Since a number of cool things are happening in space exploration these days, we'll widen the scope of this thread a smidge. Conversation about all things space exploration are welcome, whether it be from NASA, SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, or anyone else. Chances are most of the discussion will still be about SpaceX since they love to make things public and fun, but nothing's off limits. I'll eventually get around to modifying the OP to include resources for other companies too, but in the meantime, feel free to post any cool stuff you run across.
Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut) - A "random dude" who got really into space (particularly SpaceX). He's a great resource for simple explanations of this stuff, as well as live hosting launches.
USLaunchReport - Lost of videos of the more mundane stuff (e.g., booster recovery operations). Not a ton of commentary.
NASASpaceFlight - Live hosting of most launches including a ton of video of Starlink operations.
Glossary
Spoiler!
Space discussions tend to get a little bogged down in jargon, so here's a list of terms you might encounter. (Others, please let me know of others that should be added.)
ASDS - Autonomous Spaceport Droneship - The "barges" that they sometimes land rockets on.
Dragon - The cone-shaped capsule that sits at the top of the rocket for ISS-bound launches that holds the cargo (or, in the future, humans).
F9 - Falcon 9, the name of the rocket itself.
FH - Falcon Heavy, the three-booster version.
GTO - Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, a type of orbit that will eventually result in the satellite orbiting the earth as it turns so that it seems to be in the same spot from the ground (such as DirecTV or Dish satellites). These types of launches are particularly challenging because they require a lot of power to get them into the right orbit, leaving very little fuel left for landing.
HIF - Horizontal Integration Facility - the building near the launch pad where they put all of the pieces of the rocket together before rolling it out to the pad.
ISS - The International Space Station
JRTI - Just Read The Instructions, the name of the "barge" that they land on for west-coast launches.
LEO - Low Earth Orbit, a fairly low orbit shared by many satellites and ISS. These launches usually require less power to achieve the proper orbit, so the first stage can often be landed back on land rather than on a drone ship.
LZ1 - Landing Zone 1, basically a big open slab of concrete at Cape Canaveral where the first stage will attempt to land (for some launches).
NET - No Earlier Than, basically the date they're hoping to launch, but rocket launches have a tendency of getting delayed.
OCISLY - Of Course I Still Love You, the name of the "barge" that they land on for east-coast launches.
RTLS - Return to Landing Site, a mission where the first stage comes back and lands at LZ1.
Starship - SpaceX's next-generation rocket (and spacecraft) that will hopefully one day take us to Mars. Starship is the "second stage" that will carry cargo or people, but also refers to the whole system. (It's confusing, but think of it like the Space Shuttle, which was both the shuttle itself and the entire launch system.)
Super Heavy - The giant booster that will carry Starship to space.
Originally Posted by Donger:
Is it my imagination, our does the rocket have a slight lean to it on the barge?
I think the barge itself is rocking all over the place. It's certainly possible that the big ass rocket landing on it caused it to dip on that side, though. :-)
In the shots they showed of it from the barge itself a minute or so later, it looks perfectly solid. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DaFace:
I think the barge itself is rocking all over the place. It's certainly possible that the big ass rocket landing on it caused it to dip on that side, though. :-)
In the shots they showed of it from the barge itself a minute or so later, it looks perfectly solid.
It sure looks like it bounced and then leaned. So maybe a damaged foot.
That was so awesome. Emotional too.
34:19 you can see the RCS firing right above the women hosts head. Real cool:
Random dump of points made by Elon in the post-launch press conference...
Originally Posted by :
Mousetronauts doing well!
Half of missions will need to land out to sea due to technical reasons
Elon: "Press should educate public on difference between space vs orbit"
Koenigsmann: "Dragon healthy, all thrusters fired, comms working"
Next step is opening of the GNC door, will happen in about 2 hours and 15 minutes, followed by orbital adjustment burns tomorrow morning.
Question about whether booster will be reused Likely this booster will be reflown, will arrived in port on Sunday, series of test fires at the Cape, fire 10 times in a row, if that looks good, that will qualify it for reuse and launch in June! Eventually would like to reuse them in a few weeks.
