The end of the webcast had some nice animation/stats430 reused fairing so farThats pretty impressive $6 million a set, $1.3 billion saved (minus refurb/recovery costs)
From the front yard, we got a hole in the clouds and a beautiful view... one that unfortunately we don't get much anymore now that all the Starlink launches go southeast
Someone with some video editing MAY be able to catch fairing sep off the reflection on the glass wall in mission control, you could see something happening reflecting off the monitors Credit my wife for noting it
Falcon 9 launches from LC-39A in Florida
🛰28 April: the EU launched 2 new Galileo satellites!Earlier this morning, the Galileo satellites were ejected from the launcher's upper stage & reached the Holding Point. They are currently managed by #EUSPA as part of the Launch & Early Orbit Phase (LEOP).What happens now?Over the following days, the EUSPA Launch & Early Orbit Phase team will be manoeuvring the satellites from the dedicated #Galileo Control Center in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany until they are placed into their home orbit at 23 220 km.Galileo LEOP operations will constitute one of the most cooperative activities between numerous European entities in the #EUSpace sector, including EUSPA, @spaceopal, @DLR_en, German Space Operations Center, @telespazio and @esa. Galileo: financed by the EU, developed by ESA, services delivered by EUSPA. This is #EUSpace!
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1784381829388333385QuoteSpaceX@SpaceXDue to the additional performance required to deliver the payload to medium Earth orbit, this mission marks the 20th and final launch for this Falcon 9 first stage booster5:39 PM · Apr 27, 2024https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1784381903954698245QuoteSpaceX@SpaceXThe last time a first stage was expended during a Falcon 9 mission was 146 flights ago in November 2022. On most Falcon 9 missions, enough propellant remains in the first stage after stage separation to enable landing, recovery, and ultimately reuse on future missions5:39 PM · Apr 27, 2024https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1784382036096242138QuoteSpaceX@SpaceXWere working toward qualifying our fleet of Falcon boosters and fairings to support 40 missions each. Increasing Falcon's flight count provides valuable information on repeated reuse, a critical element for making life multiplanetary with Starship5:40 PM · Apr 27, 2024
SpaceX@SpaceXDue to the additional performance required to deliver the payload to medium Earth orbit, this mission marks the 20th and final launch for this Falcon 9 first stage booster5:39 PM · Apr 27, 2024
SpaceX@SpaceXThe last time a first stage was expended during a Falcon 9 mission was 146 flights ago in November 2022. On most Falcon 9 missions, enough propellant remains in the first stage after stage separation to enable landing, recovery, and ultimately reuse on future missions5:39 PM · Apr 27, 2024
SpaceX@SpaceXWere working toward qualifying our fleet of Falcon boosters and fairings to support 40 missions each. Increasing Falcon's flight count provides valuable information on repeated reuse, a critical element for making life multiplanetary with Starship5:40 PM · Apr 27, 2024
But, hopefully you do agree that this is not the correct method to perform launches like this.The F9 second stage for this launch was directly added to the catalog of permanent items of space debris, in MEO. The most dangerous items of space debris are the Zenit-2 second stages in SSO orbit, but those will decay in a couple hundred years. The F9 second stages from the Galileo launches will not decay over time.There was a lot of outrage about the Long March 5B launches that left the CZ-5-500 core stage into leo for uncontrolled reentry. I think these Galileo launches also deserve objection. I think this launch should have used a kick-stage (3th stage) to circularize the orbit from the ~200x23000 56deg parking orbit. This kick stage would become the item of space debris, and the F9 second stage could reenter after a reentry burn. Now my questions is; does a launch like this allow the booster to be recovered?And could this even allow 4 instead of 2 Galileo Gen1 satellites to be launch on a launch (1,5mT => 3mT payload mass to MEO) This launch could be performed with a stand (long nozzle Mvac) upper-stage instead of the long coasting version. Possibly even the stubby Mvac could suffice.
Quote from: Rik ISS-fan on 04/28/2024 07:08 amBut, hopefully you do agree that this is not the correct method to perform launches like this.The F9 second stage for this launch was directly added to the catalog of permanent items of space debris, in MEO. The most dangerous items of space debris are the Zenit-2 second stages in SSO orbit, but those will decay in a couple hundred years. The F9 second stages from the Galileo launches will not decay over time.There was a lot of outrage about the Long March 5B launches that left the CZ-5-500 core stage into leo for uncontrolled reentry. I think these Galileo launches also deserve objection. I think this launch should have used a kick-stage (3th stage) to circularize the orbit from the ~200x23000 56deg parking orbit. This kick stage would become the item of space debris, and the F9 second stage could reenter after a reentry burn. Now my questions is; does a launch like this allow the booster to be recovered?And could this even allow 4 instead of 2 Galileo Gen1 satellites to be launch on a launch (1,5mT => 3mT payload mass to MEO) This launch could be performed with a stand (long nozzle Mvac) upper-stage instead of the long coasting version. Possibly even the stubby Mvac could suffice. From what I gather, the usage of expendable 1st stage was exactly because of additional power needed to lower the stage's orbit perigee for disposal after the mission, if not de-orbiting straight from MEO (less likely since I didn't find an air/marine space closure notice for this). If not I thought they can recover the booster via ASDS.We will see where this ends up on USSF's data later.
I think this launch should have used a kick-stage (3th stage) to circularize the orbit from the ~200x23000 56deg parking orbit. This kick stage would become the item of space debris, and the F9 second stage could reenter after a reentry burn.
There should be plenty of margin with F9 expendable. A crude estimate goes like this. They can skip 20 seconds of 3-engine entry burn, and 30 seconds of 1-engine landing burn. That's 90 engine-seconds, so 10 more seconds of 9-engine thrust. Acceleration at burnout is about 3Gs, so that's about 300 m/s. So now instead of LEO+3848, you need LEO+3548. That's about a C3 of 7. This in turn gives a payload of slightly over 2500 kg. Could potentially even be enough for 3 GPS satellites, but maybe a 3-satellite adapter is too heavy, or 3 satellites don't fit in the fairing.
