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

[gth871r]

I wonder if the plume over CA was actually venting related to the MVac chill in and the burn occurred a few minutes later at perigee? 

[Johnnyhinbos]

So what’s that orbital period?

[dnavas]

And by Elon's pre-launch criteria, clearing the pad far enough before it exploded such that they didn't need to rebuild the pad was "success".  I don't think anyone here would have agreed with that assessment.

Weren't his actual words that he'd consider it "a win"?  Strictly speaking, failing to blow up your pad is definitely a win.  You're right, though, I wouldn't have considered that a success.  Bummer on the center core, because everything else was unreal.

[RDMM2081]

Any idea approx how long until the roadster reaches Mars distance?

[hartspace]

That's a rather dramatic demonstration of the FH capability by "overshooting" the Mars orbit to get out to the asteroid belt.

[Tomness]

Congratulations SpaceX, Air Force, NASA, FAA, NSF and all the the men & women that made this amazing launch possible..  SPX Stream Roller continues! (PS I called into work... haven't waited years not to miss this moment)

[spacetraveler]

So what’s that orbital period?

Did a quick very rough estimation and came up with roughly 6 years. Anyone care to check that?

[the_other_Doug]

And you know what?  Today, we saw the greatest-thrust entirely-liquid-engined rocket to fly since May 14, 1973.  Yes, Shuttle had more liftoff thrust.  But no other liquid-fueled rocket has lifted off with as much thrust as FH did today since SL-1's launch.

And as the first kerolox rocket of this magnitude of thrust to fly from Pad 39A in nearly 45 years, I will just repeat the first sentiment I posted after the launch.

This rocket was worthy of the shade of the Saturn V that perched on its shoulder.

[1]

So what’s that orbital period?

Did a quick very rough estimation and came up with roughly 6 years. Anyone care to check that?

I got ~880 days, but I botched my last calc. Will wait for others to chime in.

[spacetraveler]

So what’s that orbital period?

Did a quick very rough estimation and came up with roughly 6 years. Anyone care to check that?

I got ~880 days, but I botched my last calc. Will wait for others to chime in.

Thanks, yours is a lot better. I realized I didn't calculate the semi major axis correctly. When I fixed it I get 788 days for my (super rough) estimate.

[envy887]

I captured this screen shot hours ago, as I thought that the object to the right of the top right screen shield was the ISS. I'm not across relative distances and orbits for these things, but the object appeared static against the surface of earth (as the earth rotated due to the BBQ roll) and it looked too big to be a ground based object.

 :edit: time is Aussie, so was just on 2.5 hours ago.

Vehicle part that's just been liberated by differing thermal contraction/expansion rates? (Surprised that SpaceX got permission to send up something not built for space and with an unknown risk of producing orbiting space debris.)

Perigee is low, any debris will deorbit well within standard timelines or go with the vehicle to interplanetary space. No issues there.

[Orbiter]

Just got back from Playalinda Beach. Easily the most exciting launch I've attended. What an amazing experience!

[envy887]

Who says Zuma was a failure? As for the 3rd burn it is important to remove this soon to be inert spacecraft from around the Earth. It is just space junk after the 2nd stage becomes inert. The important thing is the test was a success despite the loss of the core stage.

If the burn failed, it would not have remained space junk for long. The perigee was low enough for it to re-enter fairly quickly. (weeks, months?)

With a 187 km perigee and >3hr period? Weeks at most. Days more likely.

[ELinder]

Is there a version of the launch webcast without all the cheering? I'm all for enthusiasm, but it's hard to hear what's happening at times. During the live feed I briefly switched over to the alternate feed, but I don't see that version archived anywhere yet.

[the_other_Doug]

And you know what?  Today, we saw the greatest-thrust entirely-liquid-engined rocket to fly since May 14, 1973.  Yes, Shuttle had more liftoff thrust.  But no other liquid-fueled rocket has lifted off with as much thrust as FH did today since SL-1's launch.

You forgot Energia.  7.8 million pounds of thrust, all liquid.  1987 and 1988.  Hopefully Falcon Heavy will have a longer service life!

 - Ed Kyle

Yep, you're right.  Entirely spaced it.  Probably because I am *still* upset that such a wonderful vehicle for deep space exploration was lost to humanity due to politics and the collapse of the government that made it.

Then again, I doubt it would have been very economical to fly, had it survived... so probably just as well.

[Johnnyhinbos]

So, with a roughly 2.2 year orbit it should be back in phase with Earth in about ten years. Being in heliocentric orbit I assume its apogee and perigee are measured with respect to the sun (solar system barycenter?). So a perigee of 0.98 AU means the Tesla will find itself closer in then Earth and with Earth in the vicinity. Wonder how close we’ll be? BFS close?

[tvg98]

Is there a version of the launch webcast without all the cheering? I'm all for enthusiasm, but it's hard to hear what's happening at times. During the live feed I briefly switched over to the alternate feed, but I don't see that version archived anywhere yet.

The version you watched is still up at SpaceX's Youtube channel and you can still switch to the technical version from there.

[JimO]

....This rocket was worthy of the shade of the Saturn V that perched on its shoulder.

Unable to be physically present at the Cape, I watched the launch on a mobile phone literally in the shadow of the flight-qualified Saturn-5 at NASA-JSC in Houston, and at first MECO let out a 'whoop' that echoed across the hall.

[OxCartMark]

Has anything departing from 39A (or B for that matter) ever been sent further than this?  Seems like only Apollo (moon), Skylab (low orbit), Ares (went basically nowhere), and Shuttle (low orbit).?.

I just re-watched the launch broadcast and it looks to me as if its been edited, corrected from what it originally was.  I think that the two side booster backup camera views that were originally a single one duplicated have now been corrected to show clearly two different video streams.  I think that there was some non-useful video originally shown at fairing separation which has now been replaced with the proper video of the fairing separation and Star Man.

This has been one non-productive day for this man, one hugely productive step forward for all of us.  The trajectory of space progress is once again what it was in my childhood for sure now.

[deruch]

elonmusk: Third burn successful. Exceeded Mars orbit and kept going to the Asteroid Belt. https://t.co/bKhRN73WHF

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/961083704230674438

Wait a second.  So was this intentionally an MRS (minimum residuals shutdown) burn?  Because if not, ending up with an aphelion in the Asteroid Belt instead of at Mars Orbit is kind of a problem.  We hadn't heard anything about them just launching the Roadster as deep as they could.  Seems strange to me to hype sending it to Mars Orbit altitude, but then not actually aiming.  However, sometimes SpaceX gonna SpaceX (their communications don't seem to always perfectly match their actual plans).  Simply achieving a full burn after the extended coast period is a big win all on its own.  And, assuming that it was MRS by intention, such a burn would be better for determining the FH's actual max performance capabilities.  It would, however, leave them without the accuracy data that a targeted shutdown would have provided.  Though, since they are soon going to be doing the STP-2 mission which has a series of payload deployments to multiferious orbits followed by an additional, post-injection burn, they will be able to use data from that mission to support their claims to accurately deliver.