SES-11 (EchoStar 105) - Falcon 9 - Kennedy LC-39A - 11.10.2017 22:53 UTC

[Apollo13]

Дожились

Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust  8h8 hours ago

Experimental video link, not so experimental landing.

[tnt22]

https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/10/12/spacex-launches-its-15th-mission-of-the-year/

SpaceX launches its 15th mission of the year
October 12, 2017 Stephen Clark

Maintaining a brisk flight rate three days after its last launch, SpaceX sent a Falcon 9 booster powered by a reused first stage into orbit Wednesday evening from Florida with an Airbus-built communications satellite for SES and EchoStar.

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Credit: SpaceX

The successful launch placed the 5.7-ton (5.2-metric ton) satellite in a "supersynchronous" orbit arcing thousands of miles above Earth, and the Falcon 9's first stage returned to landing on a football field-sized barge holding position around 200 miles (300 kilometers) east of Cape Canaveral.

Wednesday's mission was the 15th Falcon 9 flight of the year, and the second in three days, coming on the heels of a launch Monday from California's Central Coast.

Owned by SES, the payload carried into orbit Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center will broadcast television programming, relay video for cable outlets, and support data services over the Americas during a mission expected to last at least 15 years.

Luxembourg-based SES and Colorado-headquartered EchoStar Corp. will share the satellite's communications capacity in a "condosat" arrangement announced in 2014. SES calls its portion of the spacecraft SES 11, and EchoStar named the mission EchoStar 105.

The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from pad 39A at the Florida spaceport at 6:53 p.m. EDT (2253 GMT) Wednesday after a textbook countdown, climbed into a clear evening sky just before sunset and turned on an easterly heading as it soared into the stratosphere.

Nine Merlin 1D engines generated 1.7 million pounds of window-rattling thrust as the Falcon 9 rocket departed the Kennedy Space Center, chugging a super-chilled, densified mixture of RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen.

The first stage's nine main engines shut down around two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff. Moments later, the 14-story booster dropped away from the Falcon 9's second stage, then flipped around to fly tail first, setting up for a scorching re-entry from an altitude of 74 miles (119 kilometers).

Grid fins unfurled from the cigar-shaped booster to help guide it back to Earth, and three of the first stage engines reignited for an entry burn, followed by a final braking maneuver with one of the Merlin engines as it approached SpaceX's drone ship, dubbed "Of Course I Still Love You."

Four landing legs made of carbon fiber and aluminum honeycomb extended just before the rocket touched down on the floating barge in rough seas, notching the 18th intact recovery of a Falcon 9 first stage booster in 23 tries.

The landing at sea completed a seemingly flawless re-flight for the first stage booster, which logged its first mission in February sending a Dragon supply ship on a trajectory toward the International Space Station, then returned to Cape Canaveral for recovery.


The Falcon 9 rocket's first stage booster landed on a drone ship downrange in the Atlantic Ocean. Credit: SpaceX

Going into Wednesday's flight, SES had experience launching a satellite on a previously-flown Falcon 9 booster. The global satellite operator put one of its payloads on the first Falcon 9 launch with a reused first stage March 30, making history and going far in demonstrating SpaceX's concept for reusing rocket hardware, a capability the company says will slash the cost of spaceflight.

Another reused booster launched June 23 with the BulgariaSat 1 communications satellite, and the SES 11/EchoStar 105 spacecraft launched Wednesday was the third payload to fly on a previously-launched Falcon 9.

A camera affixed to the Falcon 9's upper stage continued streaming live views from space as a vacuum-rated Merlin engine ignited two times to propel the SES 11/EchoStar 105 satellite into orbit.

The spacecraft deployed from the launcher around 36 minutes into the mission as it flew off the east coast of Africa. Ground controllers received the first signals from the SES 11/EchoStar 105 satellite a few minutes later, and engineers confirmed it was operating normally.

Publicly-available U.S. military tracking data indicated the satellite was released in an elliptical transfer orbit ranging in altitude between 195 miles (314 kilometers) and 25,181 miles (40,526 kilometers). The military's space surveillance network reported the satellite was orbiting at a tilt of 27.9 degrees to the equator.

Over the next couple of weeks, the spacecraft's own liquid-fueled engine will conduct three apogee burns and one perigee burn at the high and low points of its orbit, eventually settling in a circular geostationary orbit 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers) directly over the equator.

The satellite's speed at that altitude will match the rate of Earth's rotation, and it will hover over an operating post at 105 degrees west longitude, entering commercial service by late November.

SES will take charge of the satellite's 24 C-band transponders, and EchoStar will control 24 Ku-band transponders.

"From our point-of-view, it's basically for the U.S. video neighborhood, and specifically for the delivery of HD and Ultra HD," said Martin Halliwell, chief technology officer, in an interview before the launch.

