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#20
by
Jarnis
on 19 Sep, 2013 08:21
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Lots of performance margin on these flights. Good opportunity to get some testing in.
More like good candidates for a flight that actually re-uses the booster (as there is bound to be performance penalty vs. expendable mode when returning the booster to land)
By 2018 I would expect them to have worked out the whole landing-the-first-stage thing - either it is in use at that point for all flights where the payload mass allows it, or it simply can't work with F9 v1.1 and requires another evolutionary step in booster design first.
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#21
by
Garrett
on 19 Sep, 2013 08:30
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Lots of performance margin on these flights. Good opportunity to get some testing in.
These missions are scheduled for 2018-19. They do need testing opportunities -- now.
There is a continuous need for testing with a philosophy of continual improvement! 
Falcon 9 1.1 is a step towards SpaceX's ultimate goals; there will always be the next thing to be tested whilst on that journey.
2018 is less than fives years away. There's no guarantee that SpaceX will have succeeded in making their F9 or FH reusable by then. It could easily take another four to five years to achieve that goal. Those SARah launches could be well suited for testing a second-hand F9R, should the contract allow for such a possibility.
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#22
by
smoliarm
on 19 Sep, 2013 08:37
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...
There is a continuous need for testing with a philosophy of continual improvement!
...
Oh no!
"philosophy of continual improvement" with exclamation mark means that after just 5 launches of v1.1 there will be another year-long delay for inevitable (
) v1.2 ...
"philosophy" is a dangerous word.
Also, there is an old Russian saying (loosely translated): "BEST is the worst foe of GOOD"
[/kidding]
seriously speaking, 5 years from now and hopefully having the expected performance of v1.1 achieved -- then a launch of 2 ton sat into polar orbit gives an opportunity for ... secondary payload.
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#23
by
fatjohn1408
on 19 Sep, 2013 08:56
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I wonder who else bid on it if anyone? But regardless, just another feather for SpaceX to add to their cap.
Yeah another bloody feather that will push their balance books closer to the red.
http://www.spacenews.com/article/military-space/35905falcon-9-selected-to-launch-german-military-radar-satellites
Falcon 1 contracts eh? So these were again sold for 20-something million then? Anybody knows?
Falcon 1 contracts were down in the 10-something million range I thought.
Pretty smart deal by the Germans. And when those F1 contracts were signed, there was no hint of re-usability, so these are launching on brand-spanking new launch vehicles.
Yes but Orbcomm renegotiated F1 contracts into F9 and they paid $21.3M per F9 flight.
Bad deal for SpaceX, just as I expect these SARah sats are.
But there PR makes it look like a victory, a european institutional customer.
They do know PR.
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1301/01orbcomm/
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#24
by
AJW
on 19 Sep, 2013 14:34
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"philosophy of continual improvement" with exclamation mark means that after just 5 launches of v1.1 there will be another year-long delay for inevitable ( ) v1.2 ...
I know it feels like longer, but CRS-2 was just this March. If you were SpaceX and had the choice of six months between CRS-1 and CRS-2 launches by staying with v1.0, or the current seven months (CRS-2 to CASSIOPE) and in the process double your payload capacity, add a new launch site, and possibly gain reusability, adding one month delay to your launch cadence seems a worthwhile tradeoff. Now add in the reports of shorter manufacturing time, lower costs, and improved reliability and that month delay can bring huge payoffs.
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#25
by
oldAtlas_Eguy
on 19 Sep, 2013 18:26
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To give some perspective of when reusable may be ready for actual landing on land after a orbital launch:
1) GH1's permit from the FAA spanded 3 years 2013, 2014, and 2015.
2) The time span included enough time to rebuild a new test vehicle if GH1 cratered.
3) GH1 test have all been successful so far and the contingency added to the permit (howerver much that was) is looking like it may not be needed cutting possibly a year off development time.
4) Permit process for higher altitude GH2 flights has started.
5) But no permits for RTLS yet, putting that first RTLS somewhere 1+ years after the completion of the GH program.
Estimations:
GH1 program complete 2014.
GH2 program complete 2016.
First possible RTLS test 2017/2018.
