Posted on 01/14/2017 10:20:12 AM PST by Robe
SpaceX nailed it's return to flight launch with a successful landing on the ocean Barge. Second stage currently on "Coast" segment to put 10 Iridium satellites in orbit. Second Stage to relight engine in approximately 20 mins
Can someone please explain to this non-rocket scientist what a IridiumNEXT satellite is and what it does in plain english please?
Thank you for the post. It was very informative, enjoyable, and uplifting. It only goes to show MAGA is a contagious concept. No slight of Musk is inferred with that. His and his team’s accomplishments are impressive. Iridium deserves kudos too for their fine work and having faith in Space-x.
I would like to see upwards of five to ten of these space companies exploiting the opportunities in space.
The U. S. must retain it’s clear leadership there.
This is strategic next frontier high ground stuff.
I have always supported the space programs.
IMO < it exemplifies our spirit as much as anything else does, second only to love of nation and the determination to see it lead long into the future.
Low earth network of 70 satellite(s) grid which can communicate with each other and earth.
Applications, telecommunications applications, Internet, navigation, possible radio and television..
Radio and television are guesses on my part.
If someone sees an error here, please correct me and add more information too. Thanks.
SpaceX has just started testing an engine that will power a booster with over three and a half times the thrust of the Saturn V.
I only have one question ... Why a barge rather than a nice solid perfectly flat piece of land that doesn’t move about?
3.5x Saturn V?
Is that 3.5x per motor, or 3.5x per rocket?
Do you have a source? Seems a little far fetched.
SpaceX has done both. They land on a barge when there isn’t enough fuel to get back to land.
The booster always looks small when it’s on the barge, because there isn’t anything to judge the scale by comparison. I believe it’s around 150 feet tall.
27 Engines per rocket.
http://www.space.com/26025-spacex-falcon-heavy-rocket-explained-infographic.html
27 Engines in first stage.
1 engine in second stage.
The article you reference says the Saturn V was 2.5x more lift than the this new toy from SpaceX.
Which puts the SLS from ULA and NASA at at least 3.0x of the “Falcon Heavy”.
SLS will put 143 tons into L2 orbit, something SpaceX will N E V E R achieve.
And the Saturn V would launch 2.5 times the mass that the Falcon Heavy will launch.
Just watched the video —outstanding! I watched every NASA launch with the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo launches, and watched the space shuttle launches when I could......but this is history changing! Why oh why aren’t the newsies covering this accomplishment instead of the useless words of someone like John Lewis? Make America Great Again..indeed!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITS_launch_vehicle#Interplanetary_booster
And you can search on Youtube for the video of the raptor engine.
The Falcon XX seems to be comparable to the SLS.
Falcon XX
Falcon XX is a single core launch vehicle with a diameter of 10 meters and an estimated length of about 100 meters using six Merlin 2 engines operating at the 100% thrust setting on its first stage creating a liftoff thrust of 45,360 Kilonewtons (4,625 metric tons).
Again, the upper stage of the vehicle was not specified at the time, but a one or two-engine Raptor design would have been one likely way to go. Falcon XX would have engine-out capability for a portion of its ascent. Low Earth orbit payload capability has been estimated at 140 metric tons.
A heavy-version of the Falcon XX with three cores has not been presented by SpaceX, but would be an option to boost the vehicle’s payload capability to more than 400mt.
Those ten are the first in over 60 of the next generation of iridium satellite phone birds. these new birds also carry substantial secondary payloads these ten have the space component of the new real time aviation tracking system that will eliminate mysteries like MH370. they also have bigger phased array antennas to allow much higher data rates all over the planet currently IR has a 2.4kbs rate.
these birds will also continue to broadcast the IGPS data stream that the military has been using created by Boeing as high integrity GPS pseudolites. The iridum signal is almost a million times stronger when received on the earths surface. So much so it works indoors and inside metal shipping containers. civilians have no access to that signal but these is talk of allowing aviation to use it as it is essentially jam proofed. at any given time there’s at least two IR birds visible over most of the earths surface. it is possible using just one IR bird’s signal to define ones position unlike regular gps that takes at least 4 due to the IR bird’s doppler signal shift and other technical means exclusive to th DoD.
If they get their heavy lift off the ground as planned, I’ll give them deserved kudos.
This really is rocket science. And, especially, materials science.
Until then SLS will be the heavy lift platform.
Thanks! Very helpful and much appreciated.
“This is strategic next frontier high ground stuff.”
Especially Lagrange points and the moon - who controls them controls all of Earth.
I’m not an expert on that, but thinking logically, I can see where it would be a very big deal.
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