeing capsules will begin ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station, ending NASA's sole reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for crew transportation.

A SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule suffered a parachute anomaly during a return from the International Space Station last year, but recovery crews retrieved the supply ship from the Pacific Ocean as intended.

SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship uses the same main parachutes as the Crew Dragon, also known as Dragon 2. But the heavier Crew Dragon, which is a significant different spacecraft than the cargo Dragon variant, requires four main parachutes for to slow down for splashdown in the ocean, not the three main chutes used on the currently-flying cargo freighter, sometimes known as Dragon 1.

The Crew Dragon's first test flight in space in early March was successful, and the capsule's parachutes functioned as designed after a six-day unpiloted mission to the space station. The spacecraft that flew to the station in March was destroyed April 20 during an accident at Cape Canaveral, which occurred as the capsule's SuperDraco abort engines were activated for a hold-down firing on a test stand.

Before the April 20 accident, SpaceX aimed to re-fly the Crew Dragon spacecraft on an in-flight abort test in July. Officials hoped to launch a two-man team of NASA astronauts — Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley — on the next Crew Dragon spacecraft to the space station in late September or early October.

SpaceX and NASA officials have not indicated how last month's hotfire test mishap, or the parachute failure, might impact the schedule for the Crew Dragon's first flight with astronauts on-board.
Спойлер
Boeing's CST-100 Starliner crew capsule, which will parachute to ground landings in the Western United States, is set for its first unpiloted test flight to the space station in August, followed by a demonstration mission with three astronauts on-board as soon as November. The Starliner missions will launch on ULA's Atlas 5 rocket, while SpaceX uses its own Falcon 9 launcher for Crew Dragon missions.

Patricia Sanders, chair of NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, told members of Congress on Wednesday that parachutes are one of the largest risks faced by SpaceX and Boeing engineers working on NASA's commercial crew program.

"There have been a number of very positive tests, results confirming what we would expect, or desire, in terms of re-entry performance of the parachutes," Sanders said. "There have been a few less satisfactory results, and some tests that are indicating there may need to be some redesign or some adjustments made to the design.

"Those are important to get right before you launch humans," she said.

Lawmakers did not ask Gerstenmaier about Boeing's recent parachute test results. But in response to a question from Spaceflight Now after the hearing, he confirmed that Starliner parachute drop tests have encountered anomalies similar to the one suffered by SpaceX last month.
[свернуть]

"We've gotten data that is unique, that will help us understand if this is something that needs to be fixed or if it's something that's just a nuance of the test and the configuration," Gerstenmaier said of last month's SpaceX parachute test failure.

Pirat5

Т.к.пуски вплоть до 11 июня уже определены, можно проанализировать: 
Core
 
Mission assignment
 
retry
Last flight
 
на 11июня
 
B1046
 
 
 
3x
2018 Dec 3
 
=190 дней
B1047
 
 
 
2x
2018 Nov 15
 
=208 дней
B1048
 
Starlink flight 1
 
3x
2019 Feb 21
 

B1049
 
 
 
2x
2019 Jan 11
 
=151 день
 Дней с предыдущего пуска:
B1046
 
2018 May 11
 
Bangabandhu 1
 

 
2018 Aug 7
 
Merah Putih       88days
 

 
2018 Dec 3
 
SSO-A            118days
 
B1047
 
2018 Jul 22
 
Telstar 19V
 

 
2018 Nov 15
 
Es'hail 2        116days
 
B1048
 
2018 Jul 25
 
Iridium 7
 

 
2018 Oct 7
 
SAOCOM 1A   74days
 

 
2019 Feb 22
 
PSN-6       138days
 

 
2019 May 16
 
SpaceX Starlink flight 1        87days
 
B1049
 
2018 Sep 10
 
Telstar 18V
 

 
2019 Jan 11
 
Iridium 8       116days
 
190 дней «отпуска» для ядра B1046 и 208 дней для B1047 мне кажется многовато.
Есть подозрение, что не выдержали двигатели, боятся их пускать в обычные миссии.
Хотя кандидаты на них вроде бы ещё есть:
July   Amos 17            5500 kg
 Q3    Kacific 1 (JCSat 18)    6800 kg
 Q4    SiriusXM SXM-7
 В крайнем случае дождутся следующих пусков SpaceX Starlink.

opinion

Очередной судебный иск, скорее всего оспаривающий решение по какой-то госзакупке. СпэйсИкс просит провести рассмотрение в закрытом режиме, так как исковое заявление содержит детали конкурсной заявки.
There are four lights

tnt22

Возвращают "лапы"

ЦитироватьSpaceXFleet Updates‏ @SpaceXFleet 2 ч. назад

After almost 3 months of no action... Mr Steven is getting new arms!
ЦитироватьStephen Marr‏ @spacecoast_stve 2 ч. назад

Look who's getting his arms back!
#MrSteven @SpaceXFleet


Stephen Marr‏ @spacecoast_stve 2 ч. назад

Just one arm installed for now, and not much activity.


Stephen Marr‏ @spacecoast_stve 2 ч. назад

Another arm ready to be lifted.




SpaceXFleet Updates‏ @SpaceXFleet 23 мин. назад

Mr Steven from another angle...
ЦитироватьAstro‏ @AstroCapcom 12:41 PDT - 20 мая 2019 г.

@SpaceXFleet The second aft Mr. Steven arm is being lifted into place and installed at this time.