So yes a 2018 flight of a light payload would be a oportunity to test a fully fuctional RTLS 1st stage.
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#26
by
Karloss12
on 19 Sep, 2013 19:52
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To give some perspective of when reusable may be ready for actual landing on land after a orbital launch:
1) GH1's permit from the FAA spanded 3 years 2013, 2014, and 2015.
2) The time span included enough time to rebuild a new test vehicle if GH1 cratered.
3) GH1 test have all been successful so far and the contingency added to the permit (howerver much that was) is looking like it may not be needed cutting possibly a year off development time.
4) Permit process for higher altitude GH2 flights has started.
5) But no permits for RTLS yet, putting that first RTLS somewhere 1+ years after the completion of the GH program.
Estimations:
GH1 program complete 2014.
GH2 program complete 2016.
First possible RTLS test 2017/2018.
So yes a 2018 flight of a light payload would be a oportunity to test a fully fuctional RTLS 1st stage.
Or they could get lucky and have the 1st V1.1 hovering over the ocean next month and in the process skip 3 years of estimated development. ...........not likely.
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#27
by
Robotbeat
on 19 Sep, 2013 19:58
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But give it a 10% chance?
(But really, remember they're going to try this on other launches, too.)
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#28
by
kch
on 19 Sep, 2013 20:00
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To give some perspective of when reusable may be ready for actual landing on land after a orbital launch:
1) GH1's permit from the FAA spanded 3 years 2013, 2014, and 2015.
2) The time span included enough time to rebuild a new test vehicle if GH1 cratered.
3) GH1 test have all been successful so far and the contingency added to the permit (howerver much that was) is looking like it may not be needed cutting possibly a year off development time.
4) Permit process for higher altitude GH2 flights has started.
5) But no permits for RTLS yet, putting that first RTLS somewhere 1+ years after the completion of the GH program.
Estimations:
GH1 program complete 2014.
GH2 program complete 2016.
First possible RTLS test 2017/2018.
So yes a 2018 flight of a light payload would be a oportunity to test a fully fuctional RTLS 1st stage.
Or they could get lucky and have the 1st V1.1 hovering over the ocean next month and in the process skip 3 years of estimated development. ...........not likely.
At this point, we're just guessing about that -- a month from now, we'll know.
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#29
by
oldAtlas_Eguy
on 19 Sep, 2013 21:37
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WAG's are what we have now. 3 years from now maybe not.
5 years ago (2008) SpaceX was still designing their F9.
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#30
by
Lurker Steve
on 19 Sep, 2013 21:44
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Can we get the discussion back to this mission instead of some future launcher that hasn't been designed yet ?
There are other threads to discuss future SpaceX developments. This is supposed to be about SARah .
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#31
by
rockets4life97
on 11 Nov, 2017 14:58
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We are now on the cusp of 2018.
Is it possible that all 3 SARah sats will now fly on single F9 Block V?
Or Maybe SARah 1 is a possible co-passenger with PAZ? The look to both be going to SSO. I'm not sure how far apart the intended orbits are.
P.S. Looks like Garrett and Jarnis get credit for predicting in 2013 that SpaceX would successfully RTLS by now.
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#32
by
russianhalo117
on 11 Nov, 2017 16:38
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We are now on the cusp of 2018.
Is it possible that all 3 SARah sats will now fly on single F9 Block V?
Or Maybe SARah 1 is a possible co-passenger with PAZ? The look to both be going to SSO. I'm not sure how far apart the intended orbits are.
P.S. Looks like Garrett and Jarnis get credit for predicting in 2013 that SpaceX would successfully RTLS by now.
no the 3 SARah sats are launching to 2 different planes.
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#33
by
su27k
on 12 Nov, 2017 17:02
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We are now on the cusp of 2018.
Is it possible that all 3 SARah sats will now fly on single F9 Block V?
Or Maybe SARah 1 is a possible co-passenger with PAZ? The look to both be going to SSO. I'm not sure how far apart the intended orbits are.
I don't buy fatjohn1408's hypothesis that the two launches are sold at F1 price, what Astrium had was an option, not an actual contract, it makes no sense for SpaceX to allow someone buy F9 at F1 price just because they had a F1 option from a few years ago.
