Arabsat-6A mission [video]

https://spacex.com/webcast

by jacquesm • 7 years ago

609 221 7 years ago

spacex.com

jacquesm5• 7 years ago

Hah, they did it! 3 Landings (2 side boosters and the center core). What a sight!

just_myles• 7 years ago

The third one landed on a drone in the middle of the ocean. Call me crazy but wouldn't that be a moving object?

Insane. All 3 rockets.

jacquesm5• 7 years ago

The drone ship does what it can to be as stationary as possible but the swell will always move the platform to some extent so the ocean landings are a lot more impressive than the land based ones.

mattrp2• 7 years ago

It’s just a practice round for the startup of regular New York to London service.

robax• 7 years ago

For anyone searching, the timestamp is 27:30

blhack• 7 years ago

How incredible is it that FH is launching, and that they landed all three boosters, AND that it isn't even a news story anymore. Amazing.

jacquesm5• 7 years ago

It's funny, if it went wrong more often it would be news but they make it look so easy.

ridgeguy• 7 years ago

They really do make it look easy, don't they?

These days, it seems like the hardest part of a SpaceX launch is maintaining the drone recovery ship video link.

Even though it looks easy, it's never gonna get old. Not for me, anyway. So great!

webXL• 7 years ago

Well, it's news here, especially all 3 boosters. SuperHeavy should be news everywhere.

jcims2• 7 years ago

I'm having a hard time imagining what that's going to look like.

elihu2• 7 years ago

I checked Google News in an incognito browser window, and this is the top item right now.

taylorlapeyre4• 7 years ago

There it is! https://imgur.com/a/gPBmGzj

perilunar• 7 years ago

3 for 3! Beautiful!

dantheman• 7 years ago

Amazing! Such an inspiration!

3 for 3, Good job SpaceX!

monkin• 7 years ago

Congrats to everyone at SpaceX for this epic achievement!

ninjamayo2• 7 years ago

Truly amazing stuff! SpaceX deserves all the credit. Three boosters landing is an amazing feat.

shafyy• 7 years ago

FUCK YEAH.

joebubna• 7 years ago

Great job SpaceX!!!

So proud of them for pushing human space exploration forward.

natch• 7 years ago

Going for 4 for 4! Let’s not forget the successful payload orbit insertion. :-) We’ll see in ~15 minutes. Edit: Congrats SpaceX!

jacquesm5• 7 years ago

Nailed that too. What a day!

errantspark3• 7 years ago

I can't think of anything that beats the dual hoverslam for cool factor. What a breathtaking sight! Mad props to Elon and the team at SpaceX for getting the hat trick.

imjasonmiller• 7 years ago

The sonic booms were lovely as well! Gives you somewhat of a sense on how fast they were coming down.

Klathmon2• 7 years ago

all 6 of them!

Each booster generates 3 distinct "booms". IIRC the causes of each are slightly different, but it's nutty hearing it in person!

ChuckMcM• 7 years ago

Agreed, it is pretty epic. It is one of those things that really impresses how far ahead of the previous generation launch systems this can be.

Now it will be interesting to watch how "low cost" commercial heavy launch capabilities will be used. I know they are working hard on the the BFR but there is money to be made here that I'm sure at least Gwynn Shotwell is looking to take away from ULA and others.

Shivetya• 7 years ago

growing up watching flash gordon, buck rogers, to thunderbirds, and more, it feels as if all the Saturday morning TV is now real.

qwertox• 7 years ago

Historic

jedberg• 7 years ago

I'm a grown man and I still cry every time a booster lands successfully and every time a rocket clears the tower.

What a thing of beauty.

lazysheepherd• 7 years ago

I am not alone on that then!

errantspark3• 7 years ago

I tear up as well, it's an incredible, beautiful display of engineering and physics.

bahmboo• 7 years ago

Grown men are supposed to cry

hinkley• 7 years ago

Birth of a child. Death of a dog. Epic wins.

Yep, checks out.