"We're trying to utilize this for the development of Ultra HD, trying to encourage the usage and distribution of that. We're covering the whole of (the continental United States), plus Hawaii, Mexico and the Caribbean as well, so it has very good coverage."

SES will primarily use the satellite to relay video programming for cable channels.


The SES 11/EchoStar 105 satellite during ground testing. Credit: SES

EchoStar says it will employ the relay station's Ku-band instruments for video distribution and data services for media companies, corporate customers, and the U.S. government and military over the United States, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.

The newest member of the SES and EchoStar fleets will replace the AMC 15 and AMC 18 satellites launched in 2004 and 2006.

Halliwell has been one of SpaceX's most loyal proponents in the commercial satellite business.

He said SES did not receive a significant financial discount from SpaceX in switching the SES 11/EchoStar 105 launch to a reused booster, but the agreement did result in an earlier launch date.

The roughly 11,500-pound (5,200-kilogram) satellite, built by Airbus Defense and Space, was originally supposed to launch about one year ago, according to Halliwell. But a Falcon 9 rocket explosion on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral in September 2016 grounded SpaceX missions more than four months, and re-shuffled the company's manifest.

So SES jumped at the the availability of a recovered rocket in SpaceX's inventory to ensure its next satellite could launch as soon as possible.

SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk said earlier this year the company wants to recoup a $1 billion investment in making the Falcon 9 rocket's first stage recoverable and reusable, so prices will not drop significantly in the short-term. In future years, Musk said Falcon 9s could be landed and re-launched within 24 hours, cutting costs to little more than the price of propellant.

Karim Michel Sabbagh, CEO of SES, is pushing for a 50 percent reduction in Falcon 9 prices, and he is not alone. A Falcon 9 launch currently sells for around $61 million commercially, according to SpaceX's website.

"Obviously, we'd love to see that," Halliwell said, sharing his personal prediction on future launch price movement. "I would love to, but I think we're going to have about the sort of numbers that we've got ... Will demand increase? Will demand drive the pricing associated with it? I don't know. What does the cost need to be to be self-sustaining? I don't know the answer to any of this. Will it come down to $30 million? I don't think so."

While many space industry officials and observers have called attention to the impact of reused rockets on launch prices, Halliwell said there is another, less discussed benefit: launch availability.

"I think, in the long term, they've got so much hardware which is coming back, it has to help," he said. "It has to make the cadence improve, and the fact they've got two (launch sites), and maybe in the future four — between pad 40, 39A, Vandenberg and Texas — wow, that should be good. For us, it gives us a better chance to get into space on time."

According to Halliwell, most satellites spend months in storage between the end of construction and shipment to their launch base. Such delays come with financial pitfalls for satellite owners, who have already paid for the spacecraft and launch services, but are not earning revenue with their new asset.

SES is considering launching its next satellite — SES 16 developed in partnership with the government of Luxembourg — with a reused Falcon 9 booster in January.

SpaceX plans approximately five more missions before the end of the year — four from Florida and one from California — potentially including the inaugural test flight of the company's huge Falcon Heavy rocket.

Next on the company's manifest is the launch of the Koreasat 5A commercial communications satellite for direct-to-home television broadcasting in the Asia-Pacific region, and maritime relay services across Asia, the Middle East and the Indian Ocean.

The Koreasat 5A mission is set for liftoff no earlier than Oct. 30 from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.

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[tnt22]

https://www.echostar.com/Press/Newsandmedia/EchoStar%20105-SES-11%20Satellite%20Successfully%20Launched.aspx

EchoStar 105/SES-11 Satellite Successfully Launched

October 12, 2017

Ku-band Capacity Tailored for Customer Applications

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. / CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., October 12, 2017 — EchoStar Corp. (NASDAQ: SATS) announced today that the EchoStar 105/SES-11 satellite was successfully launched on October 11 at 6:53 PM EDT on a SpaceX Falcon 9 vehicle from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Спойлер

EchoStar 105/SES-11, a dual-mission satellite for EchoStar and SES, is a hybrid Ku and C-band communications satellite that provides EchoStar with 24 Ku-band transponders of 36 MHz, marketed as EchoStar 105, and SES with a C-band payload of 24 transponders, marketed under the name SES-11. The high-powered communications satellite replaces Ku-band capacity for AMC-15 and C-band capacity for AMC-18 at the 105 degrees West orbital slot.

"We are excited about the increased capabilities and expanded reach that EchoStar 105 will provide," said Anders Johnson, president of EchoStar Satellite Services L.L.C. "EchoStar 105 will enable us to meet the evolving capacity requirements of our customers in North America as they grow their businesses and pursue new markets."

