SpaceX Falcon 9 FT - ORBCOMM-2 - Dec. 21, 2015 (Return To Flight) DISCUSSION

[meekGee]

Given how the truck is situated, which route do you think they took?

Looking at the maps, they could have gone by the coast (ICBM rd and Cape rd), or inland, and come in via the causeway.

Anyone familiar with the characteristics of the roads can opine?  (Or even better, someone who knows for sure...)

[SweetWater]

Suppose that we all learned to keep to the subject of the thread ...

This idea seems like it would be more at home in Advanced Concepts... ;-)

More on-topic, the ORBCOMM 2 first stage has been moved to the SpaceX facility at pad 39A, presumably for inspection and testing ahead of test fittings and firing. Does anyone know where SpaceX might keep/ plans to keep the first stages they (hopefully) get back over the coming months?

Presumably, it will take customers and payload insurers a while to get used to the idea of flying on a previously flown booster. If landings prove reliable, SpaceX could acquire quite the stable of returned stages in the meantime.

[macpacheco]

This idea seems like it would be more at home in Advanced Concepts... ;-)

More on-topic, the ORBCOMM 2 first stage has been moved to the SpaceX facility at pad 39A, presumably for inspection and testing ahead of test fittings and firing. Does anyone know where SpaceX might keep/ plans to keep the first stages they (hopefully) get back over the coming months?

Presumably, it will take customers and payload insurers a while to get used to the idea of flying on a previously flown booster. If landings prove reliable, SpaceX could acquire quite the stable of returned stages in the meantime.

I'm not sure re flying stages would be any less risky than the first F9R launch was (MDA Corp was the customer, for the Canadian govt). But I'm betting SpaceX will do some sort of free CRS freebie for NASA with a reflown Dragon or some other reflown Dragon mission (with a boatload of nanosats on the ESPA ring).

Of course that assumes the stage to be reflown undergoes extensive non destructive testing, and gets a full static fire, and is found to be in perfect shape for the mission.

Of course this will wait until SpaceX normalizes the backlog as much as possible.

[docmordrid]

Suppose that we all learned to keep to the subject of the thread ...

>
Presumably, it will take customers and payload insurers a while to get used to the idea of flying on a previously flown booster. If landings prove reliable, SpaceX could acquire quite the stable of returned stages in the meantime.

SES wants to be first

http://spacenews.com/ses-betting-on-spacex-falcon-9-upgrade-as-debut-approaches/

Halliwell said SES recently reiterated to SpaceX that the fleet operator would like to be the “the first satellite operator to use the same rocket twice to get to orbit,” Halliwell said, meaning to reuse a first stage that had already launched an SES satellite.

[meekGee]

Suppose that we all learned to keep to the subject of the thread ...

This idea seems like it would be more at home in Advanced Concepts... ;-)

More on-topic, the ORBCOMM 2 first stage has been moved to the SpaceX facility at pad 39A, presumably for inspection and testing ahead of test fittings and firing. Does anyone know where SpaceX might keep/ plans to keep the first stages they (hopefully) get back over the coming months?

Presumably, it will take customers and payload insurers a while to get used to the idea of flying on a previously flown booster. If landings prove reliable, SpaceX could acquire quite the stable of returned stages in the meantime.

They can store stages vertically, using a row of ground mounts.  That can be very space efficient.  And be quite a sight, too...  Maybe wrapped with protective covers.   

[edkyle99]

Given how the truck is situated, which route do you think they took?

Looking at the maps, they could have gone by the coast (ICBM rd and Cape rd), or inland, and come in via the causeway.

Anyone familiar with the characteristics of the roads can opine?  (Or even better, someone who knows for sure...)

I would expect it to travel right up ICBM Road and then continue on Cape Road (the road that passes SLC 37, 40, 41 etc), then a left on Saturn Causeway to LC 39A.  These roads are all designed for heavy, long, narrow cylindrical things to pass.

 - Ed Kyle

[RocketGoBoom]

Video of the Falcon Rocket on the ground being moved back into the hanger...


https://www.instagram.com/p/_rxv0Unse7/?taken-at=556009302

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Interesting that the legs were removed for transportation, presumably because current design doesn't re-fold easily (at least in the field) ?

I'd expect that to change in the future if/when 1st stage re-use becomes routine.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

On a different note, am I the only one who finds it odd that SpaceX hasn't issued a press release about the launch (and especially the landing) ? Holiday didn't start until a couple of days later.

Could they be waiting for something before making a public comment - eg results of initial first stage inspection?

[macpacheco]

On a different note, am I the only one who finds it odd that SpaceX hasn't issued a press release about the launch (and especially the landing) ? Holiday didn't start until a couple of days later.