Agathos• 7 years ago

Crying is nominal.

dpau• 7 years ago

haha, my wife automatically handed me the box of tissues when i put on the spacex live stream just now..

p2t2p2• 7 years ago

Same here. Watching this in the office and thinking to myself "don't cry, please don't cry"

drecoe• 7 years ago

Watching the successful touchdown of the 3 boosters and subsequently tearing up had me feeling like maybe something was wrong with me, but I’m glad to hear I’m not an isolated case and that this achievement was indeed packed with emotion

oska• 7 years ago

I'm emotionally destroyed today. Betrayal and arrest of Julian Assange last night (Australian time) and successful second launch of the Falcon Heavy this morning. Feeling greatly upset while also feeling joy from two very different but simultaneous events.

p.s. not meaning to start a derail about Assange which would be off-topic

savrajsingh• 7 years ago

It is pretty emotional, I admit to some tears as well. Then a thought about joining the SpaceX team.

any626• 7 years ago

Screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/qocmdE1

dougmwne• 7 years ago

Just watched the boosters come down on the Cape from near Cape Canaveral National Seashore. Amazing to watch be able to see the separation, boostback burn and landing burns with my own eyes. Beautiful and eerie sight.

jacquesm5• 7 years ago

Lucky you! Consider me slightly jealous, I have to do with the youtube feed, but I have yet to miss a launch. This one kept me up way past my bedtime but it was so worth it :)

mattrp2• 7 years ago

I took my kids to see the demo launch and they said the rentry burns looked like evil eyes but to me they looked like half an x-wing. ;) everyone must see a live launch.

ninjamayo2• 7 years ago

I don't think that most people realise what an achievement this is. This is major, three boosters landing simultaneously and one of them is landing on a moving object in the middle of the ocean. And they will reuse the two side boosters for the next FH launch.

ethbro2• 7 years ago

* Two boosters landing (mostly) simultaneously, the center core landing later downrange due to the higher altitude and velocity it commenced reentry at

mellow-lake-day• 7 years ago

Two boosters are intentionally offset a bit. Don't remember the exact reason but something about different radar signatures to tell them apart.

rhizome3• 7 years ago

I don't think that most people realise what an achievement this is.

What makes you think that?

phamilton3• 7 years ago

Because those of us that are paying attention can barely fathom how awesome this is. A case of "the more you know, the more impressive it is".

zoeysaurusrex• 7 years ago

I do think most people realize it. When I’ve been around the country, when SpaceX launches come up, people are amazed by it.

spaceheretostay6• 7 years ago

people are amazed by it.

Being 'amazed by it' isn't equivalent to fully realizing what SpaceX's achievements imply: specifically tracking the progress of SpaceX means counting down the years until you can buy a ticket to Mars.

Do most people realize that these launches are primarily done to create Mars colonies? Do most people realize that the goal of SpaceX is to terraform Mars into a planet livable like Earth? Do most people really grasp all this?

I haven't met a single person (aside from existing friends) IRL that understands any of this. It seems to be mostly "cool, rockets!" to most people - none of the full understand of what each success is to SpaceX: money in the bank for Mars development and experience launching rockets to colonize space.

The vertical landing via rocket is to make it easy to launch and land on any solid surface in the solar system. Do most people realize the impact of this? I would be shocked.

loblollyboy• 7 years ago

I went to (a lot) of school for science and engineering. I’m on the internet all the time. I’m hip to this. I know I should be blown away by this kind of thing, but this, and the recent black hole pic for that matter, don’t do it for me. A really good movie, band or even a show like rick and morty will. I’m terms of science/engineering - the theoretical work or ingenious experiments do it for me. I guess what really amazes me is pure novel/creative thinking. The application of that thought is just a lot of work - and unless it’s s moon landing or nuclear fusion or curing a major disease or something like that I’m just like whatever.

gibolt• 7 years ago

Most people don't even know that this happened. I talk to people about it often and most don't know that there is a Tesla floating in space.

drcross2• 7 years ago

I flew several thousand miles to be on Cocoa beach that fateful day to witness it for my own eyes. It's one of the things I'm most proud of having accomplished. I cannot imagine what it feels like to actually work on the project.

ulfw• 7 years ago

I think most people can safely and happily live their lives without having to know there is a Tesla floating in space.

GuB-422• 7 years ago

I think most people realize it thanks to the very good communication by SpaceX.

Personally, from a technology standpoint, I am not that impressed compared to what we have done in the past when it comes to space exploration. Moon landings, space shuttle, Mars rovers... The current state of rocketry all but highlights how awesome it was before.

