SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 - Thaicom 6 - DISCUSSION THREAD

[beancounter]

They spent a lot longer between CASSIOPE and SES-8, and the only change there was some insulation for a TEA-TEB line.

Are you sure about that?  It may have been the only change that they talked about, but I really doubt that it was the only change.

If you want to really know what's going on, or not, recommend you join L2. 

You have some evidence to back up that "doubt" of yours?

[Jakusb]

Would SpaceX dare to put legs on this stage already?
Would be awesome! And would be very good reason to keep cards even closer to chest.
Imagine the media hype if, on launch day, the webcast suddenly reveals a rocket with legs....

[411rocket]

Would SpaceX dare to put legs on this stage already?
Would be awesome! And would be very good reason to keep cards even closer to chest.
Imagine the media hype if, on launch day, the webcast suddenly reveals a rocket with legs....

Should be quite the buzz going around, whenever F9, will show a little bit of leg.......

[Jarnis]

Would SpaceX dare to put legs on this stage already?
Would be awesome! And would be very good reason to keep cards even closer to chest.
Imagine the media hype if, on launch day, the webcast suddenly reveals a rocket with legs....

I could totally see this happening, especially if the SES-8 "recovery practice" went better than expected. I know it couldn't soft land, no fuel for it, but there was total radio silence on what happened to it beyond "staged, used some RCS" and "the engines were restarted".

What if SES-8, with minimal burn but controlled "business end down" descent managed to get much further down in one piece than anyone could have hoped?

We really really need a camera or two with a serious telescope attached to track what goes on with the 1st stage post-staging

[Mader Levap]

SpaceX plays its cards close to the chest. It hasn't told you everything about SES-8 (and I'm not either). Suffice to say that Thaicom-6 will fly on a slightly different rocket. And that's ALL I'm sayin".

Now THAT'S a tease (assuming Kim knows what he is saying)! Is this related to reusability work, as other speculated?

Yes, I do not expect answer. Worth try anyway.

[macpacheco]

Would SpaceX dare to put legs on this stage already?
Would be awesome! And would be very good reason to keep cards even closer to chest.
Imagine the media hype if, on launch day, the webcast suddenly reveals a rocket with legs....

1-Is there enough performance margin ? Putting legs on without fuel to perform the re-entry and landing burn wouldn't make any sense in my opinion. Legs add weight, requiring S1 to burn a little longer on the way up, on what it looks like a fairly tight mission to begin with.

2-Wouldn't it be better to use any performance margin to test the re-entry burn (without the legs) ? My impression is they wouldn't even have enough fuel to perform a long re-entry burn like the Cassiope mission, even without the legs. But the gossip is the SES-8 1st stage only broke up at MaxQ, so even a small re-entry burn might save the stage. But it seems like they don't know how much they need to slowdown the stage, so they need to experiment. What I'm saying is on the F9 v1.0 missions they didn't reorient the stage for re-entry with the nozzles facing the heat, so they always lost the stage early through re-entry. The SES-8 didn't performed any burns but turned the stage around to re-entry with the same orientation as expected for re use, and even without any burns it seemed as was just a small slowdown from surviving re-entry.

3 - The CRS mission will be quite differently, since they will have lots of performance left it makes sense they would focus on making the whole thing work, so legs, longer re-entry burn, perhaps even landing in the water close to the cape. Not worth risking doing too short a re-entry burn and loosing the stage.

The reuse tests on F9R launches are a test flight program where it's ok (and normal) to loose the test stage (it already put the payload in orbit at that point). So on each launch they should be trying something new, gathering as much data as possible, within the constraints of fuel margins.

[Kim Keller]

Now THAT'S a tease (assuming Kim knows what he is saying)! Is this related to reusability work, as other speculated?

Yes, I do not expect answer. Worth try anyway.

No.

And it's not a huge deal, either. Certainly nothing even visible from the outside. I only mentioned it (and now I wish I hadn't) because people post here about how smoothly everything is going. Just remember that SpaceX is a private company. It only tells you what it wants you to know.

[spectre9]

Just dropped in and seems like some juicy gossip is going down.

