SpaceX Falcon 9 : Merah Putih (Telkom 4) : August 7, 2018 - DISCUSSION

[mn]

To follow-up on the PSP launch window:
PSP has a limited planetary launch window, to make its first delta-V flyby (of seven) of Venus.  According to the PSP project web site, http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/ , that window is July 31-August 19.  Launch was delayed from July 31 to August 4.

PSP now August 6th

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=37070.msg1838883#msg1838883

[gongora]

Article today from Indonesian source:
https://inet.detik.com/telecommunication/d-4129149/satelit-merah-putih-segera-meroket-bareng-spacex

"The Red and White Satellite has been completed on June 25 and has been shipped from SSL in San Francisco to Cape Canaveral in Florida," said Hendra Gunawan, Coordinator of the Red and White Satellite Project at Telkom Tower, Jakarta.

Satellite shipments from the plant are done by land using trucks through 10 cities in the United States, as San Francisco and Florida are end-to-end.
...
If there is no cross, the launch schedule of the Red and White Satellite is on August 4th. Then arrive at the orbit slot 108 degrees east longitude on August 15, 2018.
...
The total weight is 5.8 tons where 3.8 tons of it is fuel.

They may be reporting the launch date in their local time, which makes it hard to determine exactly what that would mean (although it's hard to turn Aug. 4 into Aug. 2 even with an 11 hour time difference across the date line.)

[envy887]

Article today from Indonesian source:
https://inet.detik.com/telecommunication/d-4129149/satelit-merah-putih-segera-meroket-bareng-spacex

"The Red and White Satellite has been completed on June 25 and has been shipped from SSL in San Francisco to Cape Canaveral in Florida," said Hendra Gunawan, Coordinator of the Red and White Satellite Project at Telkom Tower, Jakarta.

Satellite shipments from the plant are done by land using trucks through 10 cities in the United States, as San Francisco and Florida are end-to-end.
...
If there is no cross, the launch schedule of the Red and White Satellite is on August 4th. Then arrive at the orbit slot 108 degrees east longitude on August 15, 2018.
...
The total weight is 5.8 tons where 3.8 tons of it is fuel.

They may be reporting the launch date in their local time, which makes it hard to determine exactly what that would mean (although it's hard to turn Aug. 4 into Aug. 2 even with an 11 hour time difference across the date line.)

So at 5.8 tons (metric tons, presumably), this is another satellite that is above SpaceX's advertised 5.5 t to GTO. Any news on the target orbit? Another subsync insertion, or does Block 5 have the legs to put this to GTO-1800 or better and still land the booster?

[AUricle]

"So at 5.8 tons (metric tons, presumably), this is another satellite that is above SpaceX's advertised 5.5 t to GTO. Any news on the target orbit? Another subsync insertion, or does Block 5 have the legs to put this to GTO-1800 or better and still land the booster?"


Seems to me, the capability must be there. Even if they have to use the far downrange barge recovery, as they used the other night when they lofted a much heavier load. JRTI has left port for positioning in the Atlantic.
As far as I know, they don't plan on expending any Block 5's. So every flight should have enough extra fuel to land the booster......somewhere  

[Alexphysics]

JRTI is on the Pacific Ocean going to catch B1048 from the Iridium 7 mission, OCISLY is on the East coast. From what we've seen from Telstar 19V, it seems that the Falcon 9 could send a little bit more than 5.5 metric tons to GTO while being reusable. Anyways, 5.8 metric tons is not too much above 5.5 so if they have to place it in subsynch, it will be close to be a standard GTO. They could always push a little bit the margins for the recovery of the booster. B1047 had a lot of fuel left for the reentry and the landing burns even though it was a GTO mission.

[cbarnes199]

After reading through the information is was surprised that the Merah Putih satellite was all C-Band.  Isn't C-Band most being phased out?

[Tomness]

"So at 5.8 tons (metric tons, presumably), this is another satellite that is above SpaceX's advertised 5.5 t to GTO. Any news on the target orbit? Another subsync insertion, or does Block 5 have the legs to put this to GTO-1800 or better and still land the booster?"