The awesome part about SpaceX is not that their rockets are the best humanity can do. What's awesome is that it may very well make the first reusable rockets that make economical sense. Unlike NASA in the past, they don't have unlimited money, they are a private company, and even if they have help from the US government, they have to work with a budget.

If anything the achievement is not the rocket itself but how it creates a regain of interest in rocketry, both popular and economic. I mean, our workhorse rocket (Soyuz) dates back from the 50s, and all of the awesome (and too expensive) stuff like the Saturn V and shuttle are now lost.

aswanson2• 7 years ago

I wonder what sparked interest in rocketry in the USSR enough that they launched Sputnik, etc with no immediate military benefit. As berated as communism is, they had vision enough to see past the capitalists in that moment...into space.

stewfortier• 7 years ago

Personally, from a technology standpoint, I am not that impressed compared to what we have done in the past when it comes to space exploration.

This is possibly the most Hacker News comment I have ever seen.

BurningFrog2• 7 years ago

Unlike NASA in the past, they don't have unlimited money

That money ran out, thus also proving limited.

WheelsAtLarge• 7 years ago

I think most people are just focused on other things. I'm sure there are plenty of other great achievements we never took time to appreciate. The discovery of CRISPR is probably one of those things. We just have a different focus. Life moves on...

josephorjoe2• 7 years ago

Nothing to add here except I'm completely impressed as a software engineer and a human. Congrats to all who made this happen -- you have done important stuff.

Watched the video w my 10 year old kid and tried to explain how impressive this is and relate it to my own experiences watching space shuttle launches.

majjam• 7 years ago

Would you mind expanding on that last part regarding how these launches compare to shuttle launches?

tus87• 7 years ago

To be fair it is only a small, incremental improvement to the first FH launch which came within a whisker of doing exactly the same thing, if only for a small lack of fuel on the way down.

sidcool• 7 years ago

What about the core booster? Would that be reused too?

fspeech• 7 years ago

Here is the reuse record so far: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/cores

ilogik• 7 years ago

the fairings were also recovered, and will be reused. (even though they landed in the ocean)

jeffnappi• 7 years ago

That was fun to watch ＼(＾O＾)／

makosdv• 7 years ago

Luckily, I heard about it on the radio on the way home from work and got home a couple minutes before the launch, so I could watch it from my front yard.

Udik• 7 years ago

I can picture the engineers of all the other commercial space companies in the world watching this and laughing, cheering and crying at the same time :)

Klathmon2• 7 years ago

And they just had confirmation of a good orbit on the payload, which means every single part of this mission was a success.

Congratulations to the team at SpaceX!

spaceheretostay6• 7 years ago

FH is reliably going up and coming down, which is incredible: my attention is barely here since they are building multiple Starship Hopper test articles in the open fields of south Texas. [1, 2]

The increasingly most likely scenario with SpaceX and BO is that we'll have self-sufficient Mars colonies and space colonies in the next few decades. The funding is economics-based this time around rather than taxes and government projects, making it less volatile and less likely to be cancelled. Pumped!

[1] Tethered first test: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1114390314565787648?s=19

[2] https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=47730.msg1...

losteric• 7 years ago

we'll have self-sufficient Mars colonies and space colonies in the next few decades. The funding is economics-based this time around rather than taxes and government projects, making it less volatile and less likely to be cancelled

Lunar and asteroid support colonies, sure, but what is the sustainable profit model for Martian colonies?

philipkglass2• 7 years ago

I seem to recall that Robert Zubrin's book "The Case for Mars" suggested selling Martian deuterium to Earth. That idea is tied with "mine the Moon for helium 3" as the least plausible business idea that otherwise-smart people can suggest with a straight face.

EDIT: he also shared this idea in articles.

https://space.nss.org/the-promise-of-mars-by-robert-zubrin/

Deuterium, the heavy isotope of hydrogen currently valued at $10,000 per kilogram, is five times more common on Mars than it is on Earth. Deuterium has its applications today, but it is also the basic fuel for fusion reactors, and in the future when such systems come into play as a major foundation of Earth’s energy economy, the market for deuterium will expand greatly.

