Space Stuff and Launch Info

[1oldman2]

Nice pic! I spend more 1 hour to read all page in topic.

Here is another,

NASA posted it as pic of the day

 

[johnsherdy10]

Nice pic! I spend more 1 hour to read all page in topic.

Here is another,View attachment 208518 NASA posted it as pic of the day

Wow. Thank you! Beautiful

 

[mfb]

Four Earth-sized planets around Tau Ceti
The star is Sun-like, just 12 light years away and bright enough to be visible with the naked eye. Two of the planets are probably in the habitable zone.

Not from Kepler this time - it is a radial velocity measurement! ~0.2 m/s, an incredible precision, and slowly moving towards the precision to detect perfect Earth analogs.

JWST might measure the inclination, ELT will certainly be able to do it, that gives a proper mass estimate.

Edit:
Mayak failed to deploy its solar reflectors. It would have been the brightest artificial object in the sky, surpassing the ISS under good viewing conditions.

 

[1oldman2]

Four Earth-sized planets around Tau Ceti
The star is Sun-like, just 12 light years away and bright enough to be visible with the naked eye. Two of the planets are probably in the habitable zone.

Not from Kepler this time - it is a radial velocity measurement! ~0.2 m/s, an incredible precision, and slowly moving towards the precision to detect perfect Earth analogs.

Great article, thanks. (love the name of that Star, I get that Ceti refers to the "Whale" but the Tau part, that ones a bit ambiguous.)

JWST might measure the inclination, ELT will certainly be able to do it, that gives a proper mass estimate.

I'll bet we will be rewriting a few textbooks after those projects get to spend a little up time, the Super Earths sound cool but the gravity would be pretty hard to take. I found it interesting that the first average sunlike star used as a "benchmark" to test the process on came up with this many finds, looks as if the universe is likely lousy with Exoplanets.

Mayak failed to deploy its solar reflectors. It would have been the brightest artificial object in the sky, surpassing the ISS under good viewing conditions.

Hope there are plans to try another project like that, I hadn't even heard of it before it failed.

 

[mfb]

I'll bet we will be rewriting a few textbooks after those projects get to spend a little up time, the Super Earths sound cool but the gravity would be pretty hard to take.

Just a few?
Even many species from Earth could easily survive in 2 g, life that evolved there wouldn't have an issue with it. 2 g is about 7-8 Earth masses at a similar composition.Upcoming in spaceflight: CRS-12, SpaceX will launch another Dragon spacecraft to the ISS on Monday 17:31 UTC.
It will be the last new Dragon 1 capsule, all following flights will all re-use capsules from earlier missions. From counting capsules we can learn something SpaceX didn't announce yet: At least two capsules have to fly a third time (or one has to fly four times, but that sounds unlikely).
- the capsules of CRS-1 to 3 are too old to be reused.
- CRS-4 and CRS-11 had the same capsule
- CRS-7 failed during launch
- that leaves 5 capsules with one flight so far: from CRS-5, 6, 8, 9, 10.
- after CRS-12 we have 6 capsules for 8 remaining flights

The Falcon Heavy maiden flight is now expected for November.

 

[1oldman2]

The weathers looking good for today's show.

 

[nikkkom]

http://www.gao.gov/assets/690/686613.pdf
The GAO have an estimate of the launch cost of the current launch vehicles on page 35 of the linked report.

Check out "price per kg" column. F9 is a monster already (everybody but Proton are utterly noncompetitive against it), Falcon Heavy with 64 tons to LEO (!) for ~$100m (!) will be even scarier.

 

[mfb]

They are doing it wrong. They divide the cost for a reusable F9 by the payload of an expendable F9.
The payload to LEO with a reusable configuration is not known, probably about 15 tonnes. That leads to ~$4000/kg. The price of a expendable F9 is not known either.

Similar for FH. The $90 million are probably for a mission where two cores return to the launch site, which will limit payload to ~25 tonnes.

