SpaceX Tuesday...
Discussion
rovermorris999 said:
Beati Dogu said:
And they want 31 of them on the booster alone. 
A bit worrying. That must increase the chances of failure compared to fewer, larger engines. I'd assume cheaper to produce though.It's a year now since the Falcon Heavy demo mission. It shouldn't be long before there's a couple more in rapid succession though.
In the meantime, the next SpaceX mission will hopefully end in a moon landing.
Currently scheduled from Florida, for Tuesday, Feb 19th (about 2am UK time), a Falcon 9 will launch the Beresheet (Hebrew for "Genesis") lunar lander from Israeli organisation SpaceIL. If successful they'll be the first non-government organisation to land on the moon. They're aiming for the Sea of Serenity, which is where in 1972, Apollo 17 and a month later, the Soviet Lunar 21 also landed.
Touchdown should be in April sometime, because it's going to orbit the earth for a while before climbing gradually to a Moon transfer orbit. It'll then orbit the Moon for a week or more before landing.
The lander is not actually the primary cargo for this launch. That's the PSN-6 communication satellite for Indonesia. There's also some smaller satellites onboard as well I understand.
In the meantime, the next SpaceX mission will hopefully end in a moon landing.
Currently scheduled from Florida, for Tuesday, Feb 19th (about 2am UK time), a Falcon 9 will launch the Beresheet (Hebrew for "Genesis") lunar lander from Israeli organisation SpaceIL. If successful they'll be the first non-government organisation to land on the moon. They're aiming for the Sea of Serenity, which is where in 1972, Apollo 17 and a month later, the Soviet Lunar 21 also landed.
Touchdown should be in April sometime, because it's going to orbit the earth for a while before climbing gradually to a Moon transfer orbit. It'll then orbit the Moon for a week or more before landing.
The lander is not actually the primary cargo for this launch. That's the PSN-6 communication satellite for Indonesia. There's also some smaller satellites onboard as well I understand.
Edited by Beati Dogu on Friday 8th February 11:54
I think there could be a question mark over whether SpaceX can take credit for the lunar landing though? If they're just the launch vehicle then surely it's the lander that's the important, once SpaceX have done what they've done many times before? Though, I guess, they could still be credited with the first commercial launch to result in a lunar landing.......semantics etc.
Raptor has apparently now beaten the RD-180 for record combustion chamber pressure
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starship-engine-b...
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starship-engine-b...
Impressive. The RD-180 powers the rival Atlas V of course.
Kinda funny that SpaceX complained bitterly to congress about ULA's use of the engine and tried to get it defunded or banned - Seeing as it's made my NPO Energomash in Russia and the company is majority owned by the Russian government. Russia also threatened to boycott sales of it to America.
In the end congress didn't ban the RD-180, but they wanted it phased out by 2022, which is mainly why ULA are moving to the American-built BE-4 engines for the Vulcan rocket.
Meanwhile Mr Steven has made it round to Port Canaveral. They took down the arms and net for the trip. Perhaps it'll be used for the moonshot rocket next week.
Kinda funny that SpaceX complained bitterly to congress about ULA's use of the engine and tried to get it defunded or banned - Seeing as it's made my NPO Energomash in Russia and the company is majority owned by the Russian government. Russia also threatened to boycott sales of it to America.
In the end congress didn't ban the RD-180, but they wanted it phased out by 2022, which is mainly why ULA are moving to the American-built BE-4 engines for the Vulcan rocket.
Meanwhile Mr Steven has made it round to Port Canaveral. They took down the arms and net for the trip. Perhaps it'll be used for the moonshot rocket next week.
Beati Dogu said:
Hard to tell for sure, but looks quite a bit larger than the Merlin engine on the Falcon 9.
Compared to the picture posted at the top of this page with the engine hanging from the crane, this one on the test stand looks a lot small (using the person stood just behind it on the test stand as reference.)
All 3 boosters for the next Falcon Heavy are at Cape Canaveral now it seems. That'll be fun.
Another interesting insight from Elon is that the helium used to pressurise the main tanks on the Falcon 9 costs more than the oxygen, even though 3/4 of the rocket's mass is liquid oxygen.
It's one of the reasons why they're not going to use helium on the Starship and its Super Heavy booster. They're going to use "autogenous pressurisation" (self pressurisation) instead. I.e. some of the propellant is bled off, passed through a heat exchanger near the engines to heat it up to a gas and fed back to the top to pressurise the tanks. I believe they used this sort of arrangement on the Space Shuttle after helium had initially been used (by umbilical) to pressurise the tanks before main engine start on the pad.
Plus I guess it would be hard to source helium on Mars. It's usually sourced on Earth from natural gas wells.
Another interesting insight from Elon is that the helium used to pressurise the main tanks on the Falcon 9 costs more than the oxygen, even though 3/4 of the rocket's mass is liquid oxygen.