Martian colonists will be able to use rocket hoppers using locally produced propellants to lift such resources from the Martian surface to Mars’ moon Phobos, where an electromagnetic catapult can be enplaced capable of firing the cargo off to Earth for export. ...

spaceheretostay6• 7 years ago

At least initially, I think ticket sales will do. With ticket prices floated for like 20 years before any go on sale, the target price is like $200,000 or so and the idea is that many people will be both willing and able to sell their Earthly possessions and go.

They will produce multiple exports from Mars that are most likely going to be scientific data and software, things that are easily transmittable back to Earth (unlike rocks etc).

I would also imagine the more distant future profit models will be similar to on Earth; people will buy and sell goods and services there, just like they do here. There will be Martians who want to go explore the rest of the solar system, so they will build that tech as well.

I could list more and maybe I will but I gotta run. There are limitless potential sustainable profit motives and economic activities that will happen on Mars; until we go and establish the colonies, we can only speculate the exact nature of them. But given that millions of people are saving their money clamoring to move to Mars ASAP, I imagine there will be millions of ideas for generating income on Mars.

Where there are problems that people have, there will be solutions that people will pay for. And there will be millions of people on Mars - so I expect millions of problems and millions of solutions.

Edit: I imagine sports arenas will be built, and new sports created/adapted for Mars (the moon will surely be popular for this too). There will be Martian olympics and various other games that nobody on Earth can do - but will surely pay $20 to 'livestream' ppv.

I'll keep thinking about possible _differentiated, diversified, and large-scale_ revenue sources for self-sufficient colonies on Mars to consider prior to and during their founding.

le-mark2• 7 years ago

My personal theory of how this will play out is that Mars will be a shallow gravity well industrial base for solar system development. We take for granted how integral gravity is to pretty much every thing we do when it comes to building stuff. It's not known if there will ever be large scale industrial activity in zero gravity. O'Neil cylinders are a solution, but expensive to start. If you can either mine Mars or process astroidal material there, it's a lot cheaper to get back into space from Mars than it is from the moon.

elihu2• 7 years ago

Tourism, mining high-value minerals, real-estate speculation, new forms of low-gravity athletics, and retirement communities for people with mobility issues who would be stuck in a wheelchair in full gravity.

andyzei• 7 years ago

Did anyone else notice the object flying by @ 54:26? What was that? Looked bigger than a piece of dust, was moving much faster than the upper stage and payload. Is that normal? Did it pose any risk?

https://youtu.be/TXMGu2d8c8g?t=3265

dylan-m• 7 years ago

A couple inches to the left and that dialog would have been comedy gold :b (Although more seriously, I'll speculate that it looks larger than it is because it's reflecting a lot of light).

reportingsjr• 7 years ago

They explained at another point in today's stream that the pieces you see flying around are solid oxygen from a drain on the second stage. Totally normal and you see it on every one of their launch streams!

chiefofgxbxl• 7 years ago

Interesting find! Earlier in the feed you can see a solid piece of oxygen [0] bouncing off the engine. The particle you mentioned is going past the spacecraft (forward), so I can't see it being solid oxygen. My guess is a piece of dust that is being illuminated, and the camera is picking up the reflection but is blurry, making the particle look bigger than it actually is.

[0] https://youtu.be/TXMGu2d8c8g?t=2729

x2f10• 7 years ago

Whoa - thank you for pointing out the solid oxygen. That is mind-blowing to me! Super cool!

lutorm2• 7 years ago

It happens right as the spacecraft is recoiling from the separation impulse, so I'd guess it's something coming off from the top of the stage and passing by the camera.

weaksauce• 7 years ago

right after main booster of the second stage ignited a part of the ring came off. there is stuff that comes off every launch I've seen.

duskwuff• 7 years ago

That's a stiffening ring. It helps the nozzle to the second stage engine keep its shape while the first stage is firing.

https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/20700

aphextron2• 7 years ago

How on earth could they have not solved the drone ship landing video feed issue yet? Is it really that hard to keep a video camera working near a landing rocket? Even if the feed cuts out, can they not just record it locally and rebroadcast? It makes absolutely no sense.

soperj• 7 years ago

Bigger issues to take care of...

ethbro2• 7 years ago

Is it really that hard to keep a video camera working near a landing rocket?

Yes.

Even if the feed cuts out, can they not just record it locally and rebroadcast?

Yes, but then it wouldn't be a live feed. Which is what they typically broadcast.

aphextron2• 7 years ago

Yes.

