Author Topic: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION  (Read 785639 times)

Offline Chris Bergin

Hey! HEY! Everyone use your indoor voices! :)
Support NSF via L2 -- Help improve NSF -- Site Rules/Feedback/Updates
**Not a L2 member? Whitelist this forum in your adblocker to support the site and ensure full functionality.**

Offline smoliarm

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 831
  • Moscow, Russia
  • Liked: 716
  • Likes Given: 609
Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #1741 on: 04/10/2018 07:43 pm »
OK, before the thread get locked up (I bet it will)
Please,
somebody,
try to explain me some things I still do not understand  :)

As I see it (may be I missed something?), this new round of Zuma-articles originates - exclusively - from the same WSJ and the same Andy Paztor. And it is based of the same type of sources - unnamed persons "familiar with the matter" or "close to investigation"...
Last time these Sources of Andy Paztor (SoAP) said things we did not believe, and it turned out we were right.
So, question #1: why do we take seriously these SoAPs now?

OK, this $3.5B price-tag sounds VERY suspicious, from all sides.
So, why take all other bits of information from SoAP without checking?

Now, the second question: Do we know for sure that there IS an investigation about Zuma?
By "for sure" I mean - do we know it from a person WITH name AND WITH affiliation ?
(I have not seen such statements, may be I missed it)

Offline wolfpack

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 743
  • Wake Forest, NC
  • Liked: 159
  • Likes Given: 4
Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #1742 on: 04/10/2018 08:05 pm »
Zuma didn't cost $3.5B. If it did, it would have gone up on another launcher. That's subterfuge to make folks think we won't build another. Or, if it did cost $3.5B, then that was the program cost and there's a warehouse somewhere with Zuma 2, Zuma 3, ... Zuma N sitting in it waiting for NG to fix its adapter problem.

Offline Star One

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 13982
  • UK
  • Liked: 3968
  • Likes Given: 220
Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #1743 on: 04/10/2018 08:13 pm »
Zuma didn't cost $3.5B. If it did, it would have gone up on another launcher. That's subterfuge to make folks think we won't build another. Or, if it did cost $3.5B, then that was the program cost and there's a warehouse somewhere with Zuma 2, Zuma 3, ... Zuma N sitting in it waiting for NG to fix its adapter problem.

Going by the KH-11 that price seems entirely possible.

Quote
According to Senator Kit Bond initial budget estimates for each of the two legacy KH-11 satellites ordered from Lockheed in 2005 were higher than for the latest Nimitz-class aircraft carrier (CVN-77)[14] with its projected procurement cost of US$6.35 billion as of May 2005.[71] In 2011, after the launch of USA-224, DNRO Bruce Carlson announced that the procurement cost for the satellite had been US$2 billion under the initial budget estimate, which would put it at about US$4.4 billion (inflation adjusted US$4.79 billion in 2017).[15]

In April 2014, the NRO assigned a "(...) worth more than $5 billion (...)" to the final two legacy KH-11 satellites.[72]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_Kennen

Offline JBF

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1459
  • Liked: 472
  • Likes Given: 914
Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #1744 on: 04/10/2018 08:18 pm »
Zuma didn't cost $3.5B. If it did, it would have gone up on another launcher. That's subterfuge to make folks think we won't build another. Or, if it did cost $3.5B, then that was the program cost and there's a warehouse somewhere with Zuma 2, Zuma 3, ... Zuma N sitting in it waiting for NG to fix its adapter problem.

Going by the KH-11 that price seems entirely possible.

Quote
According to Senator Kit Bond initial budget estimates for each of the two legacy KH-11 satellites ordered from Lockheed in 2005 were higher than for the latest Nimitz-class aircraft carrier (CVN-77)[14] with its projected procurement cost of US$6.35 billion as of May 2005.[71] In 2011, after the launch of USA-224, DNRO Bruce Carlson announced that the procurement cost for the satellite had been US$2 billion under the initial budget estimate, which would put it at about US$4.4 billion (inflation adjusted US$4.79 billion in 2017).[15]

In April 2014, the NRO assigned a "(...) worth more than $5 billion (...)" to the final two legacy KH-11 satellites.[72]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_Kennen
The problem is that the Falcon 9 isn't rated to carry that class of payloads yet.
"In principle, rocket engines are simple, but that’s the last place rocket engines are ever simple." Jeff Bezos

Offline jpo234

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2021
  • Liked: 2279
  • Likes Given: 2184
Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #1745 on: 04/10/2018 08:19 pm »
I thought the Falcon 9 did use ethernet. I'll see what I can find.

Edit:
OK I can find reference to Falcon 1 using an ethernet bus but nothing definitive on Falcon 9.

I also recall reading that SpaceX used Ethernet for their vehicles.

From NASA's CRS-7 report:

Quote
General Finding: SpaceX’s new implementation (for Falcon 9 “Full Thrust” flights) of non-deterministic network packets in their flight telemetry increases latency, directly resulting in substantial portions of the anomaly data being lost due to network buffering in the Stage 2
flight computer.

Sounds like Ethernet to me.
« Last Edit: 04/10/2018 08:21 pm by jpo234 »
You want to be inspired by things. You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great. That's what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It's about believing in the future and believing the future will be better than the past. And I can't think of anything more exciting than being out there among the stars.

Offline whitelancer64

Zuma didn't cost $3.5B. If it did, it would have gone up on another launcher. That's subterfuge to make folks think we won't build another. Or, if it did cost $3.5B, then that was the program cost and there's a warehouse somewhere with Zuma 2, Zuma 3, ... Zuma N sitting in it waiting for NG to fix its adapter problem.

Going by the KH-11 that price seems entirely possible.

