SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 - SES-8 - DISCUSSION THREAD

[aero]

Regarding the projected Thursday launch - Will SpaceX conduct another Launch Readiness Review? If so, when?

[Joffan]

I thought AF personnel works 24/7, regardless of any holidays, launches, etc. ?

Pretty much how I understood it too - you don't join the military for a 9-5 job (if they even exist any more).

[Kabloona]

I thought AF personnel works 24/7, regardless of any holidays, launches, etc. ?

Pretty much how I understood it too - you don't join the military for a 9-5 job (if they even exist any more).

Believe it or not, most stateside military folks get up in the morning, go to their workplace (be it office, hangar, missile silo, etc), work their shift, and go home (whether it's on or off-base housing). Some workplaces may be staffed 24/7, but many are not. And in places like CCAFS where USAF range personnel work to support launches, if there's no launch that day, some staff might actually be able to take some time off and enjoy a holiday, like, say, Thanksgiving, at home with family.

I'm not knocking SpaceX for trying to launch on Thanksgiving. They asked the range for support and the range agreed. But would some of the range guys/gals rather be taking a day of leave (vacation) at home enjoying the holiday with family? I'm guessing yeah, they would.

[mto]

http://www.spaceflight101.com/spacex-falcon-9-v11-ses-8-launch-updates.html

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration that licenses all orbital launches from the US has prohibited SpaceX from launching due high air traffic heading into Thanksgiving Weekend in the United States.

[bartonn]

As for SES-8, the sun had already set and ambient temps were moderate and dropping when the duct detached, and the spacecraft probably wasn't generating much heat itself, so hopefully it wasn't a big deal.

Contamination and humidity would be issues.  Moist air entering could have condensed on cool spacecraft surfaces.

Yes. Wasn't there an accidental AC duct umbilical detach a few years back that occurred during the scrub turnaround activities on a Delta II launch from SLC-2W at Vandenberg AFB? They had to check the spacecraft and the inside of the payload fairing for contamination before a new launch attempt could be OK'ed?

Not sure if this is what you were referring to on the launch of NOAA-N prime:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/news/releases/2009/release-20090205.html
This problem was caused by a faulty fairing air compressor, which lead to excessive hydrocarbons in the fairing.  They needed extra time to make sure that the spacecraft was not contaminated. 

I couldn't find anything else on other launches out of SLC-2W since 2006

[Jim]

I thought AF personnel works 24/7, regardless of any holidays, launches, etc. ?

Pretty much how I understood it too - you don't join the military for a 9-5 job (if they even exist any more).

The Range is run by contractors, there are very few blue suiters involved.

[Chris Bergin]

Thread trimmed. Some of the posts were worse than the party thread.

Have a think before posting. Seriously.

[Chris Bergin]

Copying over from the launch thread for the discussion thread:

So rather than another revision of William's article, I've written up a standalone article to expand on the three holds during the scrub, following collation of information in L2's F9/SES-8 section.

Include's MeekGee's F9 logo redesign to mark the Thanksgiving target

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/11/falcon-9-aiming-thanksgiving-launch-ses-8/

[Lars_J]

Great update/article, Chris!

[aero]

Thanks Chris, that is enlightening.

[Comga]

As for SES-8, the sun had already set and ambient temps were moderate and dropping when the duct detached, and the spacecraft probably wasn't generating much heat itself, so hopefully it wasn't a big deal.

Contamination and humidity would be issues.  Moist air entering could have condensed on cool spacecraft surfaces.

This doesn't seem to have caused any real problems, even thought it may have been a protracted interval without ECS.
To what do you attribute that?

[TrevorMonty]

Usual teething problems with new equipment. Better that it happens on pad than in the air.

[Chris Bergin]

Great update/article, Chris!

Thanks! Only a short one, but saves messing up the main article, especially as we'll reuse William's overview for attempt 2.

[beancounter]

I know it's a bit of a nit but could we somewhere along the line, standardise on a single time unit for launches.  We get Eastern Time, UTC, EDST, GMT, etc etc.  Time for a change.  Please? 
Got the measures mixed up the last 'time' and ended up getting up several hours too early. Oh well, gotta look on the positive.  It was a lovely balmy morning.

[WHAP]

I know it's a bit of a nit but could we somewhere along the line, standardise on a single time unit for launches.  We get Eastern Time, UTC, EDST, GMT, etc etc.  Time for a change.  Please? 
Got the measures mixed up the last 'time' and ended up getting up several hours too early. Oh well, gotta look on the positive.  It was a lovely balmy morning.

Salo's US Launch Schedule Thread uses UTC.  http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=8184.msg1121685#msg1121685

[beancounter]

I know it's a bit of a nit but could we somewhere along the line, standardise on a single time unit for launches.  We get Eastern Time, UTC, EDST, GMT, etc etc.  Time for a change.  Please? 
Got the measures mixed up the last 'time' and ended up getting up several hours too early. Oh well, gotta look on the positive.  It was a lovely balmy morning.

Salo's US Launch Schedule Thread uses UTC.  http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=8184.msg1121685#msg1121685

Ah thank you.

[ChrisWilson68]

I know it's a bit of a nit but could we somewhere along the line, standardise on a single time unit for launches.  We get Eastern Time, UTC, EDST, GMT, etc etc.  Time for a change.  Please? 
Got the measures mixed up the last 'time' and ended up getting up several hours too early. Oh well, gotta look on the positive.  It was a lovely balmy morning. :)

There are good reasons for having both local time and UTC.  That's why the world uses both systems.

We run our daily lives on local, and it makes a lot of sense that the sun is roughly synchronized to it no matter where in the world we are.  UTC is useful for communicating with people across zones.

For purposes of this forum, ideally each post that mentions a time would mention both local and UTC, for example 5:47pm EST (22:47 UTC).  But I think it's perfectly acceptable for someone to use either, as long as they put on a suffix of EST or UTC.  If you forced everyone to use UTC, it would be a burden on those living near the launch site and, more generally, living in the U.S. who are near the same time and generally at ease with converting between their own time zone and Eastern Time.  If you forced everyone to use local time at the launch site, that would be more of a burden to non-U.S. readers.

By the way, as long as we're picking nits, EDST isn't a standard term, it's a non-standard term for Eastern Daylight Time -- a more standard term for that is EDT.  But this time of year Eastern Time is on Eastern Standard Time, so it would be EST.  And GMT and UTC are the so close (less than 1 second difference) that for all our purposes here they're interchangeable.  As far as I noticed only the two timekeeping systems -- local to the launch site and UTC -- were mentioned on this thread.

[Garrett]

So rather than another revision of William's article, I've written up a standalone article to expand on the three holds during the scrub, following collation of information in L2's F9/SES-8 section.
Include's MeekGee's F9 logo redesign to mark the Thanksgiving target
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/11/falcon-9-aiming-thanksgiving-launch-ses-8/

Great article!
One line puzzled me:

Both of these erectors have been designed to host both the upgraded Falcon 9 and the three-core Falcon Heavy, the latter set to debut from California in 2014.

I'm pretty sure I've read a number of times that the Florida erector cannot accommodate the F9H. I think it may even have been Padrat that gave us that info.

[ugordan]

One line puzzled me:

Both of these erectors have been designed to host both the upgraded Falcon 9 and the three-core Falcon Heavy, the latter set to debut from California in 2014.

I'm pretty sure I've read a number of times that the Florida erector cannot accommodate the F9H. I think it may even have been Padrat that gave us that info.

It can't.

[ChefPat]

I love it!!!