Great, I guess that settles it then.

Yes, but then it wouldn't be a live feed. Which is what they typically broadcast.

Because streaming delays aren’t a thing?

walrus015• 7 years ago

It makes absolute sense considering the live video feed is probably coming via a motorized 3-axis tracking Ku-band maritime VSAT system. If you look at aerial photos of the drone ships you can see the radome.

I suppose if they wanted to keep a feed up it would be possible to connect the cameras/network equipment on the ship to something with an ordinary 10Gbps 1310nm LX fiber SFP+ in it, attach 1 km of submarine rated fiber optic cable to a series of floats, and run a fiber optic cable to a small nearby ship with the satellite uplink mounted on it.

drcross2• 7 years ago

Great idea. Fouling the rotating props as they maintain GPS dead reckoning may be a risk they don't want to take.

ncallaway• 7 years ago

How on earth could they have not solved the drone ship landing video feed issue yet?

It's probably technically challenging and not a high priority. Why would this be something you want them to spend any significant resources on?

Is it really that hard to keep a video camera working near a landing rocket?

Probably.

Even if the feed cuts out, can they not just record it locally and rebroadcast?

They literally do this all the time. Look at their YouTube channel, and you can see that they release the completed landings after the fact, even if the live broadcast cut out.

It makes absolutely no sense.

I disagree. I don't think your expectations make any sense.

slics• 7 years ago

Amazing and beautiful engineering. Imagine the satisfaction and the feeling you get knowing that you are part of a team that made all of that soar through the sky and back home safely. /applause

bane• 7 years ago

Jawdropping.

At this point, how far ahead is SpaceX from any other launch effort? 5 years? 10?

walrus015• 7 years ago

Far, but if Bezos were to incrementally sell off 15-20% of his total Amazon stock, he would still remain ridiculously wealthy, and could pour nearly unlimited amounts of funding into Blue Origin. At least enough to get New Glenn flying reliably in a reusable format and probably enough to fund a Super Heavy size successor to New Glenn.

DennisP4• 7 years ago

By then, his competition will be the BFR.

nickik3• 7 years ago

The only competition is BlueOrigin really. They are optimistically only 3-4 year behind. Then they should have a rocket comparable to Falcon Heavy.

The Russians are not really playing other then cheap mass production of old tech.

The European spent 4 years arguing and then came up with a something to compete with at the point when they started arguing. Now it will take another 4 years and then they are still far behind what SpaceX had 10 years ago. And that is totally without re-usability, in that they are another 5-10 years behind.

China is doing lots of things, but not as advanced or impressive and while they grind ahead consistently they are not close to SpaceX right now. At least they progress forward.

ULA is like Europe, targeting what SpaceX had 7 years ago and they will get there in 2-3 years. And then it will be far less impressive still in terms of re-usability.

India is just deploying cheap old tech.

That's basically it. SpaceX owns 50% of the US government launches, 50% of global commercial launches (large once at least). All the survives are 100% government depended, the commercial launch market is basically not close to profitable for anybody but SpaceX.

In terms of engine technology, its the same SpaceX and BlueOrigin are about to surpass the old glory of the US and the Russians and are moving into a new area.

djsumdog• 7 years ago

You forgot about RocketLabs in Auckland. (I know they're no where near to SpaceX/BlueOrigin, but I know people who work there, so it kinda has a special place in my heart).

ebg13• 7 years ago

At 45:09 (T+ 00:25:12) for less than a second the video flips to...something...weird. Anyone know what that is?

https://youtu.be/TXMGu2d8c8g?t=2707

Screenshot: https://imgur.com/GcDytsl

ajuca• 7 years ago

LOX tank cam - similar to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPnCKK1isMI

kraftman• 7 years ago

I mean it's clearly a stargate.

OrgNet• 7 years ago

Oops... forgot to walk outside to take a look.

NeoBasilisk• 7 years ago

This still looks like sci-fi to me.

rland• 7 years ago

I have a question:

It seems to me like the rocket lifted off quite quickly, like the acceleration at first (right at t=0) was very rapid compared to other launches I have seen, especially launches with big rockets.

Is this because it's a satellite that can take higher G's? Is it because they're launching a payload with low mass so it has low TWR? Do these engines spool faster than the engines used in other rockets (like the ones used for Apollo or the space shuttle)?