That's what I get out it,  but it may up to  SSL if SpaceX comes back and says hey from this profile and numbers we got from the last launch. we can do X instead of Y save you some fuel at no cost to you. SSL will have to weigh pros vs the cons.

[John Alan]

I'll put in a GTO-1925 subsync guess as to where this one ends up in orbit... 

SSL has got this - build it to fit ASDS F9 for lowest cost to orbit - thing down... 

And SpaceX is not going to push the landing margin too tight, in my opinion... 

[TrueBlueWitt]

I'll put in a GTO-1925 subsync guess as to where this one ends up in orbit... 

SSL has got this - build it to fit ASDS F9 for lowest cost to orbit - thing down... 

And SpaceX is not going to push the landing margin too tight, in my opinion... 

It's not about whether they can land it on tighter margin, it's about how much more damage(lost lives) it would absorb. At least that's my guess.

[rahmandwi]

After reading through the information is was surprised that the Merah Putih satellite was all C-Band.  Isn't C-Band most being phased out?

Perhaps C-Band still being used because C-Band is more robust against bad weather (like heavy rain), since Indonesia is in tropical zone. I think Ku-band (used by most of satellite pay TV companies) is less able to deal with such bad weather, maybe that's the reason why Indonesian satellites still mostly use C-Band.

[ChrisC]

After reading through the information is was surprised that the Merah Putih satellite was all C-Band.  Isn't C-Band most being phased out?

As a satcom professional:  GROOOANNNNN

The FCC is trying to steal some of the C-band spectrum that has been used by satellite operators for literally half a century.  Perhaps they would like you to think it is being phased out!  The satellite industry has responded with a compromise proposal.

As rahmandwi said, indeed C-band is much better at drillling through atmospheric moisture.  Lower frequencies go through things better than high frequencies, so C-band goes through moisture better than Ku-band, just like FM radio signals go right though walls but GPS signals don't so much.

Besides southeast Asia, C-band is also heavily used in Latin America.  In fact, LatAm also uses circular polarization for some links, unlike the linear polarization used pretty much everywhere else, because it also survives the rain better.

Turn on your TV and go to the regular channels (what we call "linear television").  Flip through the channels.  Literally every single one is delivered by C-band satellite.  It's the bedrock of TV distribution.  And yes, you millennial whippersnappers, loads of people still watch linear TV ...

[vaporcobra]

Launch photographer Ben Cooper confirmed the push to August 4 on his website. NET August 4, 1:19AM EDT (05:19 UTC).
http://www.launchphotography.com/Delta_4_Atlas_5_Falcon_9_Launch_Viewing.html

[scr00chy]

Do we have a new date for static fire?

[cbarnes199]

After reading through the information is was surprised that the Merah Putih satellite was all C-Band.  Isn't C-Band most being phased out?

As a satcom professional:  GROOOANNNNN

The FCC is trying to steal some of the C-band spectrum that has been used by satellite operators for literally half a century.  Perhaps they would like you to think it is being phased out!  The satellite industry has responded with a compromise proposal.

As rahmandwi said, indeed C-band is much better at drillling through atmospheric moisture.  Lower frequencies go through things better than high frequencies, so C-band goes through moisture better than Ku-band, just like FM radio signals go right though walls but GPS signals don't so much.

Besides southeast Asia, C-band is also heavily used in Latin America.  In fact, LatAm also uses circular polarization for some links, unlike the linear polarization used pretty much everywhere else, because it also survives the rain better.

Turn on your TV and go to the regular channels (what we call "linear television").  Flip through the channels.  Literally every single one is delivered by C-band satellite.  It's the bedrock of TV distribution.  And yes, you millennial whippersnappers, loads of people still watch linear TV ...

Apologies for inducing a groan.  You points are valid and well taken.

I was basing my comment on one objective bit of information and one subjective. 

The objective bit comes from looking at active geostationary satellites listed as active on http:\\satbeams.com . Of the 565 active satellites around 274 have Ku band and only 164 have C band transponders.  And looking at the last 10 satellites launched only 3 had C-band transponders.

