Author Topic: LIVE: SpaceX Falcon 1 Launch 5 (RazakSat) - July 13/14 (Read 361277 times)

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #280 on:** 07/13/2009 03:19 am »

Hmm, well the timing of this makes life interesting due to conflict with STS-127.

And yet we don't have a specific launch window it seems.

Anyhoo, moved for live coverage (as we'll find a way of dual coverage).

William Graham · « **Reply #281 on:** 07/13/2009 04:06 am »

Quote from: ugordan on 07/12/2009 04:24 pm

Something's wrong with your countdown, mine shows 1d 5 hr 35 min right now, which correctly translates to July 13, 22:00 UTC

Mine currently shows 18h, 55m, which is 23:00 GMT. I suspect that this is correct, as that time has been mentioned several times before, as well as being the window open time for the April launch attempt, and IIRC, the four Falcons before that.

NUAETIUS · « **Reply #282 on:** 07/13/2009 04:27 am »

http://www.guamnewsfactor.com/20090712652/Top-Stories/Live-Guam-Webcast-To-Monitor-Satellite-Rocket-Launch-From-Kwajalein.html

Guam's Tuesday is our Monday, so looks like Malaysia still thinks it's on for Today.

GUAM - Malaysia's Science, Technology and Innovation Minister and other senior officials from the Southeast Asian nation arrived on Guam yesterday to watch the historical launch of the Malaysian communications satellite RazakSAT, set for ignition this Tuesday at Omelek Island, part of the Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshalls.

William Graham · « **Reply #283 on:** 07/13/2009 04:37 am »

If the Falcon goes at the start of the window (something Falcon is yet to achieve), and the Shuttle launches on time (at 22:51), then the launches will be nine minutes apart. I believe this will be the shortest ever gap between two orbital launches. I quickly wrote a programme to analyse Jonathan McDowell's launch log, and the closest launches I could find were of a Diamant A and a Voskhod on 8 February 1967; at 09:39 and 10:19 respectively (40 minutes apart). A Thor-Burner had launched earlier on the same day, and all three launches were within 150 minutes of each other. Obviously this analysis does not take into account a number of (failed) launches with no known time.

Shuttle window closes a few seconds after 22:56, so a gap of less than four minutes is possible.

Comga · « **Reply #284 on:** 07/13/2009 04:39 am »

Quote from: NUAETIUS on 07/13/2009 04:27 am

http://www.guamnewsfactor.com/20090712652/Top-Stories/Live-Guam-Webcast-To-Monitor-Satellite-Rocket-Launch-From-Kwajalein.html

Guam's Tuesday is our Monday, so looks like Malaysia still thinks it's on for Today.

GUAM - Malaysia's Science, Technology and Innovation Minister and other senior officials from the Southeast Asian nation arrived on Guam yesterday to watch the historical launch of the Malaysian communications satellite RazakSAT, set for ignition this Tuesday at Omelek Island, part of the Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshalls.

Excuse me but does anyone know the reason for them to go to Guam to watch the launch? It may be half way between Indonesia and Kwajalein but how does that matter with webcasts and such flowing over the Internet? Guam is a long flight across the Pacific. I cannot even guess why.

William Graham · « **Reply #285 on:** 07/13/2009 04:51 am »

Quote from: Comga on 07/13/2009 04:39 am

Quote from: NUAETIUS on 07/13/2009 04:27 am
http://www.guamnewsfactor.com/20090712652/Top-Stories/Live-Guam-Webcast-To-Monitor-Satellite-Rocket-Launch-From-Kwajalein.html

Guam's Tuesday is our Monday, so looks like Malaysia still thinks it's on for Today.

GUAM - Malaysia's Science, Technology and Innovation Minister and other senior officials from the Southeast Asian nation arrived on Guam yesterday to watch the historical launch of the Malaysian communications satellite RazakSAT, set for ignition this Tuesday at Omelek Island, part of the Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshalls.

Excuse me but does anyone know the reason for them to go to Guam to watch the launch? It may be half way between Indonesia and Kwajalein but how does that matter with webcasts and such flowing over the Internet? Guam is a long flight across the Pacific. I cannot even guess why.