Or, am I just incorrect that this one is faster...

Jealous of everyone who could witness this up close, as usual.

JshWright7• 7 years ago

Falcon Heavy does indeed lift off the pad faster than many rockets (it's even faster than the single-stick Falcon 9). This is because of its higher overall TWR (since the two side boosters are functionally Falcon 9's without the mass of a second stage and payload). Another rocket that really leaps off the pad is Ariane 5 (once the SRBs light at T+8sec).

Generally speaking you want to accelerate as quickly as possible in the early stages of the flight in order to reduce gravity losses (every second you spend going "up", the more energy you have to spend fighting gravity). There are other factors involved here though (if you get going too fast in the lower atmosphere the losses due to drag start outweighing the savings, etc).

The spooling time of the engine doesn't really matter here, because the launch clamps don't release the rocket until the engines are all up and running and healthy, so when T-0 hits, the engines are already at full thrust.

saagarjha5• 7 years ago

Generally speaking you want to accelerate as quickly as possible in the early stages of the flight in order to reduce gravity losses (every second you spend going "up", the more energy you have to spend fighting gravity).

This doesn't really make sense to me from a simple dynamics perspective. Why does time matter, unless efficiency comes into play somewhere?

Symmetry• 7 years ago

The Falcon Heavy has three times the initial thrust, three times the booster weight, but only the normal amount of second stage weight. Going by numbers from Wikepdia that don't count the payload the normal Falcon 9 has a TWR of 1.41 and the Falcon Heavy has one of 1.64. So it should be lifting into the air about half again as fast.

The payload weight will make a small difference but it'll be pretty small to the overall weight in any event and not make a large difference. Arabsat-6A is just 6 tons compared to a total weight of 1426 tons.

jpatokal2• 7 years ago

For reference, Falcon Heavy's max payloads are 63.8T to LEO and 26.7T to GTO, so today's load was quite light. ArabSat would actually have (just) fit in a regular Falcon 9 as well.

bunderbunder2• 7 years ago

So, just going off of what's on SpaceX's website[0], Falcon Heavy generates ~5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, and weighs 3.12 million pounds. Max payload to LEO is ~140,000 lb That implies that acceleration at liftoff is somewhere between 1.53 and 1.6g, which would be fine for humans.

Further into the launch, I assume it's accelerating way faster than what humans can handle, but human limits wouldn't explain what it looks like anywhere where you can use the ground or apparent distance as a point of reference for speed and acceleration.

According to the Source of All Truth[1], Saturn V generated 7.6 million pounds of thrust, and had a launch weight of 5.1 million pounds. That means that, with no payload, it would accelerate at 1.49G. Meaning that the maximum possible acceleration is less than what you'd get with a fully loaded Falcon Heavy.

But that's not enough slower to be clearly visible. So I got no idea. Maybe it's some sort of perspective thing, or camera angles?

[0] https://www.spacex.com/falcon-heavy [1]: You can figure out the URL

JshWright7• 7 years ago

The maximum axial acceleration of a Falcon launch (in either configuration) is +6g[1]. That's certainly uncomfortable (and a manned flight wouldn't accelerate that quickly), but it's not beyond the limits of humans to tolerate (particularly for a short duration near the burn out of a stage).

[1] https://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/falcon_users_guide...

lutorm2• 7 years ago

I think FH acceleration off the pad is slightly higher than F9. Makes sense since there's 3x as much liftoff thrust but generally the liftoff mass is not 3x that of a F9.

Robotbeat• 7 years ago

This one has about 10% more thrust than the previous Falcon Heavy launch and approximately the same weight, so it's going to be accelerating faster than last time. And as others have said, you have 3 cores but only one upper stage, so you'll have higher Thrust to Weight ratio than a Falcon 9.

hsnewman2• 7 years ago

My congratulations to Elon!

hsnewman2• 7 years ago

Thank you Elon for advancing mankind in such a spectacular way! You are a good person.

mikepurvis• 7 years ago

Looks like no word yet on fairing recovery— according to the reddit thread, there were ships assigned to that duty, but it wasn't mentioned in the webcast and there's no updates I can see on it.

teabee89• 7 years ago

Elon just said, they recovered the fairings from the water undamaged and they are intending to reuse them for Starlink later this year. Source: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1116514068393680896 and https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1116514534557016064

DennisP4• 7 years ago

Jeez I had no idea the fairings had their own thrusters, steerable parachutes, and avionics.

taylorlapeyre4• 7 years ago

At about 45:45 of the stream, there's a quick video of what looks like camera footage of purple gas or liquid swirling around — really unworldly! Does anyone know what that video is of?

https://youtu.be/TXMGu2d8c8g?t=2745

wil421• 7 years ago

Is this what you are talking about?[1] It looks like Stargate or some subliminal image slipped in.