It's one of the reasons why they're not going to use helium on the Starship and its Super Heavy booster. They're going to use "autogenous pressurisation" (self pressurisation) instead. I.e. some of the propellant is bled off, passed through a heat exchanger near the engines to heat it up to a gas and fed back to the top to pressurise the tanks. I believe they used this sort of arrangement on the Space Shuttle after helium had initially been used (by umbilical) to pressurise the tanks before main engine start on the pad.
Plus I guess it would be hard to source helium on Mars. It's usually sourced on Earth from natural gas wells.
Its major advantage (I believe) is that it reduces the all-up weight - a heat exchanger and some small pipework is a much lighter arrangement than having a pressurised helium tank and control system.
Very interesting stuff though, it's fantastic to see how inventive they've been with the new engine.
Very interesting stuff though, it's fantastic to see how inventive they've been with the new engine.
Here's an interesting video about rocket engine design and how SpaceX's Raptor works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLG71K8sm_4
Yes it's a robovoice, but it's actually a decent video.
Oh and it seems that NASA has been dragging their feet for so long now, that they're planning to buy a couple more seats to ISS on Soyuz rockets next year.
This really is something they should have started sorting out 15 years ago (with ULA) when President Bush announced that the Shuttle was to be canned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLG71K8sm_4
Yes it's a robovoice, but it's actually a decent video.
Oh and it seems that NASA has been dragging their feet for so long now, that they're planning to buy a couple more seats to ISS on Soyuz rockets next year.
This really is something they should have started sorting out 15 years ago (with ULA) when President Bush announced that the Shuttle was to be canned.
Edited by Beati Dogu on Saturday 16th February 23:06
Beati Dogu said:
Here's an interesting video about rocket engine design and how SpaceX's Raptor works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLG71K8sm_4
Yes it's a robovoice, but it's actually a decent video.
Oh and it seems that NASA has been dragging their feet for so long now, that they're planning to buy a couple more seats to ISS on Soyuz rockets next year.
This really is something they should have started sorting out 15 years ago (with ULA) when President Bush announced that the Shuttle was to be canned.
Not that I was ever a fan of GW, but they did, the proposal was for Ares 1 to do crew launches. But that was cancelled under Obama.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLG71K8sm_4
Yes it's a robovoice, but it's actually a decent video.
Oh and it seems that NASA has been dragging their feet for so long now, that they're planning to buy a couple more seats to ISS on Soyuz rockets next year.
This really is something they should have started sorting out 15 years ago (with ULA) when President Bush announced that the Shuttle was to be canned.
Edited by Beati Dogu on Saturday 16th February 23:06
That's true, although an independent report for the US government in 2009 estimated that it very likely wouldn't be ready to carry crew until 2017-19, given the technical and budgetary issues it was facing. By 2011 it was clear that costs were... well.. skyrocketing and it was axed.
In hindsight, they should have used the perfectly good Atlas V from the start and they would have probably been ready for the Shuttle's demise in 2011. Atlas V first flew in 2002.
In hindsight, they should have used the perfectly good Atlas V from the start and they would have probably been ready for the Shuttle's demise in 2011. Atlas V first flew in 2002.
Beati Dogu said:
Currently scheduled from Florida, for Tuesday, Feb 19th (about 2am UK time), a Falcon 9 will launch the Beresheet (Hebrew for "Genesis") lunar lander from Israeli organisation SpaceIL. If successful they'll be the first non-government organisation to land on the moon. They're aiming for the Sea of Serenity, which is where in 1972, Apollo 17 and a month later, the Soviet Lunar 21 also landed.
Touchdown should be in April sometime, because it's going to orbit the earth for a while before climbing gradually to a Moon transfer orbit. It'll then orbit the Moon for a week or more before landing.
The lander is not actually the primary cargo for this launch. That's the PSN-6 communication satellite for Indonesia. There's also some smaller satellites onboard as well I understand.
The test fire for this booster was completed earlier, so the launch is on for this Thursday at 8:45 PM EST (Friday 1.45 am UK time). Touchdown should be in April sometime, because it's going to orbit the earth for a while before climbing gradually to a Moon transfer orbit. It'll then orbit the Moon for a week or more before landing.
The lander is not actually the primary cargo for this launch. That's the PSN-6 communication satellite for Indonesia. There's also some smaller satellites onboard as well I understand.
The Israeli moon lander, before they'd wrapped it in more gold foil:
As well as the big Indonesian comms satellite and the Israeli moon lander, it'll also have an experimental 60Kg small satellite called S5 for the US Air Force Research Laboratory. This is actually attached to the comms sat and will release & deploy itself some time after the Falcon 9 upper stage has done its work..
The moon lander is perched right at the top, above the comms sat.
The landing ship is already being towed out to sea. Fairing catcher general Mr Steven has had his arms refitted and is on his way to station too.
Edited by Beati Dogu on Wednesday 20th February 16:50
Video link for tonight's launch https://youtu.be/XS0E35aYJcU
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