Author Topic: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION  (Read 786465 times)

Offline Newton_V

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Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #360 on: 11/19/2017 08:56 pm »
If they need to replace the fairing they will do in an appropriate processing facility. In case of this payload, it will not be done by SpaceX but by a contractor employing people with required security clearances.

Why wouldn't it be done by SpaceX employees with required security clearances?

Offline tleski

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Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #361 on: 11/19/2017 09:21 pm »
If they need to replace the fairing they will do in an appropriate processing facility. In case of this payload, it will not be done by SpaceX but by a contractor employing people with required security clearances.

Why wouldn't it be done by SpaceX employees with required security clearances?

Sure, it could be done by SpaceX people with proper clearances. I had an impression that someone reported that SpaceX was not involved in the pre-integration processing of this payload but can't find it anymore. My main point was that there is no way they are going to do a fairing swap in the HIF.

Offline Jim

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Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #362 on: 11/20/2017 12:27 am »

Sure, it could be done by SpaceX people with proper clearances. I had an impression that someone reported that SpaceX was not involved in the pre-integration processing of this payload but can't find it anymore. My main point was that there is no way they are going to do a fairing swap in the HIF.

Spacex wouldn't  be involved with pre-integration processing.  Encapsulation is part of the integration process and would only be done by Spacex.  The only time LV personnel are not involved in encapsulation is when the LV does not provide the fairing like in the case of Hexagon
« Last Edit: 11/20/2017 12:28 am by Jim »

Offline Space Ghost 1962

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Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #363 on: 11/20/2017 01:50 am »


edit/gongora:  This picture is for Hexagon if you hadn't guessed already.
« Last Edit: 11/20/2017 02:30 am by gongora »

Offline tleski

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Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #364 on: 11/20/2017 02:55 am »

Sure, it could be done by SpaceX people with proper clearances. I had an impression that someone reported that SpaceX was not involved in the pre-integration processing of this payload but can't find it anymore. My main point was that there is no way they are going to do a fairing swap in the HIF.

Spacex wouldn't  be involved with pre-integration processing.  Encapsulation is part of the integration process and would only be done by Spacex.  The only time LV personnel are not involved in encapsulation is when the LV does not provide the fairing like in the case of Hexagon

Thanks for claryfying this. So, SpaceX has to have properly cleared people able to see a highly classified payload to integrate it with the payload adaptor and fairing and if needed they would just move it to their pyload processing facility to do a fairing swap?
« Last Edit: 11/20/2017 02:56 am by tleski »

Online gongora

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Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #365 on: 11/20/2017 03:14 am »
Thanks for claryfying this. So, SpaceX has to have properly cleared people able to see a highly classified payload to integrate it with the payload adaptor and fairing and if needed they would just move it to their pyload processing facility to do a fairing swap?

They would probably move it to the facility where the payload was processed, which in the case of classified payloads is probably not the SpaceX PPF.
« Last Edit: 11/20/2017 03:14 am by gongora »

Offline psionedge

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Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #366 on: 11/20/2017 05:12 am »
I'm thinking that if Zuma does not launch by November 30th, the payload might either be sent to the scrapyard, or have its parts reused for other satellites.
That stirkes me as highly implausible. Why would a very expensive bird be scrapped? Much more likely that SpaceX pays a lot of penalty and gets bad PR. If the mission was actually that time sensitive I could see repurposing.
I'd guess NG is pushing for Nov 30 to meet some contractual delivery date. This is probably what was meant when it was previously discussed the customer was intent on meeting some revenue milestone.

Offline Chris Bergin

I agree. I think most sats have milestones, but if they don't launch by the end of the month, they won't go binning the satellite! ;D They'll just launch in a realigned period. Let's hope it doesn't come to that as Falcon Heavy going to be grumbling about this in the HIF.

Anyway, no update as of yet.
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Offline StuffOfInterest

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Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #368 on: 11/20/2017 11:40 am »
If the fairing is swapped, I wonder if SpaceX will go through another hotfire test.  In theory, nothing that has been changed is related to test, but it will have been longer than usual between the hotfire and the launch.

Offline shuttlefan

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Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #369 on: 11/20/2017 12:18 pm »
Could they switch Zuma to SLC-40 so they can keep 39-A modifications for Falcon Heavy on schedule?

Offline Semmel

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Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #370 on: 11/20/2017 01:00 pm »
Could they switch Zuma to SLC-40 so they can keep 39-A modifications for Falcon Heavy on schedule?

Keeping FH on schedule is not the concern when it comes to launching ZUMA. The only way a swap would make sense was if they could launch it faster from LC40. Given that the pad is not the problem here, I cant see how that would happen though.

Offline MarekCyzio

If the fairing is swapped, I wonder if SpaceX will go through another hotfire test.  In theory, nothing that has been changed is related to test, but it will have been longer than usual between the hotfire and the launch.

Hotfire is done without payload - why would they need to do another hotfire?

