Author Topic: SpaceX F9 : SES-10 with reuse of CRS-8 Booster SN/1021 : 2017-03-30 : DISCUSSION  (Read 500407 times)

Offline sublimemarsupial

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SpaceNews reports that it is in fact riding uphill on Falcon 9, NOT Falcon Heavy. At 5.3 mt, its either not going to anywhere close to a traditional 1500 m/s GTO, or SpaceX is sandbagging their advertised capacity of 4.85 mt to GTO.

http://www.spacenews.com/article/satellite-telecom/39558updated-ses-books-falcon-9-for-2016-launch?utm_content=buffer96acd&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Offline Wigles

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Elon has said that the Merlin 1D is currently only operating at 85%. Would this make up the 0.5t discrepancy?

Offline Chris Bergin

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Offline newpylong

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SpaceNews reports that it is in fact riding uphill on Falcon 9, NOT Falcon Heavy. At 5.3 mt, its either not going to anywhere close to a traditional 1500 m/s GTO, or SpaceX is sandbagging their advertised capacity of 4.85 mt to GTO.

http://www.spacenews.com/article/satellite-telecom/39558updated-ses-books-falcon-9-for-2016-launch?utm_content=buffer96acd&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

No the article says they will use thrusters to raise orbit. So robotbeat is right.

Offline LouScheffer

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SpaceNews reports that it is in fact riding uphill on Falcon 9, NOT Falcon Heavy. At 5.3 mt, its either not going to anywhere close to a traditional 1500 m/s GTO, or SpaceX is sandbagging their advertised capacity of 4.85 mt to GTO.

http://www.spacenews.com/article/satellite-telecom/39558updated-ses-books-falcon-9-for-2016-launch?utm_content=buffer96acd&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

No the article says they will use thrusters to raise orbit. So robotbeat is right.

No, the article says "SES and Airbus Defence and Space said the satellite would employ chemical propulsion to raise its orbit from the Falcon 9’s drop-off point to final geostationary location, and electric propulsion to maintain itself stably in orbit once at its operating position."

So it is NOT using electrical thrusters to get into GEO, implying it *is* in a more or less traditional GTO orbit.  So I suspect that SpaceX experience with the first two mission allows them to be confident of a larger payload.  It doesn't take much; a very slightly better than minimum ISP, or slightly smaller residuals, or both, could easily account for the extra 450 kg.

Offline Robotbeat

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Or they're just using more chemical propulsion to get into the initial orbit. Using electric propulsion for station-keeping may free up the chemical system for quick orbit insertion.
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Offline beancounter

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I think TrueBlueWitt ment if they use a Heavy instead.
I think TrueBlueWitt ment if they use a Heavy instead.

Actually, a GTO mission would be a worst case test of recovery of a second stage, since the thermal conditions would be extreme.


Wouldn't they have enough margin, given it's such a light load on a F9H, to propulsively brake to nearer LEO re-entry velocity prior to re-entry if they chose?

Hi.  What's with the F9H?  It's confusing.  There's F9 v1.1 or just F9 and there's FH.  Please use the appropriate designation.
Cheers,
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Offline SpaceDom

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Hi

I am not a specialist in trajectory but what happen in mass capacity if Falcon 9 V1.1 is launched from Boca Chica Beach Tx. ? Flight is in 2016, if Spacex take a decision quickly, the pad will be ready ?

Offline Comga

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Hi

I am not a specialist in trajectory but what happen in mass capacity if Falcon 9 V1.1 is launched from Boca Chica Beach Tx. ? Flight is in 2016, if Spacex take a decision quickly, the pad will be ready ?

Welcome to the forum.

A Texas launch site is well out.  2016 is really pretty soon.
Check out how long it took to get the pad up and running at Vandenberg, and that didn't require SpaceX to create any launch support facilities like radar and telecom, never mind bringing in electric power, water, internet, etc.
What kind of wastrels would dump a perfectly good booster in the ocean after just one use?

Offline Lars_J

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F9 not capable of 5 tons to GTO, so it has to be a FH.

The article says that the launch mass of the satellite will be 5 tons, which is 10% of the capability of FH. I suspect the bottom line is that Space News is wrong.

