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

[Jim]

This still seems weird to me.  I'd think that after releasing the satellite, they would use any remaining delta-V/venting/RCS to reduce the perigee, not increase it. That would help create a quicker re-entry and less space junk with its chance of collision.  Raising the perigee would seem to do exactly the opposite....

The standard is increase to a more stable orbit, as I stated before

[Lurker Steve]

Orbital press release
http://www.orbital.com/NewsInfo/MissionUpdates/Thaicom6/index.shtml

The  Thaicom 6 commercial communications satellite, designed, built and tested by  Orbital for Thaicom PLC, was launched from Cape Canaveral,  Florida on January 6, 2014. The satellite will undergo several weeks of in-orbit testing and verification that all subsystems are operating as planned. Once testing is complete and the spacecraft is positioned at its final orbital location of 78.5 degrees East Longitude, day-to-day control of THAICOM 6 will be handed over to THAICOM's satellite operations staff.
At launch, THAICOM 6 weighed approximately 3,330 Kg. It carries a hybrid Ku- and C-band payload that will operate on approximately 3.5 kilowatts of payload power. The Ku-band payload is comprised of eight active transponders (9x36-MHz Transponder Equivalent) providing services to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar. The C-band payload features 12 active C-band transponders providing services via a regional beam to Southeast Asia and six active C-band transponders (12x36-MHz TPE) providing services to Africa.
 About  Orbital GEOStar Satellites
The THAICOM 6 communications satellite is based on Orbital's highly successful GEOStar spacecraft platform, which is able to accommodate all types of commercial communications payloads and is compatible with all major commercial launchers. The GEOStar design is optimized for satellite missions requiring up to 7.5 kilowatts of payload power. In many instances, the affordable GEOStar satellites can be built and delivered in 24 months or less.

Nice of them to mention SpaceX.

Did you see Orbital mentioned in the SpaceX press release ??

[robertross]

Great way to start the New Year with a successful launch.
Congrats to SpaceX & the teams.

[ugordan]

SpaceX press kit says the mass of Thaicom-6 was 3016 kg while Orbital says it was 3330 kg

FWIW, John Insprucker also quoted a higher figure during the webcast than in the press kit. I think it was the latter of those two numbers, but am too lazy to check a webcast recording now.

[IRobot]

Maybe payload adapter weight differences?

[mme]

Did you see Orbital mentioned in the SpaceX press release ??

From http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/spacex_thaicom6_presskit.pdf:

Satellite Payload
THAICOM 6
The THAICOM 6 mission will launch the THAICOM 6 commercial telecommunications satellite, an Orbital Sciences GEOStar-2 spacecraft.

and "Orbital Sciences Corporation, U.S.A." is listed in as the manufacturer in the section titled "THAICOM 6 Fact Sheet".

(Apologies for the ugly formatting, I'm in a rush.)

[Okie_Steve]

From the Spacex press release:
Falcon 9 delivered THAICOM 6 to its targeted 295 x 90,000 km geosynchronous transfer orbit at 22.5 degrees inclination.

From the update thread:
...catalogued by USSTRATCOM.
Object A: 2014-002A/39500 at 0051UTC was in 376 x 90039 km x 22.46° (tentatively Thaicom-6)

Looks pretty darn close to me, but what do I know Given that nothing is ever exact, what are the industry standards for "close enough" and "bulls eye" and what if anything are the implications for the spacecraft of these specific (tentative) variations from nominal? Good, bad, or indifferent?

[Jim]

From the Spacex press release:
Falcon 9 delivered THAICOM 6 to its targeted 295 x 90,000 km geosynchronous transfer orbit at 22.5 degrees inclination.

From the update thread:
...catalogued by USSTRATCOM.
Object A: 2014-002A/39500 at 0051UTC was in 376 x 90039 km x 22.46° (tentatively Thaicom-6)

Looks pretty darn close to me, but what do I know Given that nothing is ever exact, what are the industry standards for "close enough" and "bulls eye" and what if anything are the implications for the spacecraft of these specific (tentative) variations from nominal? Good, bad, or indifferent?

If they are within 3 sigma, then no issues.  If it is pushing 3 sigma, Spacex may look at things to see where the errors added up.

[Jakusb]

From the Spacex press release:
Falcon 9 delivered THAICOM 6 to its targeted 295 x 90,000 km geosynchronous transfer orbit at 22.5 degrees inclination.

From the update thread:
...catalogued by USSTRATCOM.
Object A: 2014-002A/39500 at 0051UTC was in 376 x 90039 km x 22.46° (tentatively Thaicom-6)

Looks pretty darn close to me, but what do I know Given that nothing is ever exact, what are the industry standards for "close enough" and "bulls eye" and what if anything are the implications for the spacecraft of these specific (tentative) variations from nominal? Good, bad, or indifferent?

If they are within 3 sigma, then no issues.  If it is pushing 3 sigma, Spacex may look at things to see where the errors added up.

english please!?
#notarocketscientist

[IRobot]

Looks pretty darn close to me, but what do I know Given that nothing is ever exact, what are the industry standards for "close enough" and "bulls eye" and what if anything are the implications for the spacecraft of these specific (tentative) variations from nominal? Good, bad, or indifferent?

The real Periapsis is higher than expected. I'm no expert, but this seems to indicate that the satellite will require less fuel to raise the Periapsis, so it was better than expected. Although the plane change might  be more efficient with a lower Periapsis? I don't know if that is the case, otherwise a higher Periapsis for a satellite that will raise it seems to be a good thing.

[Sohl]

If they are within 3 sigma...

