Author Topic: SpaceX F9 : USA 328-331 / Globalstar FM15 : SLC-40 : 19 June 2022 (04:27 UTC)  (Read 94361 times)

Offline meekGee

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If there is a second payload they really don't want to talk about it.
Hence SpaceX have their smoothest talking announcer continuously talking to distract viewers from the abnormalities of this launch. Jessie Anderson has been MIA from launch webcast lately.   
Are you saying she's on board this mission?  Indeed they have suspiciously removed evidence that may be used to disprove this hypothesis!

EDIT:  oh wait I read your comment wrong, now saw a screenshot.  Ok so she's not aboard.  Which hints that maybe it's the other commentator that is on board?

Inquiring minds want to know - who is stowing away on this mission?

(Sorry, some of the previous ideas were pretty conspiratorial)
« Last Edit: 06/19/2022 06:20 pm by meekGee »
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Offline Bean Kenobi

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Since Transporter 3 was a RTLS mission, it appears the TTL sats didn't impose the ASDS landing of the Globalstar mission, only Globalstar sat release at 1,200 km required it.

Offline winkhomewinkhome

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Starlink 2.0
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Offline DistantTemple

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If SX make a habit of adding their own (test or operational) "Starlink Vx.y" silently onto other launches, they could test their military options, other technologies they are developing, and provide a background where real secret satellites would be indistinguishable from such experiments. SpaceX is so flexible, innovative, and launces so frequently, that adding secret sats at late notice would be an outstanding service to offer the DOD etc. The ability to hide them within a Starlink orbit is brilliant. Since "all" satellites have TLE's, and get observed, any such would have to masquerade as an SX sat.   Just guessing....
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Offline Lars-J

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Starlink 2.0
Doubtful, why would they keep that secret?

Offline Orbiter

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Starlink 2.0

From what Elon has provided us, Starlink 2.0 is too large to fit into a F9 fairing.
KSC Engineer, astronomer, rocket photographer.

Offline su27k

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Just for the sake of argument...

From what Elon has provided us, Starlink 2.0 is too large to fit into a F9 fairing.

Not too long ago they told FCC they have the option to launch Starlink Gen2 on Falcon 9. So either they have two Gen2 designs, one for F9, one for Starship; or it's modular and can be enlarged for Starship. Either way, it's possible they have the hardware for a Gen2 that fits on F9 and wants to test it first instead of waiting for Starship. Given Starship OFT is delayed for several months, it sort of makes sense.

Doubtful, why would they keep that secret?

To keep competitors off balance, cause them to misjudge progress of Gen2. Currently everybody is assuming first Gen2 will fly with Starship, if they have secretly flew that on Transporter 3 as USA 320 to 323, and again on this flight, it has progressed much further than people assumed.

Let's not forget SpaceX hasn't always been open with Starlink, most obvious example is they kept the # of satellites on F9 secret until a few days before first launch, 60 per launch is a big surprise to almost everyone since most people assumed it's would be around 30. They also didn't show the deployment mechanism for a quite a while. And they kept the size and weight of Gen 2 secret until Elon spilled the beans to Everyday Astronaut a few weeks ago.
« Last Edit: 06/20/2022 01:01 am by su27k »

Offline Skyrocket

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Everyone keeps mentioning the deployment structure at the top of the T2 stack.  It was also on the T3 stack, the flight that had four payloads show up later.

You might be onto something here. The grid-shaped structure looks basically identical to the one seen on the Globalstar launch, and there are clearly some Starlink satellites on top of it. The deployment isn‘t shown. And I don‘t know if they ever acknowledged the existence of Starlink satellites on that launch. These USA 320 etc. sats are in 540km orbits, similar to the one our secret payload was deployed in.

The more simple explanation would be that Starlink-1.5 busses are offered to host other non-Starlink payloads. USA-320 to -323 might be an example. So might be this recent launch

Offline Asteroza

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Everyone keeps mentioning the deployment structure at the top of the T2 stack.  It was also on the T3 stack, the flight that had four payloads show up later.

You might be onto something here. The grid-shaped structure looks basically identical to the one seen on the Globalstar launch, and there are clearly some Starlink satellites on top of it. The deployment isn‘t shown. And I don‘t know if they ever acknowledged the existence of Starlink satellites on that launch. These USA 320 etc. sats are in 540km orbits, similar to the one our secret payload was deployed in.