Currently most commercial launches are communication satellites that get launched to GTO. Ariane 5 is specialized on these missions, and can deliver about 11 tonnes to GTO, about half its potential LEO payload of 21 tonnes. As comparison, F9 is more efficient for LEO missions, its maximal GTO payload is just ~1/3 the LEO payload.

 

[nikkkom]

The page certainly simplifies the picture, as a minimum both LEO and GTO performance should be compared: both are meaningful for real customers.

However, with price of F9 being nearly THREE times lower than Ariane and ULA, its lower-performance 2nd stage do not save them - they are still utterly noncompetitive.

Proton's 2nd stage has worse parameters (Isp) than F9's. On July 5 2017, Falcon sent Intelsat-35e to GTO, with the weight right at Proton's maximum payload, 6750kg.

The price of a expendable F9 is not known either.

Wrong. Most F9 missions to date were expendable: out of 38 successful missions, so far 14 first stages landed. Ergo, expendable Falcon price is known (customers can't possibly be paying "an unknown price"). For example, Intelsat-35e launch was expendable.

 

[mfb]

For example, Intelsat-35e launch was expendable.

And how much did they pay? SpaceX only publicly announced prices for up to 5.5 tonnes to GTO. Intelsat-35e had 6.6 tonnes.

Customers negotiate the price with SpaceX. The customers know the price, in general we as third party do not. For reusable GTO launches, and only for them, SpaceX made the baseline price public. http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities.

 

[nikkkom]

The customers know the price, in general we as third party do not.

This was generally the case in this business for its entire history: prices were not publicly stated at all. There was no page on the ULA homepage with a price. SpaceX was the first company which did put a definite price on their official website, instead of asking potential customers to give them a call.

In years past, this did not stop people interested in the topic from digging for data and discovering approximate prices of launches. One source is launch costs for government payloads, such as NASA planetary probes. By looking at various data, it was determined that Delta IV Heavy costs $400m a pop. Atlas V used to start at around $180m in the least powerful configuration. Now they are forced by competition to lower the costs and now they say the price is $109 million for the smallest configuration (Atlas 401) up to $153 million for Atlas 551. They also followed SpaceX example and set up a website with pricing information (RocketBuilder). It's amazing what happens when you suddenly have a competitor.

 

[mfb]

SpaceX lists a price publicly - but only for missions that allow first stage recovery.

Using this price for the higher capacity of a more expensive expendable flight is wrong. It is like using a Delta IV price and the Delta IV Heavy payload.

 

[mfb]

A surprisingly reasonable article by futurism.com: NASA Chief: "There is More Going on Right Now in Space Than I've Ever Seen in My Career"
Mentioning new rockets, new manned spaceflight options, and some unmanned spaceflight projects.

SpaceX will launch Formosat-5 tomorrow (18:50–19:34 UTC). Originally planned to launch on a Falcon 1, it has a mass of only 475 kg. It launches from Vandenberg, where SpaceX doesn't have permission to land on the ground pad yet, so the first stage will land on the drone ship, increasing the potential payload mass even more. As far as I know, this is the most overpowered rocket launch (with actual payload) ever. The rocket can launch 50 times the payload (expendable), and it has launched more than 20 times the payload with a first stage landing. It makes me wonder if SpaceX will try to do something special after the nominal mission. The second stage should have enough fuel left to change its velocity by 3 to 4 km/s - enough to halve its speed for a softer re-entry, and potentially enough to reach escape velocity. The FH maiden flight is supposed to test second stage recovery, but this mission could be used for initial tests at lower speeds or with second stage modifications.

A small advertisement: The Wikipedia list of Falcon 9 / FH launches was nominated to become a featured list. If you have suggestions how to improve the list, feel free to add them here. You don't even need a Wikipedia account to add a comment there.Edit: For the watchlist: Rumors that a binary neutron star merger might have been observed by LIGO+VIRGO.

 

[nikkkom]

DSCOVR is also very light (only 570 kg) and it was launched by F9 in 2015.

 

[mfb]

DSCOVR was launched to nearly escape velocity, Formosat-5 is launched to LEO.

T-1h 40min, 90% chance of favorable launch conditions.

