SpaceX Falcon 9 : Spaceflight SSO-A : December 3, 2018 - DISCUSSION

[Draggendrop]

Info for Enoch...

On Friday, November 2, 2018, the FAA "made a favorable payload determination for the ENOCH payload," and ENOCH is now cleared for launch on the Falcon 9 flight from Vandenberg AFB on November 19. You can read more about ENOCH and the artist behind it here, here and here.

Lastly, since LACMA is not your typical satellite operator, we felt that adding a means to track ENOCH's orbit would be very useful, and so with LACMA's blessing we added three radar retroreflectors supplied by the US Navy to the structure (the white squares). With these radar tags, it will be relatively straightforward to track this "passive" nanosatellite.

This info would lend to licencing not being an issue with this payload....but you never know?

A lot of detail went into this payload and it's dispencer. More info at the link...
https://www.pumpkinspace.com/news/category/all

SpaceX is a founding sponsor of the LACMA Art +Technology Lab. In May 2014, Strachan met with SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell, an advisor to LACMA’s Art + Technology Lab, to explore how technology could push his art practice in new directions. Propelled by these conversations, the artist embarked on an exploratory project that led to the development of ENOCH.

http://www.lacma.org/enoch#about-the-project


"We're In Space!"

On Monday, December 3, at 10:34 am PST, artist Tavares Strachan's project ENOCH was launched into space in partnership with Spaceflight from a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The payload was a 24-karat gold canopic jar honoring Robert Henry Lawrence Jr., the first African American astronaut selected for any national space program. The sculpture will circle the Earth for seven years in a sun-synchronous orbit.

https://unframed.lacma.org/2018/12/05/were-space

I have no reflector tagged to TLE data yet...still looking...

[deruch]

Info for Enoch...

On Friday, November 2, 2018, the FAA "made a favorable payload determination for the ENOCH payload," and ENOCH is now cleared for launch on the Falcon 9 flight from Vandenberg AFB on November 19. You can read more about ENOCH and the artist behind it here, here and here.

Lastly, since LACMA is not your typical satellite operator, we felt that adding a means to track ENOCH's orbit would be very useful, and so with LACMA's blessing we added three radar retroreflectors supplied by the US Navy to the structure (the white squares). With these radar tags, it will be relatively straightforward to track this "passive" nanosatellite.

This info would lend to licencing not being an issue with this payload....but you never know?

A lot of detail went into this payload and it's dispencer. More info at the link...
https://www.pumpkinspace.com/news/category/all

So, maybe they're the one that didn't fully deploy?  From the notes from Pumpkin blog posts it sounded like it wasn't a simple "plug-and-play" solution to get the dispenser to work right.  And one-off/inaugural designs are always chancy. 

With this new direction for ENOCH, we created a "sled" that is compatible with Planetary System Corporations Canisterized Satellite Dispenser (CSD). This resulted in a design that exposed the canopic jar as much as possible, and let the sled "fade into the background." Hence the deep black color to the sled. This layout meant that the canopic jar was heavily cantilevered at one end, which led to a few iterations when a lower-than-acceptable fundamental frequency was discovered during environmental tests. The base below the canopic jar  also incorporates (hidden from view) the requisite hardware to vent the interior volume of the jar, as well as permanent magnets and hysteresis material to help ENOCH establish a stabilized attitude while on orbit. The sled has "feet" on the top and bottom, with an isogridded structure for strength and lightness, for symmetry and in order to satisfy the CSD requirements.

[JimO]

Second burn observed in Australia:
 

https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/strange-unidentified-light-seen-over-south-australia/news-story/12f1ebe06f3174dfc2231f19b62e5a46

[ugordan]

Second burn observed in Australia:
 

https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/strange-unidentified-light-seen-over-south-australia/news-story/12f1ebe06f3174dfc2231f19b62e5a46

That would be the GPS-III flight, not SSO-A.

[JimO]

Dang, it's too easy to get the stampede mixed up -- my bad!!

[strawwalker]

[...]
Please review the list and point out any issues for correction.

The only nitpick I have is your inclusion of Landmapper, Corvus BC-4 in the confirmed success list. It looks like that is just based on the fact that it has been paired with a NORAD ID? It's up to you, of course, what criteria you use, but for consistency's sake, the same can also be said for several of the spacecraft still in the awaiting confirmation list. For instance, both STPSat-5 and the OrbWeavers can also be "tracked" at N2YO.com

This list has 65 payloads. Still working on this issue.

I know, right?

---
P.S. Reddit comments can be directly linked just like NSF comments. Your link actually points to the Launch Thread which contains an outdated version of my original payload table (which I can't edit), but you have to scroll down to find the live success list that you are referencing. The direct link is:

https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/a0vjff/rspacex_ssoa_official_launch_discussion_updates/eb2ij5x/

The up-to-date payloads table is in another comment in another reddit thread. I don't know why anyone would need to look at it now, but here it is since the linked one is outdated:

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/9raysi/ssoa_launch_campaign_thread/e8hwl1a/

[Draggendrop]

Thanks for the input.