Could they be waiting for something before making a public comment - eg results of initial first stage inspection?

The blog entry for the OG2 launch was written by Musk himself (while at Cape Canaveral), posted at T-15 minutes !
The other single PR person is likely in vacation (if there is one).
I think Level 2 will hear from SpaceX_MS (as we often do) before something official gets posted on spacex.com.
Level 2... Highly recommended for those anxious to know everything about SpaceX as early as possible.

I think Musk himself doesn't know exactly what will happen next. He has shown to hope for the best but always prepare for the absolute worst. Methinks he needs the static fire results first. He has changed plans many times before when opportunities present themselves. The other driving facts might be customers enquiring how much to hitch a ride on this first recovered stage.

Besides, the press SpaceX got from the nailed landing is priceless. Posting something further will have insignificant impact on SpaceX visibility.

[Dave G]

Full transcript of post-landing press call available here:
http://shitelonsays.com/transcript/postlanding-teleconference-with-elon-musk-2015-12-22

[oiorionsbelt]

Meanwhile, SpaceX just released this.

[intrepidpursuit]

Meanwhile, SpaceX just released this.

No they didn't. They released it and tweeted it on the 22nd. That is also when the verge article about it was published. It was only just today that someone slow on the uptake posted it in the facebook group which caused you to repost it here. Look at the dates. Just saying.

[ugordan]

I wanted to see if I can pull out the speed/altitude telemetry out of the webcast by automatically scanning the numbers displayed. Below are the two graphs I got as a direct result of this.

In addition, I pulled out the acceleration profile from the speed profile. Note that this is not the G level felt by the vehicle especially during 1st stage flight since the speed itself was ground-relative. For late 2nd stage burn, gravity losses were negligible so the accel should match the G level fairly well. The data points were very noisy so the acceleration is actually a time-averaged value over a period of 2 seconds centered on each time point. I can't tell if I made any errors along the way, YMMV.

[Marcus.Johnson]

I wanted to see if I can pull out the speed/altitude telemetry out of the webcast by automatically scanning the numbers displayed. Below are the two graphs I got as a direct result of this.

In addition, I pulled out the acceleration profile from the speed profile. Note that this is not the G level felt by the vehicle especially during 1st stage flight since the speed itself was ground-relative. For late 2nd stage burn, gravity losses were negligible so the accel should match the G level fairly well. The data points were very noisy so the acceleration is actually a time-averaged value over a period of 2 seconds centered on each time point. I can't tell if I made any errors along the way, YMMV.

Very nice, what language did you use to write your program? A really nice addition would be a graph of the real acceleration experience by falcon. Since you have Δheight (vertical speed component) and total speed, calculating the true acceleration shouldn't be hard.

[ugordan]

Very nice, what language did you use to write your program?

Just a quick-n-dirty C program working on an image sequence.

A really nice addition would be a graph of the real acceleration experience by falcon. Since you have Δheight (vertical speed component) and total speed, calculating the true acceleration shouldn't be hard.

Good point, I might give that a go later.

[Robotbeat]

Very nice, what language did you use to write your program?

Just a quick-n-dirty C program working on an image sequence.

A really nice addition would be a graph of the real acceleration experience by falcon. Since you have Δheight (vertical speed component) and total speed, calculating the true acceleration shouldn't be hard.

Good point, I might give that a go later.

Actually, since we have altitude and speed each vs time, it should be possible to back out a fairly decent approximation of the 2D trajectory it took. I'll have to noodle over how to do it.

[dodo]

by automatically scanning the numbers displayed

If I may ask, how did you do the OCR?

[ugordan]

If I may ask, how did you do the OCR?

I cut out 10 representative digits from the video and used them as a basis against which to match onscreen data.  The digit with the least pixel difference wins. Even though some positions on the screen had some subpixel shift compared to my generic "font", it still seemed to work fine.

[ugordan]

A couple of more plots. Estimated trajectory profile, velocity component breakdown and velocity angle where vertical=0 deg. Because the webcast altitude data only carried 3 significant digits, the angle data and component vectors blow up in the first minute of the flight. As a result, I can't reliably pull out much more out of this unless I do curve fits and enter trajectory assumptions, which I don't have the time to do.

Based on this, I estimate that the first stage was around 29 km downrange, 75 km high at MECO and coasting up at an angle of around 78° (90 is vertical).

Also, that bump in the velocity angle from after max Q to MECO is not a glitch, the trajectory did appear to depress a bit for a while before picking up the vertical component again. It can be noticed in these long exposure images:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/spacexphotos/23815832891
http://lunarcabin.com/Images/Rocket_Images_2/ORBCOMM_2/orbcomm2_151221_1.jpg