[1]https://imgur.com/a/ZF0tEdQ

taylorlapeyre4• 7 years ago

That's it! Fuel tank maybe? It looks so bizarre.

EDIT: Looks like it's a peak into the LOX fuel tank.

jcfrei• 7 years ago

Footage from a fuel tank camera probably?

JshWright7• 7 years ago

The oxidizer tank, specifically.

jcims2• 7 years ago

Here’s a shot inside a Saturn I fuel tank with some nice narrative. https://youtu.be/fL-Oi9m2beA

If you dig around YouTube you’ll find a number of examples from throughout the space program.

potiuper• 7 years ago

Other question is why is the footage shown at all? Is there some limitation on the ability to switch cameras?

taylorlapeyre4• 7 years ago

More information from my friend at SpaceX:

This camera is on the second stage inside of the liquid oxygen tank. It’s on the top of the inside of the tank looking straight down, and what’s in the middle there between all lines pointing outward is the outlet of the tank that feeds the engine. I have no idea why the liquid oxygen looks kind of purple but this is a super cool shot because you can see the outlet, which has a device on it to make sure we don’t suck any gas through, and on the left side you can see one of the black tanks we fill with gas to keep the tanks pressurized to feed the engines!

phkahler• 7 years ago

They used to show tank footage more. IIRC they don't any more for secrecy reasons (government request?). Managing fuel in the tank is probably non-trivial.

ricardobeat• 7 years ago

I always wonder why they don't deploy a [flying] drone next to the drone ship, to film and broadcast the landing from a safe distance. Probably just not worth the effort.

brandonjm• 7 years ago

Good question, and you are probably correct, not worth the effort. There was one launch where they broadcast the drone ship landing from a nearby support ship (or helicopter, I don't remember exactly) which was cool to see but I haven't seem them do it since.

jaytaylor2• 7 years ago

What are all the debris in the image [0] while the payload is coasting @ 192km above the earth?

[0] https://youtu.be/TXMGu2d8c8g?t=2740

cyrildorsaz• 7 years ago

Ice?

KindOne• 7 years ago

https://youtu.be/TXMGu2d8c8g?t=2864

Solid oxygen.

jaytaylor2• 7 years ago

From where? Just hanging out above the earth as the atmosphere dissipates?

By only 202km it seems to have dissipated.

EDIT:

Thanks for the link! The frozen o2 is emitted from a drainage line on the tank.

monk_e_boy• 7 years ago

Fluffy frozen oxygen, low mass. Bleeds from tank, all normal apparently

mikejb• 7 years ago

For those not lucky enough to explore this in person, Destin Sandlin from Smarter Every Day made a video [1] (from the test launch last year) that gives you a somewhat acoustical representation and a lot of good explanations.

I haven't seen a Falcon Heavy launch, but I've been lucky enough to see a 'normal' Falcon9 launch. There's 2 things that I know I didn't expect: The sound is just beyond anything. And I think the video above brings that across at least to some extend. The other part that surprised me when seeing a launch with my own eyes: The exhaust is bright. It gets lost quite a bit through cameras, so I was surprised how bright those flames are - even 30-45 seconds in, when the rocket is dozens of miles away.

[1] https://youtu.be/ImoQqNyRL8Y

JshWright7• 7 years ago

I recently took my daughter to a Falcon 9 launch (the launch that included the moon lander that failed yesterday, actually). It was a night launch, and the exhaust was almost painfully bright.

nickik3• 7 years ago

This will be the closed to full reusability we ever came. The only thing that is not reused is the second stage. The boosters, core and the fairing are all removed, getting you up to 80% of the capital cost can be recovered.

Arabsat-6A mission [video]

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