SpaceX F9 : SpaceX Transporter-1 Rideshare : 24 Jan 2021 (15:00 UTC)

[mlindner]

Just realized I know one of the people on the console today, by his voice, old friend from college.

[Robotbeat]

For anyone who hasn't looked at the pictures closely, these Starlinks are different.  Not sure what the new pieces are.  There is speculation about them being ISLs, and that's possible, but I'm not sure if that's what they are.

Was anything about that mentioned in the webcast?

[Jansen]

Stuck the landing

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/nasaspaceflight/status/1353359616172843008

Falcon 9 B1058.5 lands on Of Course I Still Love You!

[ChrisC]

For those wondering what happened to the usual minute by minute updates in here, there's this post from a few days ago:

What happened to Steve, btw? I really miss his launch coverage.

I'm still alive and kicking! In order that I can spend more time on my other interests, I decided to retire from providing live launch coverage on NSF.

We miss you Steven!  But enjoy your retirement

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/sciguyspace/status/1353359793273102344

The "full thrust" version of the Falcon 9 rocket has now launched 86 times since its debut in December, 2015. All were successful, pending satellite deploy later today.

This total surpasses the 85 successful launches of the Atlas V rocket, which made its debut in 2002.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/johnkrausphotos/status/1353360815278186496

Falcon 9 B1058.5 lofting a record-breaking 143 satellites forward orbit this morning on SpaceX’s first dedicated rideshare mission, Transporter-1:

[Jansen]

Hanging out for a while

00:54:35   2nd stage engine restarts

[Jansen]

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1353353558863736834

[Jansen]

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1353359567183171584

[Jansen]

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1353356011873026048

Another SpaceX official picture of the payload stack

[gongora]

Payload stack graphics that our webmaster Mark made for us last night:

[Jansen]

Bonus shot of B1058.5 on OCISLY. Would be cool to see Octograbber rolling out!

[ZachS09]

Has SpaceX stopped doing “partial boostback burns” before landing on the drone ship? Is having the booster go on a lofted trajectory before doing its entry burn more fuel efficient?

I mean, OCISLY wasn’t far enough downrange like the GTO and Starlink missions (~640 km).

[Rekt1971]

Small note: looks like Gerstenmaier is at the console.

[RotoSequence]

Has SpaceX stopped doing “partial boostback burns” before landing on the drone ship? Is having the booster go on a lofted trajectory before doing its entry burn more fuel efficient?

I mean, OCISLY wasn’t far enough downrange like the GTO and Starlink missions (~640 km).

This mission doglegged hard, so the downrange flight was mostly parallel to the coast.

[Jansen]

Approaching India for Second Engine Start-2

[Jansen]

Brief 2 second burn, nominal orbital insertion

[Jansen]

Port C4 (Kepler) and C1 (SuperDoves) deployment begins.

Note: It’s at the far end from the camera, so you can’t really see them deploying. Should be better as we go down the stack.

[gongora]

We couldn't see the V-R3X deployer on the payload stack because it's not on the payload stack.  The deployer was on the second stage aft end.  This option has been in the Falcon user's guide for a while but I don't remember it being used before.