Posted on 10/10/2017 10:06:14 PM PDT by BenLurkin
If all goes well this will be the second launch for SpaceX this week following Monday’s Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg AFB, Ca carrying 10 Iridium-NEXT satellites to orbit – and a record setting 15th of 2017!
EchoStar 105/SES-11 is a high-powered hybrid Ku and C-band communications satellite launching as a dual-mission satellite for US-based operator EchoStar and Luxembourg-based operator SES.
The used two stage 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket was rolled out to pad 39A today, erected to vertical launch position and is now poised for liftoff Wednesday.
It will launch the two and a half ton EchoStar 105/SES-11 to geostationary orbit some 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) above the equator.
SpaceX will also attempt to recover this recycled Falcon 9 first stage booster again by soft landing on a droneship platform prepositioned hundreds of miles off shore in the Atlantic Ocean – some 8 minutes after blastoff.
Spectacular weather is expected Wednesday for space enthusiasts gathering in local regional hotels after traveling here from across the globe.
Playalinda Beach is among the best places to witness the launch from – while surfing the waves too – if you’re in the area.
You can watch the launch live on a SpaceX dedicated webcast starting about 10 minutes prior to the 6:53 pm EDT or 10:53 pm UTC liftoff time.
Watch the SpaceX broadcast live at: SpaceX.com/webcast The two hour long launch window closes at 8:53 p.m. EDT. The weather outlook is currently exceptional along the Florida Space Coast with a 90% chance of favorable conditions at launch time according to U.S. Air Force meteorologists with the 45th Space Wing Weather Squadron at Patrick Air Force Base. The primary concerns on Oct. 11 are only for Cumulus Clouds.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
“Watch the SpaceX broadcast live at: SpaceX.com/webcast “
I live on the east side of Phoenix. Just be chance, about 15 years ago, I saw a launch from Vandenberg suddenly appear in front of me on and above the western horizon. It was dark in Phoenix at the time. Beautiful missile trail highlighted from behind by the sun setting over the Pacific. I mean, it was magnificent, majestic and powerful. Very large and wide trail.
I’ve been trying to catch another one all these years. I’ll be watching next Monday.
On closer reading. I think I may have got the wrong coast for tomorrow’s launch.
Or the wrong ocean huh?
Bookmark.
Good launch from Florida and a good first stage landing on the drone ship in the Atlantic. The 18th successful first stage landing says SpaceX.
Launch and recovery successful.
I believe this is a refurbished booster, so this is the second successful landing of this one.
There’s a noctilucent cloud forming from the rocket exhaust, and will be visible for hundreds of miles.
They’re getting good at this landing business.
Interestingly/insanely: The planned “BFR” doesn’t have legs on the first stage. They’re going to land it right back on the launch mounts.
Interestingly/insanely: The planned “BFR” doesn’t have legs on the first stage. They’re going to land it right back on the launch mounts.
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One big advantage of the BFR is it’s being designed and built with reuse in mind. Landing the Falcon 9 was a bit of an afterthought. There will be a final version of Falcon 9 that’s been designed and built for reuse and it should be in service soon (but the second stage will never be reusable). SpaceX will be building up an inventory of Falcon 9’s for a couple of years and then that’s it. All new work will be dedicated to the BFR.
If customers want to use Falcon 9 after that they’ll have to use or reuse the available inventory.
My understanding is that BFR will eventually be cheaper than Falcon 9 due to it being completely reusable, even though it’s more powerful than a Saturn V.
Just a note, the Big Falcon Rocket (smirk) will *also* be built with reusability in mind — but the second stage will be more than the 1/3 the overall cost of a Falcon 9 launch. Currently the Falcon 9 first stage cost is about 2/3 of the cost of getting to orbit with SpaceX (and most of the time lands safely for reuse), and 1/3 of the cost is the EELV (second stage vacuum-bell booster powered expendible vehicle), the fairing, etc, which is lost.
If Musk can talk the FAA and other such national agencies into letting passengers take suborbital flights (a half hour across the Pacific for example, over 2 miles per second average velocity) aboard the BFR before twenty years go by, I’ll be very surprised, assuming I live to see it. Musk is too focused on Mars, and comes off sounding like a huckster (which in a way, he is). The company needs to stick to its knitting and totally dominate all competitors in the launch business worldwide, let someone else pay for launches (instead of nonsense like, we’ll pay for our launches by launching our own constellation of satellites to provide internet access to the entire world, evidently for free) and get the R&D paid for.
I expect that the Merlin 1D engines used in the Falcon 9 and the version of the 1D used for the EELVs will be superseded by the Raptor, a methane-burning closed cycle high pressure engine that is intended to deliver more to orbit and be easy to reuse. The USAF has hired SpaceX to develop the Raptor for second stage use in a future (probably classified) vehicle, but the contract requires SpaceX to spend $2 for each $1 the USAF is paying (total dev cost about $100 million). Since the Raptor is what Musk wants/needs for the Mars project, this has a high potential payoff.
The Mars colonization is wishful thinking, as is the economic basis for it. Robert Zubrin, the “Mars Direct” guy, made a number of spot-on critiques of last year’s version of Musk’s plan, and the new plan answers none of the criticisms. Musk is smart, but he’s not always right, and he appears to be someone who doesn’t hear things that he doesn’t want to hear.
Musk is smart, but he’s not always right, and he appears to be someone who doesn’t hear things that he doesn’t want to hear.
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Musk is smart, overpromises all the time, gets high tech employees cheaper than anybody else, and gets things done.
Even when he partially completes his promises he’s way ahead of everybody else. SpaceX already dominates the commercial launch market.
Thanks for the insights. Regardless of how much actually will happen, SpaceX is one of the most exciting things going on these days.
And he needs to stick to that. The obvious use for his big vehicle is lunar shuttle flights. As Zubrin pointed out, the transit time to and from Mars means that there’s no economic benefit to using one vehicle to do all the jobs. The colonists will need a place to live, send them in their habiitat and it stays there. The fact is, right now, Musk doesn’t care what happens to them, and if he had the BFR, he’d be sending them to their deaths. “Oh well.” and throw up his hands. “Living on Mars will be the easy part.” What a jackass.
If he doesn’t replace the Falcon 9 with something at least a little better, and just dumps his profitable launch biz for the untenable Mars BS, he deserves to fail. And he will fail. Jeff Bezos, another lefty, moved his Blue Origin methane engine production to Alabama. Weird, eh? Not a single payload to orbit yet, not a single manned flight, not even word of a successful test of the larger version of the engine, and he’s moving “production” to Alabama. Really odd.
Over on the Facebook fan group for SpaceX there’s an engineer who formerly worked for SpaceX (ground support systems, I believe), but now works on the SLS. I doubt that the SLS will ever fly at all, although it might make it to its test flight. However, the SLS and the Deep Space Gateway are a pork barrel to replace the ISS/STS pork barrel that is now defunct. The Republican Senator Richard Shelby has been stocking that barrel for a while now. Once the program gets started, it’ll roll on for another 35 years, just as the Shuttle did.
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