Quote
According to Senator Kit Bond initial budget estimates for each of the two legacy KH-11 satellites ordered from Lockheed in 2005 were higher than for the latest Nimitz-class aircraft carrier (CVN-77)[14] with its projected procurement cost of US$6.35 billion as of May 2005.[71] In 2011, after the launch of USA-224, DNRO Bruce Carlson announced that the procurement cost for the satellite had been US$2 billion under the initial budget estimate, which would put it at about US$4.4 billion (inflation adjusted US$4.79 billion in 2017).[15]

In April 2014, the NRO assigned a "(...) worth more than $5 billion (...)" to the final two legacy KH-11 satellites.[72]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_Kennen
The problem is that the Falcon 9 isn't rated to carry that class of payloads yet.

Rated by who?

Falcon 9 has launched a classified NRO payload. Why not this one?
"One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree -- make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to." - Elon Musk
"There are lies, damned lies, and launch schedules." - Larry J

Offline rst

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 347
  • Liked: 127
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #1747 on: 04/10/2018 08:33 pm »
Rated by who?

Falcon 9 has launched a classified NRO payload. Why not this one?

It's hard to get answers about specific payloads, but some NRO payloads require support services, e.g. vertical integration, which SpaceX doesn't have yet.

Offline Star One

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 13982
  • UK
  • Liked: 3968
  • Likes Given: 220
Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #1748 on: 04/10/2018 08:34 pm »
Zuma didn't cost $3.5B. If it did, it would have gone up on another launcher. That's subterfuge to make folks think we won't build another. Or, if it did cost $3.5B, then that was the program cost and there's a warehouse somewhere with Zuma 2, Zuma 3, ... Zuma N sitting in it waiting for NG to fix its adapter problem.

Going by the KH-11 that price seems entirely possible.

Quote
According to Senator Kit Bond initial budget estimates for each of the two legacy KH-11 satellites ordered from Lockheed in 2005 were higher than for the latest Nimitz-class aircraft carrier (CVN-77)[14] with its projected procurement cost of US$6.35 billion as of May 2005.[71] In 2011, after the launch of USA-224, DNRO Bruce Carlson announced that the procurement cost for the satellite had been US$2 billion under the initial budget estimate, which would put it at about US$4.4 billion (inflation adjusted US$4.79 billion in 2017).[15]

In April 2014, the NRO assigned a "(...) worth more than $5 billion (...)" to the final two legacy KH-11 satellites.[72]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_Kennen
The problem is that the Falcon 9 isn't rated to carry that class of payloads yet.

Who says especially when its already launched an NRO payload.

Offline Bean Kenobi

  • Member
  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 576
  • Liked: 365
  • Likes Given: 246
Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #1749 on: 04/08/2022 08:25 pm »
NRO just released an ebook about all their mission patches from 1996 to 2021.

See their tweet : https://twitter.com/NatReconOfc/status/1512169604466028551?cxt=HHwWjsC5pcqPp_wpAAAA

In this ebook we finally have confirmation that Zuma was theirs.

New thread created as all Zuma threads are locked as of today (Update thread, Discussion thread).

Offline jcm

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3613
  • Jonathan McDowell
  • Somerville, Massachusetts, USA
    • Jonathan's Space Report
  • Liked: 1278
  • Likes Given: 773
Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #1750 on: 03/01/2023 02:29 am »
Belatedly, it's ZUMA time again...

The UN registration document from the US for Oct 2017-Aug 2018 space objects was stuck in UN processing for years, but at some point in the past year or so it finally appeared on the UN OOSA website
It records the USA 280 orbit as 657 x 659 km x 52.0 deg,  information not previously available.
The entry is in the table for 'objects ... that remain in orbit [as of 31 Jan 2018]', but don't get too excited.
Info in these documents on US classified objects is not always reliable. This is certainly a data point that supports the 'it is sill in orbit' theory, but in my opinion the 'it came down on the first orbit'
theory is still more strongly supported by the totality of the evidence.

The quoted orbit is quite a bit lower than Marco's 1000 km estimate, but not unbelievably so.
Again the data may not be reliable - there have been cases in these documents where US secret object orbit altitudes labelled as km were actually in nautical miles, although not recently. I present the information for what it's worth.
-----------------------------

Jonathan McDowell
http://planet4589.org

Offline Josh_from_Canada

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 544
  • Saskatchewan Canada
  • Liked: 583
  • Likes Given: 182
Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #1751 on: 06/13/2023 05:57 pm »
NRO just released an ebook about all their mission patches from 1996 to 2021.

See their tweet : https://twitter.com/NatReconOfc/status/1512169604466028551?cxt=HHwWjsC5pcqPp_wpAAAA

did anyone download this ebook and is willing to share it, the page it was posted to has since been removed
Launches Seen: Atlas V OA-7, Falcon 9 Starlink 6-4, Falcon 9 CRS-28,

Online GewoonLukas_

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1250
  • Lukas C. H.
  • Netherlands
  • Liked: 2992
  • Likes Given: 1514
Re: SpaceX F9 : Zuma : January 7/8, 2018, CCAFS : DISCUSSION
« Reply #1752 on: 06/13/2023 08:38 pm »
NRO just released an ebook about all their mission patches from 1996 to 2021.

See their tweet :

did anyone download this ebook and is willing to share it, the page it was posted to has since been removed
Lukas C. H. • Hobbyist Mission Patch Artist 🎨 • May the force be with you my friend, Ad Astra Per Aspera ✨️

Tags:
 

Advertisement NovaTech
Advertisement Northrop Grumman
Advertisement
Advertisement Margaritaville Beach Resort South Padre Island
Advertisement Brady Kenniston
Advertisement NextSpaceflight
Advertisement Nathan Barker Photography
0