This "sigma" is a measure of variation based on Standard Deviation.  So is the difference from nominal (or from "mean") three times the standard deviation?  I don't think there are enough data points for F9 to ready calculate a proper 3 X sigma, but maybe a sigma value across the launch industry or something like that.   

[Jim]

From the Spacex press release:
Falcon 9 delivered THAICOM 6 to its targeted 295 x 90,000 km geosynchronous transfer orbit at 22.5 degrees inclination.

From the update thread:
...catalogued by USSTRATCOM.
Object A: 2014-002A/39500 at 0051UTC was in 376 x 90039 km x 22.46° (tentatively Thaicom-6)

Looks pretty darn close to me, but what do I know Given that nothing is ever exact, what are the industry standards for "close enough" and "bulls eye" and what if anything are the implications for the spacecraft of these specific (tentative) variations from nominal? Good, bad, or indifferent?

If they are within 3 sigma, then no issues.  If it is pushing 3 sigma, Spacex may look at things to see where the errors added up.

english please!?
#notarocketscientist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation

[karzump]

and "Orbital Sciences Corporation, U.S.A." is listed in as the manufacturer in the section titled "THAICOM 6 Fact Sheet".

Woah.  Orbital mentions SpaceX plenty.  I'm sure they will mention SpaceX in their expanded press release once they are done working.  Their part of the mission, if anything, is just beginning. 

Also, Orbital is underrepresented in the media as opposed SpaceX to the point of it being grotesque.

[Garrett]

SpaceX's customer was Thaicom.
Orbital's customer was Thaicom.
There's no point in either company making much reference to their customer's suppliers and sub-contractors.

Leave it at that. Please.

[karzump]

case in point.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/orbital-built-thaicom-6-communications-satellite-successfully-launched-2014-01-07?reflink=MW_news_stmp

[Antares]

If they are within 3 sigma...

This "sigma" is a measure of variation based on Standard Deviation.  So is the difference from nominal (or from "mean") three times the standard deviation?  I don't think there are enough data points for F9 to ready calculate a proper 3 X sigma, but maybe a sigma value across the launch industry or something like that.

Most analyses in industry are done with allowable/possible/realistic distribution of many independent variables.  When there are many of those variables, allowable values of each one are randomly chosen for each analytical run.  Each run then has its results, in this case apogee, perigee, and inclination.  With a couple hundred or a couple thousand analytical runs, standard deviations are calculated on the statistical distributions of each result parameter.

[Lurker Steve]

SpaceX's customer was Thaicom.
Orbital's customer was Thaicom.
There's no point in either company making much reference to their customer's suppliers and sub-contractors.

Leave it at that. Please.

Exactly. The purpose of a press release is to highlight your company's accomplishments. You pay an agent to get these things out there. They are always focused on who is paying for the press release.

[LouScheffer]

This still seems weird to me.  I'd think that after releasing the satellite, they would use any remaining delta-V/venting/RCS to reduce the perigee, not increase it. That would help create a quicker re-entry and less space junk with its chance of collision.  Raising the perigee would seem to do exactly the opposite....

The standard is increase to a more stable orbit, as I stated before

No, the standard is that orbit must be unstable, and decay within 25 years.   See the article

"Compliance of Rocket Upper Stages in GTO with Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines" at
http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/2013/07/18/compliance-rocket-upper-stage-gto-space-debris-mitigation-guidelines/

"Launcher stages shall satisfy one of the following conditions:
a) they shall perform a direct reentry as part of the launcher sequence;
b) they shall be placed in a LEO orbit where they will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere within 25 years;
c) they shall be permanently removed from the LEO and GEO protected regions, and from orbits interfering with other operational orbit regions, such as the Galileo orbit."

They definitely did not do (a), and the orbit does not satisfy (c), since it crosses the GPS, Galileo, and Glonass orbits. So that leaves (b), which is helped by a lower perigee.

Or the book "Space Debris: Models and Risk Analysis", page 182:
"In both of these diagrams, a post-mission lifetime limitation of Tl <= 25 years leads to a stable space debris environment in LEO, with no net growth of the population, despite continuing space operations at present deployment rates.  This result confirms the recommendation for a 25-year lifetime rule, which is supported by most existing national and international space debris mitigation standards."

If you have a source for the more-stable orbit practice, I'd love to see it.  I found one, but it does not apply here.   The above book, p. 183, says "hence several debris mitigation standards allow re-orbiting to super-LEO altitudes". The lower altitude limit is defined as 1700 km by JAXA/NASDA, 2000 km by CNES, and 2500 km by  NASA.  These would be much harder to reach than a disposal orbit.

[Jakusb]

If they are within 3 sigma...

This "sigma" is a measure of variation based on Standard Deviation.  So is the difference from nominal (or from "mean") three times the standard deviation?  I don't think there are enough data points for F9 to ready calculate a proper 3 X sigma, but maybe a sigma value across the launch industry or something like that.

Thanks, so follow up question:
Which data points would it need?
@Jim: which did you had in mind?
Industry wide history of target vs actual? Or SpaceX's history only?
What to do with intentional better orbits then initial target?
I would expect SD and 3xsigma could only establish some estimate of what the industry is capable of, not what is considered a good or even bulls eye orbit...

[karzump]

SpaceX's customer was Thaicom.
Orbital's customer was Thaicom.
There's no point in either company making much reference to their customer's suppliers and sub-contractors.

Leave it at that. Please.

Ultimately, it's a team effort, with the product on either end custom-suited, to a good extent, around each others products.  No problem in all around acknowledgements