SpaceX META Thread

That launch and landing was beautiful.

Hats off to SpaceX....

I was obviously wrong...they are much more capable than I previously thought...’

And I’m so very happy to be wrong

-chris

Some pictures that cover the 19 hour trip.









Cheers.

if you can understand German, you may want to listen to a 2:44h podcast with the number 4 at SpaceX - German rocket engineer Hans Koenigsmann .

Mostly about the Falcon development, but includes a few interesting tidbits
raumzeit-podcast.de...

Surprising news, NASA gave SpaceX permission to use flight-proven Falcon 9s and even Crew Dragon spacecraft from Crew-2 onwards.

twitter.com...

This is kinda huge deal, will not only save SpaceX a ton of money but shows home much NASA trust SpaceX at this point.
Many have said something like this won't happen for a long time, yet here we are.

Upcoming SpaceX missions

June 13: Starlink 8 + Rideshare
June 24: Starlink 9 + Rideshare
June 30: GPS III

If there are no delays (big if), they'll have had five missions in 31 days, a new record.
July will see another Starlink mission and the launch of Anasis 2, ROK SIGINT Satellite to GTO. August will see three launches, including the Crew-1 flight to the ISS, although this might be pushed back ab bit since Demo-2 isn't expected to return soon.

We'll also see the introduction of three new boosters beginning with the June 30 launch. These are quite desperately needed to beef up the fleet after the two landing failures earlier this year.

And of course, blowing up Starships will resume any day at Boca Chica.
SN5/6/7 are already built and Elon Musk recently said they'll focus almost entirely on Starship now, so expect big things happening there in the near future.

a reply to: mightmight

SPACE X Starlink 8 launch shortly before dawn (521 AM EDT)

Spectacular

Weather was clear and could track booster far out over the Atlantic

Even more spectacular was the landing on the barge OF COURSE I STILL LOVE YOU

Observers back at the Cape were able to film the landing burn out over the Atlantic

SPACE X video of launch

www.youtube.com...

Landing burn of 1st stage booster

www.youtube.com...

After they tested the SN7 tank to destruction twice, they're rolling out the SN5 craft to the test stand. Live feed at www.youtube.com...

SN5 is a less advanced design than the SN7 (different steel type too), so maybe they'll just blow it up too instead of trying for a hop.

Also don't forget the next Starlink launch from the Cape, tomorrow at 20:40 UTC. Weather just 40% atm though.

a reply to: mightmight

Thanks for keeping us apprised of SpaceX’s efforts and accomplishments.

This is kinda huge deal, will not only save SpaceX a ton of money but shows home much NASA trust SpaceX at this point. Many have said something like this won't happen for a long time, yet here we are.

Agreed. In another NASA/SpaceX-related thread, I remarked that Musk/SpaceX was on the precipice (I think it was the day the roadster was launched) of revolutionizing space travel vis-a-vie cost and was summarily flamed for such. I managed to avoid calling Musk revolutionary — a ton of Musk haters in the thread — but the haterade was flowing and many waited with bated breath for a spectacular failure. Oops.

Now they’re stuck with a reality of more Musk, cost-effective (relative) space launches, and a synergistic relationship with NASA that will bear bountiful fruit.

Starlink 10 as been scrubbed after an O2 sensor acting up. They won't launch until after the GPS launch on June 30th.

I didnt realise the mission to the ISS didnt have a set return date, could be a month or two depending on how the capsule performs.

Love that approach, laid back....

a reply to: Forensick

The Dragon C206 spacecraft uses less advanced solar panels and they were unsure how fast they would degrade in the environment of space. The next Dragon vehicles will be equipped with different solar panels anyway.

This happened due to the destruction of the Demo-1 capsule on the test stand. C206 was supposed to be used in the in-flight abort test but was used for Demo-2 instead after the accident.

Turned out the spacecraft does just fine regardless and will return in early August. They don't want to keep them up any longer since the Crew-1 mission is just around the corner and will launch as soon as possible after Demo-2 returns safely. Current launch date is early September.

Crew Dragon is scheduled to undock this afternoon just before 5pm PDT. They're aiming for near Pensacola for splashdown tomorrow just before noon. Secondary splashdown is off Panama City.


Crew Dragon landing.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yes hurricane is in Atlantic now

Weather and wave conditions probably too severe

This is a first time recovery attempted in Gulf of Mexico

they are set for another 150m hop attempt with SN5 every minute now

livestream
www.youtube.com...

edit
nope looks like another abort

And they finally made it a couple of hours ago, surprisingly the vehicle survived the testflight.

replay
www.youtube.com...

additional short hops are planned before they try for a hight altitude flight

www.speedtest.net...

apparently from the ongoing Starlink Beta

a reply to: mightmight

and here's a summary of known results

www.reddit.com...

Some very impressive results to say the least. If they can reliably achieve these kind performances once it goes live, we may very well looking at a second digital revolution and a potential paradigm shift in the digital economy.

From a purely technical point of view, they aren't even there yet. The constellation is still tiny and the inter satellite laser com system hasn't been deployed yet. So performance and capacity will only continue to increase.

Too bad one cant invest in Starlink. Could probably retire comfortably ten years from now on this lol

Crew-1 has been pushed back until late October. There's a Soyuz launch scheduled for October 14, so it will be after that.

They'll have an on station crew handover between Crew-1 and Crew-2.
Getting grounded up there and i don't think there will be any long term stays anymore any time soon.

SpaceX will try to launch two Falcon rockets within 24 hours tomorrow.

Both rockets will launch from the Cape, Starlink Flight 12 at 10:12 Eastern and the SAOCOM 1B mission at 19:19 Eastern.

The SAOCOM launch was thought to be delayed due to the Delta 4 Heavy launch failure earlier today (that mission will have another try in a week or so), but it very much looks like both are a go.

And because they are not busy enough, they are also planing to fly SN6 tomorrow, some time after 09:00 Eastern.