Proposed Party Thread title for SES-9: "Two Up, Two Down".
Quote from: Ben the Space Brit on 12/22/2015 10:32 amProposed Party Thread title for SES-9: "Two Up, Two Down".SES-9: "The Drone Ship Returns" or "Back On The Drone Ship".(a fairly safe bet that it'll land on barge)
SES-9: "The Drone Ship Returns"
I don't know for sure, but this is is a much heavier payload into a higher delta-V orbit. I would expect that a barge at sea would be required.
This is almost the perfect combination of payload and orbit to see where the cut-off lies. If RTLS, then we know the claim of FT's capability is valid.
Has it been announced this will be a landing at all? SES-9 has a mass of 5,330 kg. If my guesses above are correct, even with a barge landing the limit for recoverable GTO would be somewhere in the low 4000s. I'd love to be proven wrong, though.
Quote from: AncientU on 12/22/2015 04:20 pmThis is almost the perfect combination of payload and orbit to see where the cut-off lies. If RTLS, then we know the claim of FT's capability is valid.At 5.3 tons, this is much too heavy for RTLS unless SpaceX has really sandbagged the numbers. This would have been an expendable flight on a 1.1.Will be a barge landing, for sure.
Quote from: LouScheffer on 12/22/2015 12:05 pmHas it been announced this will be a landing at all? SES-9 has a mass of 5,330 kg. If my guesses above are correct, even with a barge landing the limit for recoverable GTO would be somewhere in the low 4000s. I'd love to be proven wrong, though. I recall that a recovery attempt was confirmed by SES, but I suspect the orbit is likely to stretch the traditional meaning of GTO.
SES on Dec. 22 said all the information it had from the launch reinforced its plans to launch SES-9 by late January aboard the upgraded Falcon 9.