- Jun 12, 2014
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Space Flight Updates - Russia pullingout of ISS?
- Thread starter ThreatMatrix
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- Aug 28, 2014
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More camera angles, high speed camera, and an analysis of what happened. Probably something to do with the test setup.
- Aug 28, 2014
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Went to the launch. About a million people gonna get the corona cuz no one was practicing safe distancing. Almost like the whole thing was made up.
Tried a different spot at the bridge that you always see people watching from. They close down the bridge to traffic so you can get a bunch of people up there. I ended up on a walkway down under the bridge by the water. Had a pretty good view. You could clearly see the launch tower and the water tower next to it. Hard to see the rocket because it's so slim but once it started venting we could at least tell we were looking at the right thing.
Judging by how long it took to hear it I guess we were about 3 miles away if my math is right. Rocket went just about right over head too. It's a small rocket though. I've seen a lot of shuttle launches and it's about 1/10 the sound and fury. On a still morning you could hear the shuttle in Orlando.
Still it was cool. The crowd started chanting USA, USA as it went up.
Tried a different spot at the bridge that you always see people watching from. They close down the bridge to traffic so you can get a bunch of people up there. I ended up on a walkway down under the bridge by the water. Had a pretty good view. You could clearly see the launch tower and the water tower next to it. Hard to see the rocket because it's so slim but once it started venting we could at least tell we were looking at the right thing.
Judging by how long it took to hear it I guess we were about 3 miles away if my math is right. Rocket went just about right over head too. It's a small rocket though. I've seen a lot of shuttle launches and it's about 1/10 the sound and fury. On a still morning you could hear the shuttle in Orlando.
Still it was cool. The crowd started chanting USA, USA as it went up.
- Dec 23, 2015
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If you have never been to a launch in person, you really have no understanding of how awesome the power is of even a small rocket. My dad would get the NASA causeway passes - as close as the common man could get - for shuttle launches. Never got tired of them, especially the night launches. It was just like watching a sunrise.
- Jan 2, 2018
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Landings were underrated. Sometimes you could even catch a glimpse during the day as it glided in, depending on trajectory. Sonic boom was so loud...
- Dec 23, 2015
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I would listen for the booms. Even in Ocala they were pretty good. On the day Columbia broke up, wife and I were out hiking, and I remember thinking that we had not heard them. Then turned on the TV when we got home...
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- Aug 28, 2014
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This is kinda funny to watch. They're cleaning up the wreckage and a digger is tearing down the fuselage. But the video is running at high speed so it looks like a dinosaur eating prey. Fast forward about half way.
- Aug 28, 2014
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Dragon docked with ISS earlier this morning and the crew transferred a few hours ago. How long they stays remains to be seen. The ship is rated for at least 6 months docked but this is a shakedown cruise designed just to test everything. The next crewed launch is August 30th so sometime before then. As far as launches coming up:
June 3 - Falcon 9 Starliink
June TBD - Falcon 9 Starlink and a customer payload
June 30 - Falcon 9 GPS satellite #3 (the GPS satellites are all being upgraded)
July 17th - ULA Atlas V - Perseverance Mars Rover. All the Rovers on Mars have died so this will be important.
July TBD - Falcon 9 - Communication Satellite.
July TBD - Falcon 9 Starlink
July TBD - Falcon 9 Starlink
July TBD - Falcon 9 Starlink
July TBD - Falcon 9 - Korean Military Satellite - Booster landing back at cape. Might be worth a view.
Aug 1 - Falcon 9 - Sirus radio Satellite
August 26 - ULA Delta IV Heavy - This is a Heavy so should be spectacular launch. Another worth seeing
August 30 - Falcon 9 - Crew 1. SpaceX will be taking 4 astronauts to the ISS
Aug TBD - Falcon 9 GPS satellite #4
Aug TBD - Falcon 9 Starlink
Aug TBD - Falcon 9 Starlink
It goes on pretty much like that for the rest of the year with SpaceX launching every week and ULA maybe once a month. The only other notable launch is that Boeing will be relaunching an uncrewed version of their capsule (Starliner) because they failed the test earlier this year. And a Falcon Heavy will be going up in December with a classified payload.
All eyes are on Boca Chica as SpaceX should have a Starship Hop in a few weeks and a StarShip suborbital flight soon after. The next real big advancement in space news will be when SpaceX has an Orbital flight with Starship which will require it's Super Heavy booster with 31 methane fueled engines (Raptors). Elon says by end of year but that's Elon time. So hopefully next spring.
June 3 - Falcon 9 Starliink
June TBD - Falcon 9 Starlink and a customer payload
June 30 - Falcon 9 GPS satellite #3 (the GPS satellites are all being upgraded)
July 17th - ULA Atlas V - Perseverance Mars Rover. All the Rovers on Mars have died so this will be important.
July TBD - Falcon 9 - Communication Satellite.