Thought 2-1 chance it would land, if it did fail, would fail for a new reason. "Still quite tricky" to land on a ship.
Would reflight be paying customer? think it will be
vague question abut future of spaceflight "another step towards the stars", with a huge impact on cost. "Few years to make that smooth and efficient". Proven that it can work, with failures in future. Want to make it routine.
Would like to be able to just wash rocket and refly
Where is F9-021? Hopefully will be displayed outside Hawthorne HQ in next few months
What was the highest altitude and velocity this booster reached? "I don't actually know!". Could've bought it back to land, wanted to do a ship landing with lots of margin. Low margin return to land vs high margin to ship.
Maximum transfer velocity of F9 is to accelerate 120 tons to 9000-10000 km/h
Barge is better called a ship
What is the maximum tilt the rocket can handle? 2-3 degree pitch and roll today, maximum is about double-triple that (8-9 degrees) limit, that'd be intense seas.
Ship holds to absolute GPS position with accuracy below a meter
headcount + launch rate will continue to grow, Q3 2016 one launch every 2-3 weeks.
Welded shoes are still go! "Potentially some heavy winds coming in"
"Not certain if initial destination is Port Canaveral"
Bring it into port, they can put a cap on the top of the rocket, pick it up with a crane and move it to land onto a stand. Fold legs up, crane rotates it horizontal, brings it back to 39A, then 10 test fires. Then comfortable with an orbital flight.
Horizontal velocity cannot be emphasized enough. "Could conceivably put a huge weight on top of the boost stage, but there's no point doing that"
"Basically impossible to do these tests on land"
"I have a confession to make: I did hug Hans", still a lot of work ahead, making the landing and reflight easy is hard. Rapid + complete reusability needed for cost effectiveness.
Question about FH "Should've been called the Falcon 27", high pucker factor, amazing payload capabilities, heavy payloads that can currently only be flown by Ariane.
50/50 ground/ocean. As performance is refined, in the long run 1/3 or 1/4 on barge. Next land landing is about 3 months away. JC-SAT for ocean landing. Third mission from now will be land landing. Tough to stick landings, really hot.
How many times can you reuse a used first stage? No meaningful limit, up to 1000 missions. "10-20 missions", minor refurbishment "100 missions"
Forsee any competing launch providers? Musk hopeful other providers will embrace reusability. 100 fold marginal cost reduction.
"What can top the experience you had today?" Getting to orbit to the first time was the best one. Falcon 1 was most profound.
"We'll be successful when it becomes boring"
Fairing reuse mentioned! Several million dollars each!
Falcon Heavy will be quite exciting.
World's cringiest question, no useful information.
Originally Posted by unlurking:
This is just one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Ever. I don't even know.
Would love to see video of the barge coming into port if anyone finds any! Think it is supposed to come in tomorrow?
Can't wait to see it fly again this summer.
Yep, sometime this morning I believe. I'll keep an eye out for media and post it if it comes in. I'm sure we'll get pictures if nothing else. They did post this one of it on the way back at least.
:-)000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">Coming back
:-)c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A photo posted by SpaceX (@spacex) on
In the meantime, not that it's anywhere near as tricky as the launch itself (let alone landing), but Dragon is officially captured by ISS. Complete mission success (pending a successful return in a few weeks).
While we wait on some pics of the booster coming back, would you guys mind giving me some feedback on this thread itself? I enjoy having a place to chat about this stuff, but I'm well aware that about 1/3rd of the posts in here are mine. I don't have a problem with that since I'm doing a lot of posting from around the interwebs, but I don't want to go so crazy with it that it's annoying to have the thread bumped all the time with boring info either.
So if you would, let me know what you think. I'll add a poll just to give me some concrete numbers, but just generally let me know if you think the level of content I post in here should be 1) slowed down a bit, 2) kept about the same, or 3) dive even more into the minutiae into things like launch schedules, press conferences, etc.
Oh, and thanks to those who have let me know they enjoy keeping up with this stuff privately. I know there are at least a few - I just want to gauge interest from others. :-)
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EDIT TO ADD: I could also be convinced to re-brand this as the "Space Megathread" and talk about other cool space shit, but I don't want to overlap with Fish's science thread too much either. [Reply]
