SpaceX Tuesday...

[MartG]

One of the FH side boosters at KSC Visitor Centre this weekend

Pic credits Christopher M. Heineman

[Beati Dogu]

Nice. Almost exactly the same size as one of the Shuttle's boosters behind it.

I'd like to visit KSC later this year.

[Atomic12C]

The sound of a space x rocket launch....

Plug in your head phones and turn up the volume !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImoQqNyRL8Y

[djdest]

I love seeing pics like the boosters above, I've not been able to find many close up/hi res photos of flown craft showing the marks, burns and singes etc from space flight
Like this one of Dragon for example, viewed in full size you can see lots of damage

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnail...

[MartG]

SpaceX launch this afternoon - 14:17GMT - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p-PToD2URA

[FurtiveFreddy]

It says 22nd?

[IIIRestorerIII]

SpaceX Twitter said:

Standing down today due to strong upper level winds. Now targeting launch of PAZ for February 22 at 6:17 a.m. PST from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

[IIIRestorerIII]

They are not looking to recover the Stage 1 this time round either.

[FunkyNige]

Well something's currently at 3 minutes to launch...
Are they trying to catch something from this launch? Saw something from Chris Hadfield on Instagram but haven't looked into it fully.

edit - missed the above couple of messages, really have no idea what I'm watching then!

edit2 - a bunch of people got really confused on the Spacex Youtube stream when the countdown reached 0 and nothing happened...

Edited by FunkyNige on Wednesday 21st February 14:23

[RizzoTheRat]

IIIRestorerIII said:

They are not looking to recover the Stage 1 this time round either.

Presumably using up the older boosters rather than upgrading them to Block 5?

[Kccv23highliftcam]

Scrubbed to tomorrow according to musk_high winds 26% probability.

[Beati Dogu]

RizzoTheRat said:

IIIRestorerIII said:

They are not looking to recover the Stage 1 this time round either.

Presumably using up the older boosters rather than upgrading them to Block 5?

The west coast landing ship hasn't been serviceable for a few months. They took a couple of engines off it to use on the east coast ship, whose needs were greater.

MartG said:

One of the FH side boosters at KSC Visitor Centre this weekend

In its previous guise as a humble Falcon 9, this rocket launched the Thaicom 8 satellite in May 2016. Famously landing pretty hard and being shipped back at a precarious angle; The so-called Leaning Tower of Thaicom. How they got it back I'll never know:

https://imgur.com/gallery/BvdJRQF

[Beati Dogu]

The US Air Force has give SpaceX $20 million to investigate vertical integration of Falcon 9/Heavy rockets.

Normally of course, SpaceX's rocket stacks are assembled horizontally, then jacked up vertical at the pad. Unfortunately, some of the Air Force, National Reconnaissance Office and Department of Defence's satellites don't like to be on their side. Which means they're currently stuck with United Launch Alliance's Delta IV and Atlas 5 rockets, which both integrate the payload vertically.

More here:

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-20m-us-air-force-...

[Tallow]

MartG said:

One of the FH side boosters at KSC Visitor Centre this weekend

Pic credits Christopher M. Heineman

I checked it out at the weekend, too! Very cool. Here's a few more pics I took in case anyone is interested...

[CraigyMc]

ash73 said:

Beati Dogu said:

The US Air Force has give SpaceX $20 million to investigate vertical integration of Falcon 9/Heavy rockets.

I wonder what they've got onboard that doesn't like being horizontal. Maybe just a case of YOU must integrate with OUR way of doing things.

Slightly worrying to consider what kit the military might want to put in orbit with the BFR capability.

Gyroscope bearings may have issues with being rotated if they are spinning all the time.

Given what some of the national intelligence platform sats get up to, it would come as no surprise at all if they contained gyros for stability of the platform.

[AJLintern]

Why don't they just mount them on a gimbal so they remain level regardless of the orientation of the rocket?

[loudlashadjuster]

AJLintern said:

Why don't they just mount them on a gimbal so they remain level regardless of the orientation of the rocket?

Because the whole point of the gyro is to assert orientation. Mount them on a gimbal and you, well, lose that

[AJLintern]

But just during assembly of the payload into the rocket I mean. Ok some of them might be an awkward shape that only fits in one orientation, but one could imagine some sort of jig that is removed once vertical.

[djdest]

loudlashadjuster said:

Because the whole point of the gyro is to assert orientation. Mount them on a gimbal and you, well, lose that

If you had no gimbals you wouldn't have a gyroscope!
You know what a gyroscope is made of?

I can't see that as being the reason at all.
Anyway, it doesn't matter because NASA has a VAB and couple of crawlers sat around unused that Elon could probably get for a bargain price

[Eric Mc]

Most rockets arrive at the pad horizontally. The number of rockets that are rolled to the pad in the vertical is quite low.

The VAB is not available to other users at the moment as it is/has undergone interior changes to allow vertical integration of the SLS.