I may have messed up on Corvus BC-4. Will recheck my info.  Am using the "N2YO" as an extra data source only.

Will update your link on the list.

Will be updating in a few days after I chase a few loose ends.

Again, thanks for the input. It's only getting better...

[deruch]

It would be really nice if Spaceflight could offer some clarity on whether, in terms of their payloads count, Range A/B are counted as a single payload or as 2.  Since they launched/deployed as a single item and only planned to separate some days post deployment, I could see them doing it either way.  But that little bit of obscurity is enough to explain the 64 vs 65 payloads issue all by itself. 

[gongora]

Range A/B should be a single payload to Spaceflight.

[strawwalker]

Range A,B may have been counted as two in their final count, even though they were listed together as one in the FCC exhibit and deployed as one. There are (64) SSO-A launch associated objects being tracked including RANGE A and B (2018-099Q, 2018-099R). If there were 62 successful deployments counting RANGE as one and if none of the other nested payloads are trackable yet, then we should expect to see (65) 2018-099 objects, right?

Also, counting RANGE A, B as one still gives us 65 so it wouldn't really settle the discrepancy yet. There is at least one spacecraft on our lists, maybe two, that don't belong.

[strawwalker]

I couldn't find a direct confirmation, except this update in "News" section:
13/12/2018: KSNN site published the first results of measuring and processing data from KazSciSat-1. Results are available in "Database" section.

"Database" section contains TLE:
1 43785U 18099AD  19010.76794220  .00000153  00000-0  19282-4 0  9997
2 43785  97.7573  84.5132 0014894 126.1160 234.1441 14.95033702  5236

...and what seems to be measurements by KazSciSat from sequential dates (GDP-SSS-YYMMDD.xlsm), except it's described as "Demonstration files"
http://kazscisat.istt.kz/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&view=category&id=6:demo-files&Itemid=122

I think the simplest explanation is that "Demo files" is just a poor translation and the data are actual.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Here's the current list of confirmed payload deployments. At the recommendation of the moderators, please post any updates on this list in this thread, and not in the updates thread. Thanks!

With data from gongora's list located here...
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=38551.msg1839535#msg1839535
r/spacex user strawwalker's list located here...
https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/a0vjff/rspacex_ssoa_official_launch_discussion_updates/
and posts from users of NSF, r/spacex and twitter, this would be today's WAG for payload disposition.
--------------------------------------------
13 Jan 2019

 We have 46 SSO-A spacecraft with confirmed operational status:

(1) AISTECH SAT 2
(1) Al-Farabi-2
(1) Astrocast 0.1
(1) BRIO
(1) Capella 1
(1) Centauri I
(1) CSIM
(1) Eaglet-1
(1) Elysium Star 2, no comm pkg
(1) ESEO
(1) Eu:CROPIS
(1) eXCITe
(1) ExseedSat-1
(1) FalconSat-6
(3) Flock-3s 1,2,3
(1) Fox-1C
(1) Global 2
(3) Hawk 1, 2, 3
(1) Hiber 2
(1) Iceye X2
(1) IRVINE02
(1) ITASAT
(1) JY1Sat
(1) K2SAT
(1) KazSTSAT
(1) KNACKSAT
(1) MinXSS 2
(1) MOVE-II
(1) NEXTSat-1
(1) Orbital Reflector (ORS-1)
(1) Pathfinder II
(1) PW-Sat2
(1) SeaHawk-1
(2) SkySat 14, 15
(1) SNUGLITE
(1) SNUSAT-2
(3) SpaceBEE 5, 6, 7
(1) Suomi 100
(1) VESTA

possible 19 SSO-A spacecraft which have not been publicly confirmed operational:

(1) Audacy Zero; POINTR
(1) BlackHawk
(1) Corvus-BC 4
(1) Enoch, no comm pkg (possible failure to deploy, TBD)
(1) ICE-Cap
(1) KazSciSat-1
(2) OrbWeaver 1 & 2 (2018-099AP, 2018-099AD)
(2) ORS 7A, B Polar Scouts
(1) RAAF M1
(1) RANGE A, B
(1) STPSat-5
(1) THEA
(3) US Government spacecraft
(1) VisionCube
(1) WeissSat-1

[Draggendrop]

Latest list, updated 18 Jan 2019, posted in the "updates" thread...

"We have 49 SSO-A spacecraft with confirmed operational status"

and

"possible 16 SSO-A spacecraft which have not been publicly confirmed operational"

--------------------------------

As above...Please post individual payload updates, questions and comments in this thread...Thanx.