EchoStar 105 will provide Ku-band transponder capacity with coverage of the 50 U.S. states and expanded reach to the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean for satellite communications services for EchoStar's enterprise, media and broadcast, and U.S. government service provider customers.

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[tnt22]

Все объекты запуска идентифицированы
 

[Georgea]

О роботе на барже ничего не слышно, часом?

[tnt22]

Сабж начал манёвры по коррекции орбиты
 

[tnt22]

Georgea пишет:
О роботе на барже ничего не слышно, часом?

Just A. Tinker‏ @John_Gardi 3 ч назад

#SpaceX Fans A slightly crispy Falcon 9 booster stage on OCISLY after doing its part to loft #EchoStar105/#SES11 to GTO. A bit of a lean.



3 ч назад

Hey, it looks like #SpaceX's Roomba Bot has been brought into service for the first time! Its garage door is open on the left side of OCISLY



3 ч назад

Here is a zoom in with a li'le bit of image forensics to improve the contrast and it does look like our many armed friend, the Roomba Bot.

[tnt22]

Короткое видео

(0:18 )
(источник: instagram.com/p/BaOxlDBBtJS/)

[tnt22]

We Report Space‏ @WeReportSpace 12 мин. назад

The @SpaceX Go Searcher returned to Port Canaveral tonight with some rocket part on deck: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29418863@N04/albums/72157686191312452 ... Quickly offloaded in dark


Julia‏ @julia_bergeron 5 мин. назад

Go Searcher is back with non fairing parts under cover of darkness. Perhaps OCISLY overnight. Perhaps not. Go Quest is still out...

[Georgea]

tnt22 пишет:
Here is a zoom in with a li'le bit of image forensics to improve the contrast and it does look like our many armed friend, the Roomba Bot.

Не очень-то я вижу робота... Но если он и есть - можно констатировать, что держать ступень вертикально ему не удается. Есть ли тогда в нем смысл?

[tnt22]

Julia‏ @julia_bergeron 8 мин. назад

Looks like @SpaceX Quest and OCISLY are getting ready to head in now. Perhaps a night arrival for a change of pace.

[che wi]

https://imgur.com/a/PL4OS

[tnt22]

John Kraus‏ @johnkrausphotos 4 ч. назад

Beautiful sunrise return of #SpaceX #Falcon9 first stage following EchoStar 105/SES-11 launch and droneship landing.

[tnt22]

John Kraus‏ @johnkrausphotos 2 ч. назад

More photos I took of today's sunrise return of #SpaceX #Falcon9 B1031.2 following EchoStar 105/SES-11 launch and landing.

Спойлер

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[tnt22]

Alicia (SpaceGal)‏ @murphypak 1 ч. назад

SpaceX #Falcon9 Returning On #OCISLY this morning

Спойлер

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1 ч. назад

Screen shots from my video #SpaceX #OCISLY #Falcon9

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[tnt22]

https://scontent-frt3-2.cdninstagram.com/t51.2885-15/e35/22580630_2096373227253180_2108330786259206144_n.jpg

(источник: instagram.com/p/BaRGO3tH5Sg/)

[tnt22]

http://spaceflight101.com/falcon-9-ses-11/spacex-drone-ships-return-to-home-ports-with-more-less-used-falcon-9-rockets/

SpaceX Drone Ships Return to Home Ports with More & Less Used Falcon 9 Rockets
October 15, 2017

SpaceX's two Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ships have returned to their home ports on the East and West Coast of the United States after catching Falcon 9 boosters earlier this week.

Receiving the two boosters, ground crews will be tasked with unloading them fr om the ships and put them through post-flight safing with one booster in slightly less toasty condition entering refurbishment for a future mission and the other, well roasted first stage heading into inspections before retirement after a pair of operational missions.

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The twice-flown 1031 Booster arrives at Port Canaveral – Photo: John Kraus, http://johnkrausphotos.com/

Moving through its busy 2017 manifest at brisk pace, SpaceX managed to pack two launches into this week, starting off on Monday with the company's third mission in support of the deployment of the Iridium-NEXT constellation. Falcon 9, featuring brand new Block 4 first and second stages, lifted off from SLC-4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base before sunrise on Monday, successfully delivering the ten satellites into their planned 620-Kilometer orbit and returning the first stage, designated Booster #1041, to the 'Just Read The Instructions' Drone Ship waiting 244 Kilometers south of the California launch site.


Iridium-3 (left) & SES-11 (right) liftoff shots – Credit: SpaceX

The second Falcon 9 launch of the week occurred at sunset on Wednesday from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A, featuring a previously flown first stage lifting off with the SES 11 broadcasting satellite. Having flown for the first time back in February on a Dragon resupply mission, the booster was facing a more challenging landing as SES 11 required higher performance from the launch vehicle to reach its desired high-energy transfer orbit.