Offline AndyX

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Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #372 on: 11/20/2017 01:09 pm »
If the fairing is swapped, I wonder if SpaceX will go through another hotfire test.  In theory, nothing that has been changed is related to test, but it will have been longer than usual between the hotfire and the launch.

Hotfire is done without payload - why would they need to do another hotfire?

I think he's speaking about the timeline between test and launch, which is usually a few days. But I don't think they'd need to fire up the booster again unless they did something like change out the engines....

Offline kevin-rf

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Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #373 on: 11/20/2017 01:16 pm »
I'd guess NG is pushing for Nov 30 to meet some contractual delivery date. This is probably what was meant when it was previously discussed the customer was intent on meeting some revenue milestone.
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Offline Jim

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Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #374 on: 11/20/2017 03:11 pm »

Sure, it could be done by SpaceX people with proper clearances. I had an impression that someone reported that SpaceX was not involved in the pre-integration processing of this payload but can't find it anymore. My main point was that there is no way they are going to do a fairing swap in the HIF.

Spacex wouldn't  be involved with pre-integration processing.  Encapsulation is part of the integration process and would only be done by Spacex.  The only time LV personnel are not involved in encapsulation is when the LV does not provide the fairing like in the case of Hexagon

Thanks for claryfying this. So, SpaceX has to have properly cleared people able to see a highly classified payload to integrate it with the payload adaptor and fairing and if needed they would just move it to their pyload processing facility to do a fairing swap?

Yes

Offline cscott

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Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #375 on: 11/20/2017 03:27 pm »
Occam's razor says that the problem is with delamination or voids in the composite fairing.  That's the most common problem with composite structures.  It would have to be in some place or under some condition that it is not caught by the usual NDE tests done during manufacturing, of course, but there are lots of ways for Murphy to offer surprises.

With the delay lasting this long, I expect that we'll see a fairing swap, or at least a return to the processing facility to de-encapsulate. In fact, I'm a bit surprised this hasn't already happened. The absence of road closure notices around LC-39A is the best reason to assume I'm totally off base with my speculation.

The scramble would be because they don't have another fairing ready to "swap in". Fairings are semi-custom, with customer-specified ports and other features (as I remember Jim pointing out once previously).  So you can't just take a fairing from mission N+1 and swap it in.  They are probably scrambling to evaluate "fixes" to the voids (reinforcement structures? I don't know much about composite manufacturing) as well as a hurry-up process to get a new custom fairing built or a semi-built fairing modified appropriately for Zuma.  But curing composites can't really be sped up, so there's a limit to how fast this can be done.
« Last Edit: 11/20/2017 03:29 pm by cscott »

Offline zubenelgenubi

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Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #376 on: 11/20/2017 03:41 pm »
Are there other examples of launch campaign PLF issues that have delayed launch?

Are there other launches that have been delayed to repair or modify a suspect PLF?

Are there other launches that have been delayed to remove and replace a PLF?
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Offline speedevil

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Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #377 on: 11/20/2017 03:58 pm »
Occam's razor says that the problem is with delamination or voids in the composite fairing.  That's the most common problem with composite structures.  It would have to be in some place or under some condition that it is not caught by the usual NDE tests done during manufacturing, of course, but there are lots of ways for Murphy to offer surprises.

The phrasing used from memory also did not seem to exclude tests on recovered fairing, and the timing might almost be right for a teardown of the most recent recovered fairing to reveal stuff.

Offline MarekCyzio

Occam's razor says that the problem is with delamination or voids in the composite fairing.  That's the most common problem with composite structures.  It would have to be in some place or under some condition that it is not caught by the usual NDE tests done during manufacturing, of course, but there are lots of ways for Murphy to offer surprises.

The phrasing used from memory also did not seem to exclude tests on recovered fairing, and the timing might almost be right for a teardown of the most recent recovered fairing to reveal stuff.

It’s probably a coincidence but recovered fairing disappeared recently from SpaceX lawn next to Cape Canaveral facility (former Spacehab).


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Offline RDMM2081

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Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #379 on: 11/20/2017 05:39 pm »
Occam's razor says that the problem is with delamination or voids in the composite fairing.  That's the most common problem with composite structures.  It would have to be in some place or under some condition that it is not caught by the usual NDE tests done during manufacturing, of course, but there are lots of ways for Murphy to offer surprises.

The phrasing used from memory also did not seem to exclude tests on recovered fairing, and the timing might almost be right for a teardown of the most recent recovered fairing to reveal stuff.

I think this case would be extremely interesting as it would be one of the first cases of "overinformation" from any part of a recovery process that has been used to pre-emptively reduce risk for a mission.

If the mission slips, I don't know whether NG should be happy or upset?  On one hand, the window slipped right, which is almost never good, but on the other hand, if the mission assurance indicates better odds of success by waiting, that's kind of a win, since they seem to be in favor of holding for further tests on the fairing (if not the ones requesting the hold in the first place).

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