LIVE: SpaceX Falcon 9 (Flight 2) - COTS-1 - Launch Updates - December 8, 2010

[Space Pete]

Echo what Pete said. Will always be loyal to Shuttle, but that was very impressive and had the same nerves during ascent.

I'll tell ya, in those final 20 seconds before liftoff, my hands were shaking. The only other vehicle that can do that to me is Shuttle!

What say we chuck a couple CTBs in the next Dragon, and berth it to ISS? Come on, NASA - you know you want to!

[kkattula]

Thought I saw the stiffening ring go, but didn't see the nose cap.

Way to go SpaceX!

[Halidon]

Did the SpaceX webcast show any liftoff roll this time? NASA feeds were much more distant.

No, looked rock solid

[mmeijeri]

Looking forward to an update on first stage recovery. We can still hope for that, right?

[Robotbeat]

Did the SpaceX webcast show any liftoff roll this time? NASA feeds were much more distant.

I didn't see any.

[John44]

SpaceX Falcon 9 - COTS-1 - Launch
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6325

[Alpha Control]

Forgot to note, this is like MECO after an orbiter's ride into orbit. Can post away now (only had housekeep during the updates or we get so many complaints etc).

Echo what Pete said. Will always be loyal to Shuttle, but that was very impressive and had the same nerves during ascent.

Agreed! On pins and needles during the launch. Now we wait for the orbit ops to complete successfully! Wonder if they have any onboard cameras that might downlink some photos of Dragon's interior? (similar to Bigelow's Genesis onboard photos)

[corrodedNut]

Did the SpaceX webcast show any liftoff roll this time? NASA feeds were much more distant.

Looked rock-steady to me.

[beancounter]

No roll anomolies - all fixed and smooth as silk.

[spacester]

CONGRATS SpaceX!

http://www.spacevidcast.com/ worked great for me, and I usually have bandwidth problems.

Bravo to SpaceX for showing the Real people at HQ.

[Namechange User]

Disregard the earlier comment, I was watching a replay and they mentioned jettisoning the stiffening ring.

They mentioned it, but I didn't see it. It looked like there was a flange, or lip, though, on the end of the nozzle, and that stayed on the entire time. At first I thought it was the stiffeners, but apparently not. Still trying to figure out where the stiffeners were.

I noted the lip too.  I was wondering if they would do something like this given I that I believe they cut a large amount of the nozzle off.

For my own curiosity I would like to hear how they attached that "lip" or what exactly they did to prep the nozzle.  Couldn't be a whole lot of room, relatively speaking, in the interstage area. 

[amon]

Press kit I have definitely predates it. But that doesn't necessarily correlate unless the numbers there were based on using all of the oomph they could get. I don't really know.

[DigitalMan]

I wonder if the reason they cut so much off the bell because if they cut anything off, the stiffening rings would no longer fit and they would have to fabricate new ones. So they just shortened it to the point where it wouldn't need a stiffening ring.

I heard them call out: "stiffening ring jettison" and "nose cap jettison" but I didn't see either on the webcast. Maybe the feed just stuttered, but I had figured that we should see the nose cap fall away on the camera-side of the vehicle.

I saw the stiffening ring jettison, it was quick, you could easily miss it if you had slight feed issues.

[Robotbeat]

Any word on first stage recovery?

[echalone]

I'm betting that hose thing was fuel not draining back out of the umbilical.

It would be really bad if it was hydrogen because there's no hydrogen on this vehicle

lol, yeah, right... I mixed that one up

Disregard the earlier comment, I was watching a replay and they mentioned jettisoning the stiffening ring.

I saw the stiffening ring fly away during the webcast!

Did the SpaceX webcast show any liftoff roll this time? NASA feeds were much more distant.

No roll, just the (fuel?) explosin...

[R.Simko]

The SpaceX web feed was excellant, no roll noted and it looked rock steady.  I though I saw a slight wobble shortly before second stage shutdown, but only for a second.  That fireball at the beginning certainly made for an exciting start to the launch.

[Robotbeat]

SFN: "1616 GMT (11:16 a.m. EST)
SpaceX spokesperson Kirstin Brost says the company has a lock with the spacecraft through NASA tracking and data relay satellites and the spacecraft is firing."

[Dave G]

Any word on first stage recovery?

Yes, I'd like to know about this as well.

[Negative Return]

Launch was visible from here in Tampa.  But those clear skies should make for some good pics.  Will look forward to seeing those.

[xlr82v2]

On the short Mvac nozzle, from the SpaceX website:

"It is important to note that the niobium nozzle extension increases the efficiency of the Merlin engine in vacuum and is installed by default on all upper stage Merlin engines, but that efficiency increase is not required for this mission. The nozzle extension is most helpful when launching very heavy satellites or to maximize throw mass to distant destinations like Mars. The most likely path forward is that we will trim off the thinnest portion of the nozzle extension, which is where the cracks are located, perform a thorough systems check and resume launch preparation.”