SpaceX F9 : Starlink 7 (v1.0 L6) : April 22, 2020 : Discussion

[Rocket Science]

Catching up a bit looks like COVID fever back the past few days again.. Thanks for the coverage. Did they upgrade the camera on the first stage it looked so good or was it just clean and clear?

I think it was the same camera as always; just didn't get dirty.

Thought the same just checking.... "what a beautiful view"~Alan Shepard

[wannamoonbase]

Wow, they must be using a different coating, those things look hardly used. 

[Vettedrmr]

https://twitter.com/spacexfleet/status/1253836119491227650

OCISLY is about halfway through the journey home. The droneship and accompanying support ships have been slowly progressing through very rough seas.

Saturday is now not-possible and I'm hearing that they are tentatively targeting arrival on Sunday morning - weather permitting.

I figured that the trip back was going to be slow and risky, considering they pulled the launch forward a day, not only for launch criteria but landing sea states as well.  If they got the landing ahead of bad weather, it makes sense they'd have to punch back through it.

[sferrin]

Is it just me or did that landing look a bit rough?  Looked like they crushed the core in the leg facing away from the camera maybe? 

[Vettedrmr]

Looked fine to me.  Real wide angle lens distort so much I don't think I could tell one way or the other on the state of the legs on the back side of the booster.  Video cut did give a few seconds of gut-clenching, but that's just based on the issues they've had on the past few drone ship landings.

Have a good one,
Mike

[Mike_1179]

Catching up a bit looks like COVID fever back the past few days again.. Thanks for the coverage. Did they upgrade the camera on the first stage it looked so good or was it just clean and clear?

 Engine failure on the last launch meant that one of the engines was spitting out some unburned RP-1 and that glopped up the camera

[Vettedrmr]

Obviously could have non-visible damage, but it appears that letting them land in the ocean then fishing them out is a viable plan for recovery.

[niwax]

Obviously could have non-visible damage, but it appears that letting them land in the ocean then fishing them out is a viable plan for recovery.

Landing them in the nets has virtually zero extra cost and some 50% of their missions are Starlink, so it's still likely cheaper to try for a proper landing and sometimes fail than to convince customers to use watered fairings.

[Vettedrmr]

Moving from the Update thread (sorry about that!)

Landing them in the nets has virtually zero extra cost and some 50% of their missions are Starlink, so it's still likely cheaper to try for a proper landing and sometimes fail than to convince customers to use watered fairings.

Except their success rates for the nets isn't very good.  And if you try the net and fail, that one is a write-off for sure.

[thydusk666]

The flock just flew over Romania 

[Vettedrmr]

Is it just me or did that landing look a bit rough?  Looked like they crushed the core in the leg facing away from the camera maybe? 

I didn't think so, but you caught it!

[SmallKing]

so，who wins the landing bingo?

[TorenAltair]

so，who wins the landing bingo?

I hope it didn't move during the ocean cruise 

[edkyle99]

This, at last, was the 50th successfully recovered booster, by which I mean landed and returned to Port Canaveral intact.

If I've counted right, these were performed by 27 individual boosters.  Three of those landed and did not fly again.  The 24 others flew at least twice.  Five currently remain.

 - Ed Kyle

[su27k]

Photographer Szabolcs Nagy (@metrolinaszabi, /u/metrolinaszabi) found a mystery object trailing the 60 Starlink satellites minutes after its deployment.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/metrolinaszabi

Reddit thread: An object closely following the double chain of Starlink satellites

Full article describing the phenomena and a lot more photos: SPACEX STARLINK 7 SATELLITES 22 MINUTES AFTER LAUNCH – CLOSE UP PHOTO

Note they claim to have identified all 60 satellites plus second stage and 4 tension rods, this object is not any of these.

[CorvusCorax]

Photographer Szabolcs Nagy (@metrolinaszabi, /u/metrolinaszabi) found a mystery object trailing the 60 Starlink satellites minutes after its deployment.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/metrolinaszabi

Reddit thread: An object closely following the double chain of Starlink satellites

Full article describing the phenomena and a lot more photos: SPACEX STARLINK 7 SATELLITES 22 MINUTES AFTER LAUNCH – CLOSE UP PHOTO

Note they claim to have identified all 60 satellites plus second stage and 4 tension rods, this object is not any of these.

On that photo, I count 29 white dots in the left string, and 30 white dots in the right - that might simply be a sat that recontacted with another at deploymnet time and then drifted away from the rest of the swarm. Also has the reflective properties of one.

[Lars-J]

Photographer Szabolcs Nagy (@metrolinaszabi, /u/metrolinaszabi) found a mystery object trailing the 60 Starlink satellites minutes after its deployment.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/metrolinaszabi

Reddit thread: An object closely following the double chain of Starlink satellites

Full article describing the phenomena and a lot more photos: SPACEX STARLINK 7 SATELLITES 22 MINUTES AFTER LAUNCH – CLOSE UP PHOTO

Note they claim to have identified all 60 satellites plus second stage and 4 tension rods, this object is not any of these.

On that photo, I count 29 white dots in the left string, and 30 white dots in the right - that might simply be a sat that recontacted with another at deploymnet time and then drifted away from the rest of the swarm. Also has the reflective properties of one.

Right, with optical distortion and the satellites so close to each other, I don't see how they can reliably claim that they accounted for 60 satellites in the main clump. Occams razor suggests that the mystery object is a satellite that is more separated from the rest.