If the two launches were sold at F9's regular price, then there's no incentive for SpaceX to merge them into one launch, why fly one when you can fly two at twice the price?
P.S. Looks like Garrett and Jarnis get credit for predicting in 2013 that SpaceX would successfully RTLS by now.
It's also really cool to see SpaceX exceeded some of the forum's expectations from 2013.
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#34
by
faramund
on 12 Nov, 2017 19:03
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We are now on the cusp of 2018.
Is it possible that all 3 SARah sats will now fly on single F9 Block V?
Or Maybe SARah 1 is a possible co-passenger with PAZ? The look to both be going to SSO. I'm not sure how far apart the intended orbits are.
I don't buy fatjohn1408's hypothesis that the two launches are sold at F1 price, what Astrium had was an option, not an actual contract, it makes no sense for SpaceX to allow someone buy F9 at F1 price just because they had a F1 option from a few years ago.
If the two launches were sold at F9's regular price, then there's no incentive for SpaceX to merge them into one launch, why fly one when you can fly two at twice the price?
P.S. Looks like Garrett and Jarnis get credit for predicting in 2013 that SpaceX would successfully RTLS by now.
It's also really cool to see SpaceX exceeded some of the forum's expectations from 2013.
Wouldn't this depend on the contract.
If it was, pay $1 now, and then you have the option of paying $9 later, and then you can have X, then the seller has a strong legal obligation to provide X. This sort of option occurs in financial markets - and a seller can't take the $1 and then later on say, oh no, you can't have X now - even if they give back the $1.
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#35
by
deruch
on 12 Nov, 2017 20:39
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We are now on the cusp of 2018.
Is it possible that all 3 SARah sats will now fly on single F9 Block V?
Or Maybe SARah 1 is a possible co-passenger with PAZ? The look to both be going to SSO. I'm not sure how far apart the intended orbits are.
I don't buy fatjohn1408's hypothesis that the two launches are sold at F1 price, what Astrium had was an option, not an actual contract, it makes no sense for SpaceX to allow someone buy F9 at F1 price just because they had a F1 option from a few years ago.
If the two launches were sold at F9's regular price, then there's no incentive for SpaceX to merge them into one launch, why fly one when you can fly two at twice the price?
It doesn't matter either way. SpaceX can afford to take an effective loss on a few underpriced launches without any real harm being done to them. Loss leaders are a well known/accepted part of many sales strategies. The value of expanding into launches with European govt. clients is potentially worth more than any revenue shortfall, assuming there actually is one. In my purely speculative guessing opinion, the most likely contract modification is that Astrium got a biggish discount (~15M-20M spread across both launches) on the launches but not a 1-to-1 price swap in the move to the bigger vehicle.
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#36
by
PM3
on 08 Feb, 2019 15:39
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Now NET November 2020:
http://dipbt.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/19/072/1907253.pdf"Die Satelliten werden voraussichtlich im Zeitraum November 2020 bis September
2021 in die Umlaufbahn gebracht" -- The satellites will presumably brought to orbit in the timespan of November 2020 to September 2021.
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#37
by
scr00chy
on 08 Feb, 2020 13:51
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I'm pretty much convinced this launch is part of the SpaceX Smallsat Rideshare program. Clues:
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Gunter mentions: "The satellite will be launched
with a co-passenger on a Falcon-9 v1.2 (Block 5) booster between November 2020 and September 2021."
- We know it's launching to SSO, likely to an orbit similar to that of the SAR-Lupe constellation ("
typical 470 km × 505 km, 98.18°")
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SpaceX's smallsat website lists a
non-dedicated rideshare launch planned for February 2021 with an orbit of 450±25km x 450±25km
- There are no other SSO launches in that time frame (that we know of)
Therefore, I'm pretty sure SARah 1 is currently scheduled for Feb 2021 along with
NuX-1 and possibly other secondary payloads
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#38
by
PM3
on 16 Apr, 2020 14:51
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#39
by
gongora
on 10 May, 2020 19:03
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) v1.2 ...
