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SpaceX Missions Thread
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Sunday, 07.10.2012, 04:21 | Message # 1 |
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| This thread is specifically for discussion related to past, ongoing, or scheduled SpaceX missions. For the purposes of this thread, only orbital launches count as missions. Grasshopper, F9R Dev, DragonFly, and Dragon abort tests do not count as missions.
All non-mission SpaceX discussion should go in the Newspace thread.
Less than a day until the scheduled launch of the SpaceX CRS-1 mission. For those of you who use Facebook, I have made a cover photo you can use to show support (click for a full quality link):
All forum users, please read this!
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Edited by HarbingerDawn - Monday, 01.09.2014, 20:15 |
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| DoctorOfSpace | Date: Sunday, 07.10.2012, 04:33 | Message # 2 |
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| I misread and forgot what day it was and thought the launch was tonight. Was so unhappy that I thought I was going to miss it, good to know its on a day off. 
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Sunday, 07.10.2012, 05:29 | Message # 3 |
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Cosmic Curator
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| Okay, after a false start, HERE is the forum sig image for those who want to show support for the upcoming launch on the forum 
All forum users, please read this!
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Sunday, 07.10.2012, 23:36 | Message # 4 |
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Cosmic Curator
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| Just a reminder to everyone: the launch is in two hours. You will be able to watch the live stream right here starting at 23:55 UTC: http://www.spacex.com/webcast/
The view at T-2:00
All forum users, please read this!
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Edited by HarbingerDawn - Sunday, 07.10.2012, 23:45 |
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| DoctorOfSpace | Date: Monday, 08.10.2012, 00:29 | Message # 5 |
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| So I guess the stream starts in about a half hour from now
I hope it goes well
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Monday, 08.10.2012, 00:38 | Message # 6 |
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Cosmic Curator
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| The view at T-1:00
All forum users, please read this!
My SE mods and addons
Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 970 3584 MB VRAM
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| DoctorOfSpace | Date: Monday, 08.10.2012, 00:58 | Message # 7 |
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| I really hope it doesn't explode on launch.
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Monday, 08.10.2012, 01:55 | Message # 8 |
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| Quote (DoctorOfSpace) I really hope it doesn't explode on launch.
Highly unlikely, but I share your hopes.
Again, to remind everyone, the webcast is located here and is currently going on:
http://www.spacex.com/webcast
SUCCESS!!! Dragon is safely in orbit with solar arrays deployed! This marks the fourth consecutive successful launch of the Falcon 9 vehicle, a 100% success rate and a phenomenal start to any launch vehicle's career.
Dragon should meet up with the station on Wednesday.
All forum users, please read this!
My SE mods and addons
Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 970 3584 MB VRAM
Edited by HarbingerDawn - Monday, 08.10.2012, 01:59 |
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| DoctorOfSpace | Date: Monday, 08.10.2012, 02:00 | Message # 9 |
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| Good to see it was a success. I also find it awesome how cheap, in comparison to other space agencies, Spacex has made their flights.
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Monday, 08.10.2012, 03:52 | Message # 10 |
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| Quote (DoctorOfSpace) I also find it awesome how cheap, in comparison to other space agencies, Spacex has made their flights.
Agreed. And if they can achieve their goal of a fully and rapidly reusable launch vehicle, then they will be able to lower launch prices by nearly two orders of magnitude. That will really allow space access to become widely available.
On an unrelated note, here's another sig image that can be used for the post-launch phase of the mission.
UPDATE: It appears that there was an anomaly on the vehicle at 80 seconds into the flight (near Max-Q), which looked like a catastrophic failure of one of the engines. This was a perfect demonstration of Falcon 9's engine-out capability, where the loss of one engine will not affect its ability to complete its mission. There will no doubt be an investigation into the matter, but this certainly validates and vindicates Falcon 9's overall design.
All forum users, please read this!
My SE mods and addons
Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 970 3584 MB VRAM
Edited by HarbingerDawn - Monday, 08.10.2012, 04:07 |
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| DoctorOfSpace | Date: Monday, 08.10.2012, 03:54 | Message # 11 |
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| Quote (HarbingerDawn) It appears that there was an anomaly on the vehicle at 80 seconds into the flight (near Max-Q), which looked like a catastrophic failure of one of the engines. This was a perfect demonstration of Falcon 9's engine-out capability, where the loss of one engine will not affect its ability to complete its mission. There will no doubt be an investigation into the matter, but this certainly validates and vindicates Falcon 9's overall design.