The more simple explanation would be that Starlink-1.5 busses are offered to host other non-Starlink payloads. USA-320 to -323 might be an example. So might be this recent launch

Though not likely SDA constellation or Project Blackjack related?

Offline alugobi

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Keep competitors off balance why?  None of them are close to matching SX production, launch, and/or network performance.

Online Alexphysics

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The theory that they're some sort of prototype Starlink 2.0 satellites that they're launching without anyone knowing falls itself apart when you consider the fact that they'd have to be approved by the FCC. If there were any Starlinks in this flight of any kind they would have to be of the older generation and/or be for a government agency which wouldn't necessarily need FCC approval. That or whoever proposes that theory has to include SpaceX comitting an illegal action that could entail the removal of their rights to operate the Starlink constellation.

Offline Rondaz

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Beautiful @SpaceX launch with secret payload Globestar-2..

https://twitter.com/AGPfoto/status/1538554421830946816

Offline su27k

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The theory that they're some sort of prototype Starlink 2.0 satellites that they're launching without anyone knowing falls itself apart when you consider the fact that they'd have to be approved by the FCC. If there were any Starlinks in this flight of any kind they would have to be of the older generation and/or be for a government agency which wouldn't necessarily need FCC approval. That or whoever proposes that theory has to include SpaceX comitting an illegal action that could entail the removal of their rights to operate the Starlink constellation.

Not necessarily, SpaceX didn't file anything when they started flying v1.5, what can be flown under their existing Gen1 license is not clearly defined. Should be obvious that if they did fly Gen2 prototype, it'll still be using the same spectrum as Gen1, this would eliminate most of the concerns from FCC. The altitude and inclination of USA 320 is pretty close to one of the Gen1 orbits as well (97.5 degrees vs 97.6 degrees, 540km vs 560km)

Or they could sidestep FCC by asking their DoD customer such as SDA to classify the launch as part of the DoD program. For example it's quite possible that they're using Starlink v2 bus for their SDA missile warning satellites, so they could ask SDA to authorize a test launch or two of this bus as part of the SDA constellation program. This way SDA gets the peace of mind that their missile warning satellite would actually work once launched, and SpaceX gets to test Starlink v2 bus early, win-win.
« Last Edit: 06/20/2022 05:45 am by su27k »

Offline TimTri

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Via Marco Langbroek on SeeSat-L: Very rough TLE of our unidentified payload!

UNKNOWN            covert launch with Globalstar FM15 on 19 June 2022
1 70001U 22999A   22170.18541667  .00000000  00000-0  00000-0 0    02
2 70001 052.0000 230.1696 0001447 047.8547 325.7015 15.10393460    00

I wouldn’t expect many orbital changes since the object is already at operational altitude (assuming it’s the same type of secret Starlink launched on Transporter-3).

Does someone know how to put this into a 3D globe visualization and/or calculate viewing opportunities for Central Europe? Haven’t really worked with TLEs before.

I did remember the ordinary Starlink satellite with an almost identical orbit to our secret payload I mentioned earlier and went out to watch it at about 2AM. I noticed a bright object on a plausible trajectory shortly afterwards which was not present in any of my records. Could this have been our secret sat? Hopefully just a matter of time until we get some good observations and a precise TLE.

Offline Lars-J

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Please stop it with the dumb Starlink 2.0 speculation… It makes no sense. Full stop. Nothing about Starlink development and early test launches has EVER been a secret.
« Last Edit: 06/20/2022 02:00 am by Lars-J »

Offline SPKirsch

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https://twitter.com/ncspaceops/status/1538383728560558081
Quote
We spotted @SpaceX Falcon9 B1061 coming back to earth for a drone ship landing off the #NC coast after lofting Globalstar-2 FM-15 to orbit #SpaceX #sobx #obx #NorthCarolina

Offline OneSpeed

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Here is a comparison of the booster webcast telemetry from GlobalStar-FM15 and Starlink-4-19.

1. These profiles are about as different as ASDS booster trajectories can get. Starlink missions are high payload mass, with moderate loft. GlobalStar-FM15 had a low payload mass, and very high loft.

2. You can see that GlobalStar reached its throttle bucket much earlier, but had lower acceleration from that point on because it was maintaining a higher flight path angle (FPA).