 

[1oldman2]

Upcoming attractions.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/08/24/falcon-9-formosat-5-mission-status-center/
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/08/24/falcon-9-launch-timeline-with-formosat-5/

 

[OmCheeto]

Upcoming attractions.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/08/24/falcon-9-formosat-5-mission-status-center/
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/08/24/falcon-9-launch-timeline-with-formosat-5/

seems kind of "leaky"

but then again, I'm not a rocket scientist.

 

[1oldman2]

seems kind of "leaky"

Ya... you think they would fix a leaky fuel tank.

but then again, I'm not a rocket scientist.

Me too!
(Sooo... How about that Eclipse!)

 

[OmCheeto]

Ya... you think they would fix a leaky fuel tank.

Me too!
(Sooo... How about that Eclipse!)

I almost suffocated...
It took me about 30 seconds to remember to breathe.

 

[mfb]

seems kind of "leaky"

All liquid fuel rockets have that - you cannot fully close the tank, heat would make the pressure rise too fast. The tanks allow some propellant to boil off, where the cold gas streams out into the atmosphere you get water vapor.

The mission was a success, the landing worked as well - the 11th consecutive landing that worked.

 

[1oldman2]

I almost suffocated...
It took me about 30 seconds to remember to breathe.

Me 2, I was videoing when I saw the shadow racing across towards us. from there on out it was so surreal I couldn't believe what I was seeing. As you can see in my still life shot the crowds (cows) were really pushing us around.

 

[OmCheeto]

Me 2, I was videoing when I saw the shadow racing across towards us. from there on out it was so surreal I couldn't believe what I was seeing. As you can see in my still life shot the crowds (cows) were really pushing us around.
View attachment 209676

Cows, coyotes, and flying monkeys. What a grand adventure astro-science can be.

I too, took a "still life" of the junk required to do astro-science.

Just 5 minutes after totality.

ps. Pretty much missed the "shadow race". I was in a valley, surrounded completely by 500 ft tall hills. (44.52353 N 120.04811 W)
Doh!

 

[mfb]

It makes me wonder if SpaceX will try to do something special after the nominal mission.

The special thing was the mission profile. The satellite was put in an orbit 700 km high. The typical flight profile would launch it to an orbit with 200 km perigee and 700 km apogee, coast for half an orbit and then circularize an orbit.

The rocket was massively overpowered, they didn't have to follow the usual approach. They could launch much more vertically to gain height quickly, and let the second stage gain nearly all the horizontal velocity. That way they didn't need a coast phase. It reduces the risk a bit as the second stage doesn't have to reignite its engine.
The first stage typically reaches a height of ~130 km. This time it reached 247 km, a very high speed, and a very steep descent angle. It looks like a stress-test of the first stage re-entry procedure.

It worked. The rocket landed less than a meter away from the center. The barge can tolerate ~10 meter deviation according to this article. Musk estimates that ITS has to land with an accuracy of about 2 meters to land in its mount. They are practicing already?

 

[1oldman2]

They are practicing already?

You can count on it.

 

[smartalek86]

One question comes to mind,
How much does it cost to meet regulatory requirements to launch rockets?

 

[mfb]

In which country?

Typically there will be a large initial cost to get a rocket certified and then a smaller cost per launch. None of these numbers is public as far as I know.

 

[smartalek86]

The USA, unless you know of what legal hurdles lie in other western countries. The thing that I find confusing is how do you manage aspects that are classified/ information not for export? If you want to show off parts of the rocket to impress the market/file patents it comes into conflict with legislation that restricts what you can publish...

 

[mfb]

In the US that is regulated by ITAR. Some things you cannot show/describe publicly, what exactly will be decided on a case-by-case basis.

 

[nikkkom]

If you want to show off parts of the rocket to impress the market

Launch vehicles are not Iphones: people who buy rides to orbit are almost certainly knowledgeable enough to not be easily impressed by marketing tricks. They are impressed by past reliability record and price.

 

[Borg]

Boom! SpaceX's Rocket Landing 'Blooper Reel'. Love the Monty Python theme!