That is really awesome. As long as it doesn't explode I would consider that a plus
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Monday, 08.10.2012, 04:59 | Message # 12 |
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| SpaceX seems to have removed the videos of the launch from their sites  As soon as I find another one I'll add some sort of video/animation showing the failure event.
Nevermind, they reactivated them.
Here is a gif showing the engine failure:
The original Youtube link for those who want full quality:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRTYh71D9P0
Slow motion Youtube video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6zsZiVa998
All forum users, please read this!
My SE mods and addons
Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 970 3584 MB VRAM
Edited by HarbingerDawn - Monday, 08.10.2012, 19:05 |
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| Solaris | Date: Monday, 08.10.2012, 05:25 | Message # 13 |
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| Quote (DoctorOfSpace) As long as it doesn't explode I would consider that a plus
Quote (HarbingerDawn) The original Youtube link for those who want full quality:
 a big plus ! It's spectacular.
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| SpaceEngineer | Date: Monday, 08.10.2012, 14:57 | Message # 14 |
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| Quote (HarbingerDawn) . This was a perfect demonstration of Falcon 9's engine-out capability, where the loss of one engine will not affect its ability to complete its mission.
This is highly unbelievable. How can you design a rocket with reserve engines? Every gram of weight is important, I'm not talking on the balance of thrust forces relative to the center of mass. And I can't believe that if one engine dies, the rest may increase their thrust to compensate the loss of thrust, and the rocket doesn't start rotating. Rocket engines do not have such "overclocking" possibility, they always works on their maximum capabilities! It makes no sense to build a rocket with 4 engines and use them at 75% of thrust, it is better to use 3 engines with 100% thrust, this makes the rocket far more light-weight!
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Monday, 08.10.2012, 16:54 | Message # 15 |
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| Quote (SpaceEngineer) This is highly unbelievable
Believe it or not, that is exactly what happened. There were tracking cameras and thousands of witnesses to document it...
Quote (SpaceEngineer) How can you design a rocket with reserve engines?
If you have enough engines, then you have redundancy. For a good example, look at the Hayabusa spacecraft that visited asteroid Itokawa. It lost 3 of its 4 engines, and still made it back to Earth.
Quote (SpaceEngineer) And I can't believe that if one engine dies, the rest may increase their thrust to compensate the loss of thrust
They do not increase their thrust. Thrust is not the most important thing (at least at the phase of the flight the vehicle was in). The loss of 1/9 of the vehicle's thrust would not be enough to doom the mission if it was lost halfway through the burn; it would only have a noticeable impact if thrust was lost at launch, if at all. In this case, delta V is the most important thing. If you lose one engine, you lose thrust, but you also slow down fuel consumption. By burning the remaining engines for a longer duration, you achieve your target delta V.
Another famous vehicle with engine out capability was the Saturn V. There were a few times that an engine was lost in flight, with no impact to the mission (including on the ascent of Apollo 13, where the center engine on the 2nd stage was lost).
Also, in this case the engine failure was destructive, causing a loss of hardware mass from the vehicle, lightening it (this was a joke, it really would have made little difference).
Quote (SpaceEngineer) It makes no sense to build a rocket with 4 engines and use them at 75% of thrust, it is better to use 3 engines with 100% thrust, this makes the rocket far more light-weight!
This is not how it works here. It uses all engines at 100% thrust. The nominal burn time is 170 seconds. If an engine is lost at 80 seconds into the flight, burning the remaining engines for an additional ~15 seconds would compensate. Additionally, the Falcon 9 first stage normally cuts off two engines before the rest anyway. Skipping this "MECO 1" would allow the burn duration to be only a few seconds longer than normal (I'm not sure if that's what happened; more likely they did the planned burn for 10-15 seconds longer than normal to achieve their target delta V).
FLIGHT UPDATE: The Falcon 9 second stage may have failed to reignite and place the Orbcomm satellite into the proper orbit. If that is the case, then the Falcon 9 launch was in fact a partial success rather than a full success. Confirmation pending.
All forum users, please read this!
My SE mods and addons
Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 970 3584 MB VRAM
Edited by HarbingerDawn - Monday, 08.10.2012, 18:04 |
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