However, we should not discard a third possibility, that Elon is promising some enhanced variant of Falcon 9 to customers in a couple of years.

Some have speculated that SpaceX is "sandbagging" the true performance numbers for the F9v1.1 (when comparing to Nasa NLS II figures) - Or more likely, the numbers on the SpaceX might already take into account stage 1 reuse, as others have speculated. (Both the SES-8 and Thaicom-6 missions did apparently reserve some propellant for restart tests)

Now that those two GTO missions are done, they clearly know the true performance of the LV to a much greater degree than earlier - so if they are comfortable with a GTO payload of this size, presumably it can be done.

Offline PerW

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Copy paste from @pbdes again:
"SpaceX: Falcon 9 can lift 5,300kg to GTO. Published 4,850kg max included 450kg we reserved for ourselves. So 5,300kg SES-10 fits on F9."
So i guess the first tweet about using FH was not right then? Interesting any how.

Offline Kaputnik

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Does that include any margin for stage recovery, I wonder?
"I don't care what anything was DESIGNED to do, I care about what it CAN do"- Gene Kranz

Offline MikeAtkinson

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Does that include any margin for stage recovery, I wonder?

Probably not in my opinion.

Offline Sohl

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Does that include any margin for stage recovery, I wonder?

Probably not in my opinion.

Mine too. Maybe go legless and set thrusters to full.  8)

Offline MP99

Does that include any margin for stage recovery, I wonder?

Probably not in my opinion.

Doesn't sound like they're going to have much in the way of margins, even for an expendable flight.

SES may accept risk (small, I hope) of a bit of a shortfall in the dV-to-GTO if something goes wrong. Will be interesting to hear, as the launch approaches, whether this flight is at risk of under-performing in event of, eg, first stage engine out.

cheers, Martin

Offline Mader Levap

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Well, SES engineers were "embedded" in some SpaceX team during that troubleshooting of second stage. I think SES knows real performance figures of F9 - and basis for them - very, very well.
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Offline Joffan

(Both the SES-8 and Thaicom-6 missions did apparently reserve some propellant for restart tests)

Or perhaps the reserve was for engine-out and other contingencies - once the contingencies did not arise, it was then free for some restart testing.
Getting through max-Q for humanity becoming fully spacefaring

Offline Robotbeat

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If there is a performance shortfall, the satellite has a LOT of margin in the electric propulsion system... They'd lose many months thrusting, but as long as they get to a semi-stable orbit, if the Xenon tanks are full (about 350kg, I think?) they technically have enough to get basically all the way to GSO even from LEO (assuming they plan to do GTO to GSO relying on chemical propulsion, with a little chemical left over for margin... LEO ends at roughly 2000km, so they'd probably have to be close to that altitude at apogee for this to work...)... though it'd basically be out of fuel at that point, with reduced capacity solar arrays. It'd also take a really, really long time...

...my point is that even with engine-out or a performance short-fall, it wouldn't necessarily be a complete loss for SES (pretending for the moment that they don't have insurance... which they would have).

...They'd have to time the thrusting periods right, though, which would take a lot longer than just thrusting constantly, though... You really wouldn't want to do this operationally, at least not unless you had a bigger array and better thrusters.

EDIT:Such a performance shortfall happened in the past with an Ariane 5 partial failure, with an electric propulsion system that I believe shares heritage with SES's bird: http://erps.spacegrant.org/uploads/images/images/iepc_articledownload_1988-2007/2003index/0096-0303iepc-full.pdf
The combination of chemical and electric propulsion eventually saved the mission. Electric propulsion adds a lot of flexibility and robustness to these sorts of missions.... As long as you get into orbit!
« Last Edit: 02/21/2014 09:12 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline kevin-rf

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While it could make GSO if a performance shortfall occurs, overcoming a performance shortfall will consume Xenon and reduce the operational lifetime of the satellite. SEP is not free.
« Last Edit: 02/21/2014 11:35 pm by kevin-rf »
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Offline Robotbeat

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While it could make GSO if a performance shortfall occurs, overcoming a performance shortfall will consume Xenon and reduce the operational lifetime of the satellite. SEP is not free.
Isn't that exactly what I said? ;)
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

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