July TBD - Falcon 9 Starlink
July TBD - Falcon 9 Starlink
July TBD - Falcon 9 Starlink
July TBD - Falcon 9 - Korean Military Satellite - Booster landing back at cape. Might be worth a view.
Aug 1 - Falcon 9 - Sirus radio Satellite
August 26 - ULA Delta IV Heavy - This is a Heavy so should be spectacular launch. Another worth seeing
August 30 - Falcon 9 - Crew 1. SpaceX will be taking 4 astronauts to the ISS
Aug TBD - Falcon 9 GPS satellite #4
Aug TBD - Falcon 9 Starlink
Aug TBD - Falcon 9 Starlink
It goes on pretty much like that for the rest of the year with SpaceX launching every week and ULA maybe once a month. The only other notable launch is that Boeing will be relaunching an uncrewed version of their capsule (Starliner) because they failed the test earlier this year. And a Falcon Heavy will be going up in December with a classified payload.
All eyes are on Boca Chica as SpaceX should have a Starship Hop in a few weeks and a StarShip suborbital flight soon after. The next real big advancement in space news will be when SpaceX has an Orbital flight with Starship which will require it's Super Heavy booster with 31 methane fueled engines (Raptors). Elon says by end of year but that's Elon time. So hopefully next spring.
- Jan 2, 2018
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@ThreatMatrix has SpaceX launched any longer term, deep space type satellites yet? I assume ULA is still spitting out heavier payloads due to size constraints on the Falcon 9. Would be nice for SLS to finally become viable to help create some competition to drive greater innovation.
- Aug 28, 2014
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SpaceX, using a Falcon Heavy, did put a Tesla in solar orbit so there's that.
But glad you asked.
Rockets are classified by how much they can lift to LEO.
Heavy: 20 - 50 metric tons
Super Heavy: More than 50 Metric tons
If SLS is ever built it will be capable of 95 M tons. A block 2 is planned but not funded for 130 M tons.
SaturnV could lift 140 M tons.
ULA flies the
Delta IV 28.7 metric tons
Atlas V 20.5 metric tons
and soon
Vulcan 27.2 metric tons
SpaceX is currently flying
Falcon 9 Block 5 - 22.8 Mt expendable 16.8 Mt reusable
Falcon Heavy - 63Mt expendable something less than 50Mt reusable. Falcon Heavy can do whatever ULA does.
But SpaceX plans to replace the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy with Starship Super Heavy. The Starship spacecraft that sits on the SH has 4 configurations: Crew, Cargo (with a clam shell cargo door), tanker, and now the "Moon"ship. They'll launch the remainder of Starlink and customer payloads with the cargo configuration.
Starship Super Heavy will be capable of 100 M tons. But since the Starship spacecraft can be refueled it can do something no one else can. It can deliver 40-50 M tons to the moon, Mars and outer planets. The others can only deliver a few M tons.
Deep space satellites get there under their own power and gravity assist. The second spec that rockets are classified by is how much payload they can get to GTO. GTO is an elliptical orbit. When the satellite reaches the apogee it begins to do burns on it's own to circularize and/or increase it's orbit. If it wants to travel beyond the inner planets it uses gravity assists (usually).
Extra credit:
So. Spaceships get to the moon and mars by something called a Hohmann Transfer Orbit. That is they increase the apogee of their earth orbit until reaches the orbit of the planet they are traveling to. In order to increase your orbit you burn in the direction you are traveling (prograde). This increases the height of the orbit on the opposite side so you end up with an elliptical orbit. If you want to circularize then when you get to apogee you do another prograde burn and that raises the perigee. When we go to the moon we start in a LEO. The burn they call the Trans Lunar Injection (TLI) is just the burn raising the apogee (Hohmann transfer). Of course you have to time it so that you arrive at the same time as the moon.
You also may not be in the proper plane. We launch at the cape which gives the orbit a 23 degree inclination and the moon is close to zero. So you have to do a plane change. That is done by burning perpendicular halfway between apogee and perigee. You wanna do that using the least amount of fuel. I can't remember if that's when the orbit is small or large.
- Jun 11, 2014
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- Sep 4, 2014
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Maybe you could do some research and find out then. You know, like actually bring something constructive to the thread.
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- Aug 28, 2014
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- Aug 28, 2014
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As you might have guessed orbital velocity determines altitude. Everything going speed X is at altitude Y. And everything at altitude Y is going speed X. The Dragon capsule gets to it's initial orbit under the power of the booster, which returns to land, and the 2nd stage which gets it to orbital velocity. After the 2nd stage separates, it does a flip and burn to slow it down and then it burns up on reentry. Conceivable you could launch directly to rendezvous but you'd have to be precisely accurate. Plus they want to verify some things before they get that close to the ISS. So they launch to a lower orbit. Then the Dragon, using it's Draco engines, does a couple of burns to get it to a higher orbit and in sync with the ISS.
