SpaceX FH : Falcon Heavy Demo : Feb 6, 2018 : Discussion Thread 2

[mmonce]

In one five minute rotation, you could see the Sun, Earth and the Moon pass in front and behind the Tesla. The lens reflections are incredible. The reflection of the full earth across the hood of the car. Unbelievable!!!

I'm blown away. I'm recording this from my computer, I hope I capture what I'm trying to get. This is LIVE VIDEO!!!!

From a pure imagery standpoint, this is historic. I don't think I'm exaggerating.

(If I hear later this was faked, I will hate E Musks for the rest of my life ;-) ).

[ppb]

Elon just tweeted that the 2nd burn was to 7000km apogee, a significant raise but much less than GTO.

We didn't expect an actual GTO orbit, rather a 20,000 km apogee that would give a 6-hour orbit, with restart at perigee. But obviously not.

Elon's five-hours of Van Allen Belt radiation might mean two ~200 x 7,000 km orbits, maybe?  I'm trying to figure the period of an elliptical orbit but my mind is buzzing right now. 

 - Ed Kyle

I'm getting 2 hours, 45 minutes for a 200x7000 km orbit (semi-major axis of 20,000 km). Sound about right?

That's the major axis.  Semi-major is 10,000 km.  Period is correct.

[wannamoonbase]

The Starman pictures are really great marketing.  So much more impressive than the car would be by itself.

[Prometeusz]

Is this car have solar panels. Where does the enegy come from and how much time they can transmit video ? Sorry for my language.

Greetings to Everyone

[AbuSimbel]

Yeah! 

[envy887]

Elon just tweeted that the 2nd burn was to 7000km apogee, a significant raise but much less than GTO.

We didn't expect an actual GTO orbit, rather a 20,000 km apogee that would give a 6-hour orbit, with restart at perigee. But obviously not.

Elon's five-hours of Van Allen Belt radiation might mean two ~200 x 7,000 km orbits, maybe?  I'm trying to figure the period of an elliptical orbit but my mind is buzzing right now. 

 - Ed Kyle

I'm getting 2 hours, 45 minutes for a 200x7000 km orbit (semi-major axis of 20,000 km). Sound about right?

That's the major axis.  Semi-major is 10,000 km.  Period is correct.

Yeah, SMA should be 10,000 km, I forgot to fix that in the post but had it right in my calcs.

[longboard1210]

i wonder how long the plastics etc will last the uv will be very damaging in very short order to all of the parts within the roadster a few hours maybee enough to bleach them

[envy887]

Is this car have solar panels. Where does the enegy come from and how much time they can transmit video ? Sorry for my language.

Greetings to Everyone

The upper stage has batteries and transmitter to SpaceX mission control. The car is hardwired to the upper stage.

[JimO]

Is it too early to know where over earth the TMI burn will happen? I wonder if it will be over the night side of the planet and if it will be visible from us earthlings.

McDowell estimated over Quito about 01:00 gmt. That's an hour and a half after local sunset. Excellent ground visibility opportunity!!!!!!!!!1

[Rhyshaelkan]

Wonder if there are sensors inside the suit. And this was another way to test the viability of SpaceX's space suits in real environment.

[LaunchedIn68]

Any news outlets reporting on the numbers of spectators who turned out to watch it live at the Cape?  Wonder how the numbers stack up to STS-135?

[LouScheffer]

From the webcast, I get the first burn of the second stage at 5:15.   Add in 30 seconds for the second burn to get 5:45 so far.

For SES-16, the first burn of the second stage was 6:38, and the second about 1:00.   So the total burn time of the second stage is 7:38.

That means (neglecting boiloff, thrust tapering, etc.) that the second stage has about 1:53 left in the tank.   If 30 seconds added 1230 m/s, as the second burn indicates, then 1:53 should add at least 4 times that (less mass to push, etc).   4 x 1230 m/s is about 4900 m/s, so the stage has performance to burn.

Since we don't know the mass of the payload, a more accurate calculation is not easy.  But assuming it works at all, the third burn should easily be able to meet the "Mars distance" objective.

[Prometeusz]

Is this car have solar panels. Where does the enegy come from and how much time they can transmit video ? Sorry for my language.

Greetings to Everyone

The upper stage has batteries and transmitter to SpaceX mission control. The car is hardwired to the upper stage.

Does he have enough energy to carry the message from the orbit of Mars ?

[input~2]

AFAICT there was no camera loss from the drone ship (check out the monitor in the background showing an empty landing area)

[lcs]

i wonder how long the plastics etc will last the uv will be very damaging in very short order to all of the parts within the roadster a few hours maybee enough to bleach them

I think the windshield is already starting to outgas or delaminate.  The top 1/3 looks quite hazy.

[mme]

And flat earthers go wild how are they going to dispute this one lol

They'll say it's obviously CGI.  It's what they do.

[Oersted]

Chris B - NSF‏ @NASASpaceflight · 2m2 minutes ago 
SpaceX press conference coming up. We have Chris Gebhardt (@ChrisG_NSF) at it. It won't be streamed, but I tweet key items via Chris' posts on our forum.

So head over to the updates thread (and don't post anything there)

[andrewsdanj]

i wonder how long the plastics etc will last the uv will be very damaging in very short order to all of the parts within the roadster a few hours maybee enough to bleach them

I think the windshield is already starting to outgas or delaminate.  The top 1/3 looks quite hazy.

I think that's the reflection of Earth?

Edit- scratch that, there's the blue marble rolling by.

[Basto]

i wonder how long the plastics etc will last the uv will be very damaging in very short order to all of the parts within the roadster a few hours maybee enough to bleach them

I think the windshield is already starting to outgas or delaminate.  The top 1/3 looks quite hazy.

I think you are seeing a reflection of the earth.

[AnnK]

So the barge did not sink? I find it hard to believe it would of been off target. I suppose the core then broke up in flight.