Quote from: MP99 on 04/18/2014 09:20 pmQuote from: Antares on 04/18/2014 08:43 pmQuote from: jongoff on 04/18/2014 08:37 pmQuote from: jongoff on 04/18/2014 08:35 pmFalcon 9 stage 2 will be deorbited SW of Australia shortly; first time the second stage has been deorbited on an F9 flightI wonder whether this is being driven more by orbital debris considerations, wanting to practice relights on the second stage (building up experience for GTO missions), or if they're trying to use it to start gathering data for F9R upper stage reuse, or something else entirely.If the burn is to depletion it gives a data point on what total vehicle performance really is.No surprise, but Antares nails it.0.15% prop residuals at lox depletion, if I picked up correctly. [Edit: pretty much in line with expectations.] Cheers, MartinElon said the stage ran for "a few seconds". The acceleration at the end of the second stage burn is about 5 Gs, or about 50 m/s, so if "a few" seconds is 3, then they had about 150 m/s to spare.
Quote from: Antares on 04/18/2014 08:43 pmQuote from: jongoff on 04/18/2014 08:37 pmQuote from: jongoff on 04/18/2014 08:35 pmFalcon 9 stage 2 will be deorbited SW of Australia shortly; first time the second stage has been deorbited on an F9 flightI wonder whether this is being driven more by orbital debris considerations, wanting to practice relights on the second stage (building up experience for GTO missions), or if they're trying to use it to start gathering data for F9R upper stage reuse, or something else entirely.If the burn is to depletion it gives a data point on what total vehicle performance really is.No surprise, but Antares nails it.0.15% prop residuals at lox depletion, if I picked up correctly. [Edit: pretty much in line with expectations.] Cheers, Martin
Quote from: jongoff on 04/18/2014 08:37 pmQuote from: jongoff on 04/18/2014 08:35 pmFalcon 9 stage 2 will be deorbited SW of Australia shortly; first time the second stage has been deorbited on an F9 flightI wonder whether this is being driven more by orbital debris considerations, wanting to practice relights on the second stage (building up experience for GTO missions), or if they're trying to use it to start gathering data for F9R upper stage reuse, or something else entirely.If the burn is to depletion it gives a data point on what total vehicle performance really is.
Quote from: jongoff on 04/18/2014 08:35 pmFalcon 9 stage 2 will be deorbited SW of Australia shortly; first time the second stage has been deorbited on an F9 flightI wonder whether this is being driven more by orbital debris considerations, wanting to practice relights on the second stage (building up experience for GTO missions), or if they're trying to use it to start gathering data for F9R upper stage reuse, or something else entirely.
Falcon 9 stage 2 will be deorbited SW of Australia shortly; first time the second stage has been deorbited on an F9 flight
Elon was saying that they had validated their model of how much RP-1 was left after depletion of lox. This is related to the "propellant utilisation active" call during ascent, IE dynamic adjustment of mixture ratio to ensure there aren't large residuals of one fluid when the other is depleted (which is equivalent to extra dry mass / shortfall in ultimate performance). Cheers, Martin
Thanks for the great coverage everyone, was my first experience of it on this site. Great Job SpaceX / NASA and NSF
No news from Dragon since solar panel deployed? No news is good news I assume.
Has anyone figured out which ships were attempting the recovery ops?
did anyone saw around a sketch with the flight path - something possibly with the landing area (as from the 2 NOTAN published earlier) etc.?
Quote from: pagheca on 04/19/2014 05:19 pmdid anyone saw around a sketch with the flight path - something possibly with the landing area (as from the 2 NOTAN published earlier) etc.? Or go here for a map. I also posted it in the discussion thread (page 90 or 91)