There's a tracking station on Guam. I'm not sure if they're using it, but if they are, then maybe that has something to do with it.

ugordan · « **Reply #286 on:** 07/13/2009 09:26 am »

Since we don't have a press kit, just a note that we're likely to have a two-burn insertion into the 685 km circular orbit. As per the User Guide, F1 doesn't have the performance to do a direct insertion so unless something goes wrong before that, we should expect spacecraft separation some 50-ish minutes after launch.

In other words, a flight profile similar to Flight 4 - though I hope this time they delay the spacecraft separation trigger until after the Kestrel restart...

Spacenuts · « **Reply #287 on:** 07/13/2009 09:39 am »

A question for anyone who might know,, Of all of the possible reasons that we might not hear from SpaceX prior to or during launch, could it be that the customer has asked it not to be televised so that a failure video would not be available??? I have no personal sense of if this would be one possible reason. Insight please.

ugordan · « **Reply #288 on:** 07/13/2009 09:41 am »

Quote from: Spacenuts on 07/13/2009 09:39 am

Of all of the possible reasons that we might not hear from SpaceX prior to or during launch, could it be that the customer has asked it not to be televised so that a failure video would not be available???

http://www.spacex.com/launch_updates.php

Quote

SpaceX will provide live coverage of the Falcon 1 Flight 5/RazakSAT mission via webcast at www.SpaceX.com. The webcast will begin 20 minutes prior to launch and will include mission briefings, live feeds and launch coverage from the launch site. Post-launch, video footage and photos will be available for download on the web site.

Spacenuts · « **Reply #289 on:** 07/13/2009 09:48 am »

Ah, I should learn to read,, thanks.

osiossim · « **Reply #290 on:** 07/13/2009 10:53 am »

Stragenly, there is nothing on Malaysian media as well. But the launch vehicle is in vertical position now.

thomson · « **Reply #291 on:** 07/13/2009 11:48 am »

(My first post.) Previous launches were aborted/postponed several times. The launch window is 5 hours long. During previous launch (was it 3rd flight?) they were able to abort, analyze the issue, restart the countdown and acually launch within an hour or so.

What are the chances that Falcon will fly within this launch window?

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #292 on:** 07/13/2009 11:51 am »

Welcome to the site's forum Thomson.

=====
To all. We're going to end up with a live event thread with 50 posts with URLs to other sites saying "we aren't sure of the launch window" - which is going to be a nightmare on a thread which is very long already.

Let's wait for OFFICIAL confirmation of the launch window and go with that.

osiossim · « **Reply #293 on:** 07/13/2009 01:40 pm »

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/7/13/nation/4307299&sec=nation

RazakSAT set for launch

ugordan · « **Reply #294 on:** 07/13/2009 01:47 pm »

How would that be resolved then - in STS or SpaceX favor?

kevin-rf · « **Reply #295 on:** 07/13/2009 01:51 pm »

Quote from: someone on 07/13/2009 01:46 pm

Rumor floating around work that STS requires a range asset used by SpaceX for this launch. Can't personally see why that would be true, but, we'll see.

Tracking station? TDRS time? Recycle time on one?

thomson · « **Reply #296 on:** 07/13/2009 02:14 pm »

According to http://spacefellowship.com/2009/07/13/live-coverage-spacex-falcon-1-flight-5-razaksat/, there are actually 3 sats on-board: RazakSAT and two cube sats (InnoSat and CubeSat).

RazakSAT is 180kg. How big is an average cube sat? Are those two are going to be deployed to the same orbit as primary payload?

ugordan · « **Reply #297 on:** 07/13/2009 02:18 pm »

That information is outdated, there are no cube sats onboard after the vibration dampener had to be installed.

Nate_Trost · « **Reply #298 on:** 07/13/2009 02:51 pm »

If they haven't adjusted procedures, past launch experiences with waits on temperatures would make launching right at the start of their window highly unlikely....

ineedalife999 · « **Reply #299 on:** 07/13/2009 02:58 pm »

I believe that the space tracking radars at Kwajelein are used to support the shuttle, as the only other space tracking radar site in the Pacific is on Oahu.