The Dracos use hypergolic fuel. Hypergolic fuel is propellant that ignites when combined. Dracos are more like thrusters than engines. And they serve several purposes: as thrusters for attitude control, as engines for orbital translation and as abort motors. A first for capsule design the abort motors are built into the spacecraft instead of using an abort tower that is jettisoned right before orbit.
The Dracos were originally going to be used for retro-propulsive landing of the capsule. Just like the boosters. However it takes a long time to get NASA to human certify and they'd have to add landing legs. Instead the capsule will return under the tried and true parachute method. How cool would it be though if the capsule landed back at the launch pad.
The Dracos use hypergolic fuel. Hypergolic fuel is propellant that ignites when combined. Dracos are more like thrusters than engines. And they serve several purposes: as thrusters for attitude control, as engines for orbital translation and as abort motors. A first for capsule design the abort motors are built into the spacecraft instead of using an abort tower that is jettisoned right before orbit.
The Dracos were originally going to be used for retro-propulsive landing of the capsule. Just like the boosters. However it takes a long time to get NASA to human certify and they'd have to add landing legs. Instead the capsule will return under the tried and true parachute method. How cool would it be though if the capsule landed back at the launch pad.
- Jun 11, 2014
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Elon says the Dragon could land with the Dracos but the old stand-by is good enough. The original plan was for a Dragon to land on the Moon, they would need the Draco's for that but when they decided to go with the BFR, everything changed.
I've got big concerns about how they will land the Starship on the Moon, seems to me the Regolith is just too unstable to support a vertical landing.
I've got big concerns about how they will land the Starship on the Moon, seems to me the Regolith is just too unstable to support a vertical landing.
- Aug 28, 2014
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Booster's back at the cape.
- Aug 28, 2014
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Yep. There's some challenges with moon landing. They've added engines towards the top. You can see three ovals in some pictures. Presumably those would be Dracos but could be something else. By putting them up high that helps with not kicking up so much regolith on landing, which is a concern. The Starship is very bottom heavy. Like the boosters it's why they can retro-propulsively land on a barge. And the landing legs on Starship will be self leveling.
Currently those landing legs are under the engine skirt. There's been many iterations. At one point the fins acted as legs. Or they could do landing legs that fold out like the Falcon 9 booster.
Still it's valid concerns and no doubt will be part of the initial study.
I don't care which system NASA picks as long as it's not Blue Origin. Their plan is asinine.
- Jun 11, 2014
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After the initial landings, they will level and put down something hard to land on but the first few landings will be full of butt squeezing.
What do you think about the refueling in orbit? Without that the BFR is just a big hog...... but I'd still love to get a seat...
- Jun 11, 2014
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Kind of dirty..... LOL
- Aug 28, 2014
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Yeah I think ultimately Starship needs a landing pad. First they need to get some road graders down to the surface then some concrete mixers. I've gone back and forth about how necessary it is but it certainly would be helpful.
Refueling in orbit is a thing that should have been done a long time ago.
Since the dawn of the space age our aspirations have been curtailed by the tyranny of the rocket equation. If you want to carry more cargo you have to carry more fuel. But because of the weight of the fuel, doubling it only allows you to carry 10% more cargo. You can get to orbit but you can't go anywhere else.
Now because of reusibility you can cheaply carry fuel and cargo to orbit. Refuel your cargo ship and go to the moon, Mars or wherever with all the supplies you need.
The Super Heavy/Starship (SHS seems to be the new acronym) solves so many problems. First it can very cheaply take cargo to LEO. Want to build a Von Braun rotating station? Now we can do it cheaply. Want to build a moon base? Now we can do it cheaply. SpaceX will demonstrate refueling soon (2-3 years). And they'll do it because they are not relying on the whims of NASA to finance it.
The booster needs to go through the rocket wash. But unlike the shuttle it doesn't require months of refurbishing. I think they turn them around in a few weeks. Clean it, inspect it, put it back in rotation.
Refueling in orbit is a thing that should have been done a long time ago.
Since the dawn of the space age our aspirations have been curtailed by the tyranny of the rocket equation. If you want to carry more cargo you have to carry more fuel. But because of the weight of the fuel, doubling it only allows you to carry 10% more cargo. You can get to orbit but you can't go anywhere else.
Now because of reusibility you can cheaply carry fuel and cargo to orbit. Refuel your cargo ship and go to the moon, Mars or wherever with all the supplies you need.
The Super Heavy/Starship (SHS seems to be the new acronym) solves so many problems. First it can very cheaply take cargo to LEO. Want to build a Von Braun rotating station? Now we can do it cheaply. Want to build a moon base? Now we can do it cheaply. SpaceX will demonstrate refueling soon (2-3 years). And they'll do it because they are not relying on the whims of NASA to finance it.
The booster needs to go through the rocket wash. But unlike the shuttle it doesn't require months of refurbishing. I think they turn them around in a few weeks. Clean it, inspect it, put it back in rotation.