Falcon 9 v1.1000001? 

ULA makes incremental improvements that make no bearing on their launch statistics. No reason why SpaceX can't do the same.

[Prober]

Just dropped in and seems like some juicy gossip is going down.

Falcon 9 v1.1000001? 

ULA makes incremental improvements that make no bearing on their launch statistics. No reason why SpaceX can't do the same.

No SpaceX is new space tell us all 

[Robotbeat]

Now THAT'S a tease (assuming Kim knows what he is saying)! Is this related to reusability work, as other speculated?

Yes, I do not expect answer. Worth try anyway.

No.

And it's not a huge deal, either. Certainly nothing even visible from the outside. I only mentioned it (and now I wish I hadn't) because people post here about how smoothly everything is going. Just remember that SpaceX is a private company. It only tells you what it wants you to know.

+1.

Anyone who thinks SpaceX will sail perfectly through 2014 has another thing coming. I have faith in the company (like I do ULA or Orbital), but Space is hard. ^TM I'm always impressed when the rocket launches without blowing up, especially on these early flights. Just the 2nd launch of v1.1, remember!

Things in the near term will probably go a little slower than you expect. Unforeseen things can and will go wrong.  That said, I expect 2014 to be a banner year for SpaceX, doing lots of real launches. But that should never be taken for granted, not from any space company. Even folks like ULA, who make it look easy, have to work very hard to make everything work.

[MP99]

Just the 2nd launch of v1.1, remember!

3rd, I think! (Cassiope, SES-8, Thaicom.)

cheers, Martin

[ugordan]

Take this for what it's worth:

Saw a test firing of a Falcon 9! @SpaceX #kennedyspacecenter

Posted about an hour ago by @scbb11Sketch.

[Robotbeat]

Just the 2nd launch of v1.1, remember!

3rd, I think! (Cassiope, SES-8, Thaicom.)

cheers, Martin

I was talking about SES8. I wasn't being clear.

[Chris Bergin]

Checking into it. So many people not around over the holidays.

[Chris Bergin]

SpaceX confirm Static Fire in response to my question (which is always appreciated )

Will write a short article, like we usually do for the Static Fire.

[Chris Bergin]

And I'll stick this into the update thread so everyone's on the same page:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/12/spacex-falcon-9-v1-1-static-fire-test-thaicom-6-launch/

[cuddihy]

Now THAT'S a tease (assuming Kim knows what he is saying)! Is this related to reusability work, as other speculated?

Yes, I do not expect answer. Worth try anyway.

No.

And it's not a huge deal, either. Certainly nothing even visible from the outside. I only mentioned it (and now I wish I hadn't) because people post here about how smoothly everything is going. Just remember that SpaceX is a private company. It only tells you what it wants you to know.

How true! Although I think most would expect a continuous "tweaking" to be going on throughout the first 10-15 launches of F9. At the very least software upgrades and changes, valve changeouts, slight piping mods, etc. They're still basically in prototyping phase, not even in LRIP really.

[Ben the Space Brit]

The picture Chris posted of Thaicom-6 looked a lot like SES-8. Is it just because most modern comsats look alike or are they really similar spacecraft (built by the same company or something)?

[Skyrocket]

The picture Chris posted of Thaicom-6 looked a lot like SES-8. Is it just because most modern comsats look alike or are they really similar spacecraft (built by the same company or something)?

They are really similar, because they are both built on Orbital’s GeoStar-2 platform.

[MP99]

Now THAT'S a tease (assuming Kim knows what he is saying)! Is this related to reusability work, as other speculated?

Yes, I do not expect answer. Worth try anyway.

No.

And it's not a huge deal, either. Certainly nothing even visible from the outside. I only mentioned it (and now I wish I hadn't) because people post here about how smoothly everything is going. Just remember that SpaceX is a private company. It only tells you what it wants you to know.

How true! Although I think most would expect a continuous "tweaking" to be going on throughout the first 10-15 launches of F9. At the very least software upgrades and changes, valve changeouts, slight piping mods, etc. They're still basically in prototyping phase, not even in LRIP really.

I was thinking the same thing.

Cheers, Martin