B1052 and B1053 are now the oldest boosters in the fleet, so they might just be outdated and not worth it to SpaceX for the added hassle of refurbishing them again (newer boosters are more advanced and easier to reuse).
It's heartbreaking to see a triple expended core flight. It will be interesting to see if they are able to reuse the payload fairing.
Quote from: wannamoonbase on 02/24/2023 02:08 pmIt's heartbreaking to see a triple expended core flight. It will be interesting to see if they are able to reuse the payload fairing.Not heartbreaking at all. The customer needs the performance and will pay for it, and FH expendable is the only available LV with sufficient capacity. SpaceX chooses to expend the chronologically-oldest boosters because incremental design improvements make the newer boosters easier to maintain. This is a win-win. Celebrate the boosters' accomplishments and be glad they served instead of getting scrapped or relegated to a museum.Are you heartbroken when Atlas V, Delta IV Heavy, or SLS are expended?
It's heartbreaking to see a triple expended core flight. It will be interesting to see if they are able to reuse the payload fairing.I don't think SpaceX would expend these old side boosters if they didn't need the performance. They may not be the newest Block 5's but they have shown very capable at Starlink flights.There is a small bonus of not tying up the ASDS and allowing for a faster time to the next flight. But LC39A will have to transition out of FH mode so it's not like they can do 2 flights that quickly.Anyway, it will be an exciting flight, and watching the burn times and velocities for the 3 cores will be pretty informative. The center core will be in a deep throttle before the side boosters separate.
It's heartbreaking to see a triple expended core flight. It will be interesting to see if they are able to reuse the payload fairing.<snip>
Quote from: wannamoonbase on 02/24/2023 02:08 pmIt's heartbreaking to see a triple expended core flight. It will be interesting to see if they are able to reuse the payload fairing.<snip>Doubtful SpaceX can recover the payload fairing from this launch. Think the Falcon Heavy core will be moving too fast when the payload fairing jettison for a recovery attempt.
Quote from: Zed_Noir on 02/25/2023 04:44 pmQuote from: wannamoonbase on 02/24/2023 02:08 pmIt's heartbreaking to see a triple expended core flight. It will be interesting to see if they are able to reuse the payload fairing.<snip>Doubtful SpaceX can recover the payload fairing from this launch. Think the Falcon Heavy core will be moving too fast when the payload fairing jettison for a recovery attempt.How far would the fairing recovery boats be? At least 2,000 km downrange or further?
Astranis sat left the factory last week:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-06/andreessen-horowitz-backed-satellite-company-prepares-its-first-launch
First @Astranis satellite arrived safe and sound this morning at Cape Canaveral @SLDelta45!
🛫🛰 Delivered! @ViasatInc received the most powerful satellite platform we’ve ever built, the 702MP+. It will be able to harness well over 30 kW of solar power when it reaches orbit. That's 1/4+ of the power generated aboard @Space_Station!Learn more:
According to FH performance guestimates, FH could easily put ViaSat direct to GEO with ASDS recovery of the side cores (and expend the center). So why not recover the side cores? A common guess is that it ties up the droneships for too long.But here's another completely speculative guess. Maybe as part of the Europa Clipper contract (which definitely needs full expendable) SpaceX agreed to try this configuration at least once before hosting a zillion dollar flagship mission. And since this payload is quite close the EC mass, this should nail down the performance numbers, and the payload enviroment, for this as yet untried version.
The construction of ViaSat-3 is now complete, and the satellite has been shipped to the launch site. The launch of the satellite had been planned for the last week of March 2023, which would have allowed the satellite to commence operations at the 88.9° W.L. orbital location prior to the current milestone deadline the launch of ViaSat-3 has now been delayed due to actions taken by SpaceX:First, SpaceX delayed the launch interval that had been specified for ViaSat-3 by two weeks (from an interval of March 24 through 31, 2023 to a new interval of April 8 through 14, 2023). SpaceX implemented this delay to accommodate three high-priority missions for the U.S. Government—U.S. Space Force mission USSF-67 (DPAS priority rating DX) and NASA missions Crew-6 and CRS-27 (both DPAS priority rating DO). Notably: (i) this result was required by law given the priority ratings associated with these missions; and (ii) SpaceX had already delayed the ViaSat-3 launch to the March launch interval due to earlier national priority missions—i.e., in the aggregate, national priority missions led to ViaSat-3 launch delays significantly longer than two weeks.Subsequently, SpaceX further delayed the updated launch interval for ViaSat-3 in order to address unexpected and unforeseen delays in SpaceX’s ability to deliver a critical piece of flight hardware designated for use on the ViaSat-3 mission. The time required to make this critical hardware available will delay SpaceX’s ability to launch the ViaSat-3 satellite by at least four additional days and will result in a launch no earlier than April 18, 2023.
