What's Next for SpaceX and Space Exploration in 2018?

[anorlunda]

On the circuit its written, "Made on Earth by 'humans'". It's so hilarious.

What a wonderful sense of humor they have.

Did you see the sign that said Don't Panic? I think it could have said "...rerouting..."

 

[mfb]

Good point, I see that now :)

Still a busy year there.
~15-20 SpaceX flights (they want to launch 30 rockets in 2018, 3 done already, a few will launch from California)
7 Atlas flights
2 Delta IV flights

Some Falcon launches have returning boosters.
For the launch of Paz on February 17 the rocket has the performance, but SpaceX has no use for that booster any more - they might use it for tests over the ocean.
The booster for TESS, March 20: Would surprise me. The satellite is light but high Earth orbit needs a high performance of the rocket.
SpaceX CRS-14 (ISS resupply), April 2: That one will probably come back. It has flown before already, and it is a good candidate for a third flight.
SpaceX CRS-15, June 9: The booster will come back.
SpX-DM1 (Crew Dragon demo mission, without crew), not before August: The booster will come back.
SpaceX CRS-16, November 16: The booster will come back.
SpX-DM2 (Crew Dragon with Crew), likely to get shifted to 2019: The booster will come back.

All other launches won't have the booster return to launch site, or don't have a scheduled launch date yet.
There might be two Falcon Heavy flights this year, in both cases it is likely that both side boosters return.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

There might be two Falcon Heavy flights this year, in both cases it is likely that both side boosters return.

I'll be gunning for one of these!

 

[Borg]

From the SpaceX http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities page:

I've always wondered what I would do if I hit the lottery for a lot of money. I could launch my own mission to Mars.

 

[OmCheeto]

...
The car should be visible to good telescopes for quite some time, if (!) someone tracks it we get a nice orbit determination. The car should be bright enough to observe it frequently for the largest telescopes, but time for that is probably very limited.

I found this on Twitter @ #FalconHeavy:

https://twitter.com/vacant3rdman/status/961633262207565824

Image credit: Anthony Horton, Sydney, Australia
Also found this, via Anthony: https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi

Unfortunately, so far; "This trajectory is a ballistic propagation derived from a post-injection state provided by SpaceX on 2018-Feb-7, and is based on internal GPS data."

So the "Ephemeris" data, whatever that means, is no better than what we already have. [?]

ps. Thank you, @tony873004 for wasting several more hours of my time last night, playing with your gosh darned simulator!

Yesterdays simulator's prediction [ref]

Todays simulator's prediction [ref]

 

[mheslep]

Its payload, up to 63,800 kg, is more than twice the payload of the most powerful rocket in operation, the Delta IV Heavy

Double the payload and a quarter the cost of Delta IV ($400M Delta IV per wiki vs $90M FH per Musk).

 

[TurtleMeister]

The return and safe landing of the side boosters was fascinating. This video shows how fast they're coming down before the rockets fire. Best if you use full screen with headphones.

 

[mfb]

Double the payload and a quarter the cost of Delta IV ($400M Delta IV per wiki vs $90M FH per Musk).

$90M is the price for the reusable configuration, the same way the maiden flight launched. For that, the payload is expected to be somewhere between 30 and 40 tonnes. Falcon Heavy can launch 63 tonnes to LEO, but then it has to fly expendable and SpaceX will charge more.

 

[berkeman]

The return and safe landing of the side boosters was fascinating. This video shows how fast they're coming down before the rockets fire. Best if you use full screen with headphones.

Fun video. Unfortunate that the narrator has a kindergarten education in sonic booms, but whatever. Maybe we can edit out his commentary?

 

[mfb]

Fun video. Unfortunate that the narrator has a kindergarten education in sonic booms, but whatever. Maybe we can edit out his commentary?

Technically each booster produces three sonic booms, but two are so close together that you don't properly hear that. What is the issue?

 

[berkeman]

Technically each booster produces three sonic booms, but two are so close together that you don't properly hear that. What is the issue?

No way the boosters were descending supersonic. They looked to be doing about 300mph descending toward the landing pads. the sounds appeared to be the boosters firing to slow their descent. Did I misinterpret the video? I'll watch again...

 

[berkeman]

Huh, I might be wrong about that coincidence:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...X-Falcon-Heavy-boosters-fire-sonic-booms.html

I need to think more about why the two sounds would be coincident. Coincidence? Weird. Sorry that I mistrusted you, @mfb

 

[berkeman]

Yeah, now it looks like the sonic booms were delayed by about 5 seconds (a little over a mile), and the boosters fired at about the closest approach to the listener. So it's probably a valid video and commentary. I will deprecate my "kindergarten" comment...

 

[mfb]

Here is a webcast with booster telemetry
The boosters become subsonic at about 7 km altitude, the landing burn starts at 3 km altitude and ~3/4 the speed of sound. The flight profile for the FH boosters should have been very similar. The sonic booms come from quite far away. They are a bit faster than the rocket, but not much.

 

[scottdave]

I can't help but be reminded of the opening scene of the movie Heavy Metal.

I thought the same exact thing. They even put a "dummy astronaut" in the driver's seat.
I've heard that it is an awesome experience to witness firsthand. One day I'd like to travel to Florida to witness a launch.

 

[boneh3ad]

Double the payload and a quarter the cost of Delta IV ($400M Delta IV per wiki vs $90M FH per Musk).

Cue the CEO of Orbital ATK releasing a statement about how SpaceX is still just a bit player who doesn't threaten their business.

 

[OmCheeto]

Where is it now(ish)?

[new reference]

Q: What would it looks like to Hubble?
A: A point: 0.025 pixels
[ref: maths]

 

[Stavros Kiri]

History in the making!
Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to watch the events live when they happened, but I am catching up now ...

 

[OmCheeto]

And the vehicle now has its own wiki page: Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster

I was thumbing through Twitter this afternoon when I ran across a re-tweet by Brian Cox:

JJ Hermes‏ @jotajotahermes

Early this morning we measured the brightness changes of a car tumbling in space!
Credit to Erik Dennihy (@UNC), we can report that Tesla Roadster (Starman, 2018-017A) is rotating with a period of 4.7589 +/- 0.0060 minutes.

 

[Tom.G]

Video, continuous from launch thru booster recovery. About 9 minutes. Taken thru an 8 inch telescope so you can see the booster separation and the return-to-launch burns.

 

[Stavros Kiri]

How to Track "mfb's new avatar" Using Mobile Apps ...

(How to Track Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster Using Mobile Apps)

 

[nsaspook]

Failed booster return and near miss at 1:10

 

[Borg]

Hard to believe that it's been 2 1/2 years already. I've been curious lately about where the Starman roadster is currently and it's going to have a close approach to Mars on Oct. 7th.

 

[gleem]

The United States Space Force has announced the launch date for its 2-year delayed USSF-44 mission, Oct 28.

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-falcon-heavy-rocket-first-launch-three-years-take-two/

 

[anorlunda]

Three nearly simultaneous landings. I love it.

 

[mfb]

Just two (controlled) landings. The center booster was expended. It's possible SpaceX collected some data from that before its destruction - the highest re-entry speed a Falcon booster has ever achieved by a large margin.