3. The higher FPA led to a much higher apogee, and increased downrange distance before alighting on the ASDS.

I have also included the GlobalStar second stage telemetry, with interpolated values for when there was loss of signal.

1. This mission could have been achieved with two burns, to 167 x 1125km and then circularise to 1125 x 1125km, or perhaps even one second stage burn directly to 1125 x 1125km.

2. The fact that there were three burns, and the first was directly to about 535 x 535km confirms that this was the destination for the mystery payload(s).

Offline Rondaz

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CelesTrak has a TLE for 1 object from the launch (2022-064) of GLOBALSTAR FM15 atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral on Jun 19 at 0427 UTC:

https://twitter.com/TSKelso/status/1538773049553526786

Offline Rondaz

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TLE now out for Globalstar, in a 1111 x 1125 km x 52.0 deg orbit; 2022-064A, catalog 52888..

https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1538766911365849090

Online LouScheffer

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This is interesting but I really wish people would do some error estimates.
What is the uncertainty on the "54 degrees" measured from the launch info?  Plus or minus 0.1 deg? or plus or minus 1 deg? or what?

A reasonable request, but tough.  For practice, I tried to guess the inclination of a GPS launch from the barge position.  In this case we know the real answer, so we can check.

From the FCC notice, the locations are:
Cape 28 29 11N, 80 32 51W
ASDS 32 49 43N, 75 59  8W

Using the spherical geometry website: https://www.movable-type.co.uk/scripts/latlong.html
We find the initial bearing is 40.95 from North and hence 49.05 from equator

Assuming an instantaneous dV, and an orbit of 533 km (7598 m/s), we find the components in the launch frame:
X = 7598 * cos(49.05 degrees) = 4980 m/s
Y = 7598 * sin(49.05 degrees) = 5739 m/s

Next, we need to correct for Earth rotation, which will add to the X component, giving
X = 4980 + 40000000/(24*3600)*cos(28.5 degrees) = 5387 m/s

Then we re-find the azimuth
atan(5739/5387) = 46.81 degrees from equator and hence azimuth = 43.19

Next, an orbit's azimuth depends on its latitude.  The usual equation is:
azimuth = asin(cos(inc)/cos(lat))

We instead solve for inclination:
sin(azimuth) = cos(inc)/cos(lat))
cos(inc) = sin(azimuth)*cos(lat)
inc = acos(sin(azimuth)*cos(lat))

So we get:
inc = acos(sin(43.19 degrees)*cos(28.5 degrees)) = 53.02 degrees

But this GPS launch was known to be 55.0 degrees.  So we seem to be about 2 degrees off.  Either I made a mistake (entirely possible) or perhaps the extended nature of the launch maneuver causes the difference.

Probably more accurate is differential, which is what I think the original poster did, comparing it to previous launches, their barge location, and their inclination.   If you go through the same exercise with the GlobalStar launch (see below), you get about 0.16 degrees less inclination.  This makes sense since the landing locations were very similar.  This would say the mystery orbit inclination would be about 54.84 degrees.  But the error margin is hard to say.

Second stage burns are even guess-ier.  The duration is hard to estimate from the camera, the startup and shutdown transients are a big part of the dV, and we don't know what throttle settings are used.

---- Same calcs for GlobalStar:

Step 1 : get long, lat of ASDS and Cape from notice
https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/els/reports/STA_Print.cfm?mode=current&application_seq=115185&RequestTimeout=100Connection
   Cape: 28 29 11N, 80 32 51W
  ASDS: 32 52 26N, 75 53 58W

Step 2 : find bearing, get 41.16 from north = 48.84 from equator

Step 3 : Consider launch as a single impulse.  V for a 533 km orbit is 7598

Step 4: Find components
X = 7598 * cos(48.84) = 5001
Y = 7598 * sin(48.84) = 5720

Step 5: Add Earth rotation:
X = 5001 + 40000000/(24*3600)*cos(28.5) = 5408
Inertial inclination = atan(5720/5408) = 46.61 degrees; azimuth=43.39

Step 6: Convert azimuth at a latitude to inclination
azimuth = asin(cos(inc)/cos(lat))
sin(azimuth) = cos(inc)/cos(lat))
cos(inc) = sin(azimuth)*cos(lat)
inc = acos(sin(azimuth)*cos(lat))
inc = acos(sin(43.39 degrees)*cos(28.5 degrees)) = 52.86 degrees


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