SpaceX F9 : SARah 2/3 : VSFB SLC-4E : 24 December 2023 (13:11 UTC)

[catdlr]

1ST Stage entry burn
1st stage FTS safed

[catdlr]

Landing at LV4

[catdlr]

Landed
That's the 256 landing of an orbital stage booster.

At the request of the customer, the webcast has ended.  Thanks to everyone here SpaceX and hope you have a Merry Christmas.

Bye

[Perchlorate]

Nice job, Tony!

Good of you to give Steven the night off, as it's Christmas in Adelaide in 10 minutes.

Merry Christmas to all, and Congrats to SpaceX.

--Pete

[catdlr]

Nice job, Tony!

Good of you to give Steven the night off, as it's Christmas in Adelaide in 10 minutes.

Merry Christmas to all, and Congrats to SpaceX.

--Pete

I wasn't expecting to do that, I'm actually supposed to be asleep (5 a.m. here).  I decided to do this anyway.  Nice to give Steven a rest.  The last time I did Live coverage was way back in the Sea Launch era when I was a small kitten.

Best to you Perchlorate and have a Merry Christmas. 

I'm headed to bed, will post the Spece Dev re-broadcast when it's made available.

Best
Tony (meow)

[HVM]

What was the "stand by" and later zulu time reads in the nets? I don't remember hearing them before.

[catdlr]

Summary Video
Runtime: 3:00

[catdlr]

I called it.

I knew the stubby M-Vac nozzle would be used for this mission.

It's was hard to see, but yes.

[catdlr]

and here is the Space Dev HD re-broadcast of tonight's space launch.   My job is done.  Time to sleep.

To everyone reading have a great Holiday wherever you are located.

[Nomadd]

Landed
That's the 256 landing of an orbital stage booster.

The 100,000,000 landing. (In binary)

[ZachS09]

Both SARah satellites should've been deployed by now.

Mission timeline says the payload separation sequence should end at the 25 minute, 6 second mark.

[HVM]

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1738919867523453029
"Deployment of @ohb_se SRH2 and SRH3 confirmed"

[shiro]

Some reusability stats for this launch (SARah 2/3):

Booster B1075.8 turnaround time: 56 days 4 hours 11 minutes
(its previous mission was Starlink Group 7-6 on Oct 29, 2023 UTC).

FYI: median turnaround time for Falcon 9 / Heavy boosters is currently 49.21 days *
* – based on the last 30 launches, excluding new first stages.

Launchpad SLC-4E turnaround time: 16 days 5 hours 8 minutes
(the previous launch from this pad was Starlink Group 7-8 on Dec 8, 2023 UTC).

FYI: median turnaround time for SLC-4E is currently 12.88 days *
* – based on the last 30 launches.

The same type of stats for previous SpaceX launches may be found on this spreadsheet online.

[zubenelgenubi]

Apparently, launch was on the minute, at :00 seconds.  (Bill Harwood drops the seconds in his tweets when the launch is on the :00 seconds, assuming launch time to the second is known.)
https://twitter.com/cbs_spacenews/status/1738910288575938680

F9/SARah-2: LIFTOFF! At 8:11am EST (1311 UTC)

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1738910427894239387

Liftoff!

https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1738912460751646738

Falcon 9’s first stage has landed on Landing Zone 4

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1738987388784054506

Falcon 9 launches the @ohb_se SARah-2 mission from California

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/cbs_spacenews/status/1738905828516622563

F9/SARah-2: This will be the 96th F9 launch of '23 and the 284th single-stick F9 flight overall; booster B1075 is making its 8th flight; a successful return-to-launch-site landing would be SpaceX's 15th at Vandenberg and its 256th overall

Edit to add: I think Bill has his numbers muddled - it’s the 90th F9 launch this year, 94th Falcon launch (including FH)

[aporigine]

I set my alarm and watched this from my perch appx 145 miles east of Vandenberg.

First time I saw boostback! The cauliflower of S1 exhaust fighting the thin atmosphere was amazing. Entry burn was plainly visible, with a very high angular rate of travel.

5 min in, S2 rose into sunlight. At SECO1, the plume dominated the southern sky.  I followed the stage almost to horizon. The whole thing looked like a woodcut of a great comet in the 17th century.

Photos look better in a dark place.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

More landing shots

[zubenelgenubi]

The whole thing looked like a woodcut of a great comet in the 17th century.

Excellent description!