The subjective information is driving around the US seeing little ku-band antennas everywhere and only seeing a few c-band antennas not rusting and pointed at the ground. 

It is a great point that C-Band is better through lots of moisture but my reading indicated that ku was overcoming that with the higher power it is allowed to use.

Finally I would like go on record as not a millennia,l since I received my engineering degree in 1985 and to be a millennial I would have to been busy being born around that time rather than graduating college.  Not that there is anything wrong with millennials,  My son is a pretty good one.

[ZachF]

"So at 5.8 tons (metric tons, presumably), this is another satellite that is above SpaceX's advertised 5.5 t to GTO. Any news on the target orbit? Another subsync insertion, or does Block 5 have the legs to put this to GTO-1800 or better and still land the booster?"


Seems to me, the capability must be there. Even if they have to use the far downrange barge recovery, as they used the other night when they lofted a much heavier load. JRTI has left port for positioning in the Atlantic.
As far as I know, they don't plan on expending any Block 5's. So every flight should have enough extra fuel to land the booster......somewhere

If Block 5 was able to put a 7,075kg sat to GTO-2275, then it should be able to push a 5,800kg sat to GTO-1900 (~28,000km apogee), assuming the same margin.

[OccasionalTraveller]

So at 5.8 tons (metric tons, presumably), this is another satellite that is above SpaceX's advertised 5.5 t to GTO. Any news on the target orbit? Another subsync insertion, or does Block 5 have the legs to put this to GTO-1800 or better and still land the booster?

With a dry mass of 2 tonnes and 3.8 tonnes of fuel, this launch will be 34.4% payload. For comparison, Telstar 19V was about 42.8% payload. To me, that says it will be sub-synchronous.

Sent from my Swift 2 Plus using Tapatalk

[ChrisC]

The subjective information is driving around the US seeing little ku-band antennas everywhere and only seeing a few c-band antennas not rusting and pointed at the ground.

You're talking about personal, home dishes, and in this case the bigger C-band dishes you've seen are what we affectionally call BUDs or Big Ugly Dishes.  The free-to-air C-band signals are indeed mostly gone.  But I assure you that C-band is still heavily used, just not straight to homes.  And honestly that was never its main purpose, but people had set up those BUDs because they discovered they could pull in stuff for free (including "wildcat feeds", google it).

C-band antennas are typically found at full blown teleports.  In the case of the TV business, these will be at the programmer uplinks (e.g. ESPN, Viacom, HBO, etc.) or at the cable headend facilities (Comcast, Charter, DirecTV etc.) or at the satellite operators' own facilities (Intelsat, SES, etc.)   These facilities are generally well hidden from public view, or are at very remote locations far from cities.  And by the way, they are fed by monstrous fiber connectivity, triply or even quadruply redundant.  A truckload of money passes through those facilities.

[ngilmore]

I believe this is an example of what ChrisC is talking about - I'm sure someone will let me know if I'm wrong  - these teleports are quite common in Los Angeles...

This one is across the street from Sony Picture Studios.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Busy August ahead: Launch hazard area issued for upcoming #SpaceX Telkom-4 (Merah Putih) launch from CCAFS. In effect from 2315 ET on 8/3 until 0315 ET on 8/4 (0315 to 0715 UTC). ASDS landing.

NASA+ULA, meanwhile, still targeting Parker Solar Probe for 8/6 [now 8/11] on Delta IV Heavy.

https://twitter.com/emrekelly/status/1021832566209433605

[envy887]

Busy August ahead: Launch hazard area issued for upcoming #SpaceX Telkom-4 (Merah Putih) launch from CCAFS. In effect from 2315 ET on 8/3 until 0315 ET on 8/4 (0315 to 0715 UTC). ASDS landing.

NASA+ULA, meanwhile, still targeting Parker Solar Probe for 8/6 [now 11/6] on Delta IV Heavy.

https://twitter.com/emrekelly/status/1021832566209433605

Should be 8/11 for PSP, not 11/6.