Coming in hot and heavy, Booster #1031 successfully managed to find the Drone Ship 'Of Course I Still Love You' located 636 Kilometers from Cape Canaveral, battling choppy seas to provide a stable landing platform to the booster.

This marked the second time both SpaceX Drone Ships were out at sea with Falcon 9 stages sitting atop after the Iridium-2 booster and twice-flown BulgariaSat-1 booster returned in close succession in June 2017.

This week's Drone Ship landings increased SpaceX's streak to fourteen successful recoveries in a row and improves the company's stats for sea-based landings to 11 out of 16 tries. All seven landing attempts on pads on land have been successful, giving SpaceX a total of 15 recovered boosters including three that have flown to the edge of SpaceX and back twice.

>> SES-11 Launch Updates

>> Iridium-3 Mission Updates


Photo: Pauline Acalin, @w00ki33 on Twitter

After landing, the boosters were safed remotely to ensure their tanks were at safe pressures and any ordnances were secure before engineers were allowed to re-board the Drone Ships to tie down the first stages for their trip into port. Both recovery campaigns were not without issue as engineers in the Pacific had to hold off on re-boarding the Drone Ship due to rough seas, though booster 1041 remained in position close to the center of the prominent SpaceX logo painted on deck to mark the bullseye landing target.

In the waters of the Atlantic, Falcon 9 Booster #1031 was leaning to one side after using up some of its crush core capability when making its twilight touchdown. This apparently precluded the Octograbber or Roomba from being used to remotely secure the first stage as images show the traditional jackstands were used to tie it down on deck for the journey back to port.

Booster #1041 arrived at the Port of Los Angeles Thursday morning and was lifted off the Drone Ship and onto a ground stand by Friday for the removal of its landing legs, draining of leftover fuel and igniter fluid and transfer to a horizontal position to return to SpaceX's manufacturing base in Hawthorne, just over 20 Kilometers north from the port as the crow flies.

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Pauline Acalin @w00ki33

The #IridiumNEXT-3 booster back at port in San Pedro this morning from its Oct 9 launch and landing at Vandenberg AFB. #SpaceX

12:23 AM - Oct 13, 2017

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On the East Coast wh ere most of SpaceX's recoveries have occurred so far, the stage was set for an early Sunday morning arrival of Booster #1031 with the Drone Ship holding clear of the cost until being allowed into Port Canaveral. Prior to its arrival, the Go Searcher support ship headed into port with what appeared to be a piece of the rocket's payload fairing, indicating SpaceX is making quiet progress in the area of fairing recovery as the expectation is for fairing re-use to be realized at some point next year.


Photo: John Kraus,http://johnkrausphotos.com/

'Of Course I Still Love You' was towed into Port Canaveral around sunrise, marking 1031's first return through port since its first mission ended with a land-based landing at Cape Canaveral's Landing Zone 1, enabled by plenty of surplus propellants on Low Earth Orbit deliveries.



Comparing the two stages that returned to shore this week, the differences between Low Earth Orbit and Geotransfer Missions become obvious. Booster #1041, although appearing much darker than when it departed California due to soot deposited onto its fuel tank section, is seen in almost pristine shape with no obvious damage and four perfectly intact grid fins, minus the loss of some of their coating. The twice-flown 1031 on the other hand, suffered a bit more as it faced much higher entry energy.


Booster #1041 on Final Approach to JRTI -Photo: SpaceX Webcast

Although the #1041 vehicle carried a heavier load than #1031, delivering payloads to Low Earth Orbit leaves the first stage with plenty of excess performance. This allowed Booster #1041 to conduct a boost-back maneuver immediately after sending the second stage on its way, hitting the brakes and shortening its downrange travel distance. A 13-second burn at re-entry slowed the booster to 871 meters per second for atmospheric entry.

>> Falcon 9 FT Overview


Signs of a Hot Re-Entry for Booster 1031 – Photo: SpaceX Webcast


Photo: SpaceX Webcast

Sending the Falcon 9 second stage with SES 11 on its way toward Geostationary Transfer Orbit required Booster #1031 to fire its engines 12 seconds longer than #1041, consequently accelerating the vehicle to a higher MECO velocity (2.29km/s vs. 1.93km/s for Iridium-3) and burning propellants that would not be available for a boost back maneuver. As a result, #1031 could only make a twenty-second braking maneuver just before re-entry, slowing down to 1.66 Kilometers per second (hitting the atmosphere 793m/s faster than #1041).

Kinetic energy increases as a square of the velocity and peak heating as a cube of velocity – explaining why even a slightly higher MECO velocity/entry speed will have a considerable effect on the stage's return journey. Onboard video from Booster #1031 showed the vehicle immersed in plasma as it hit the dense atmosphere en-route to a post-sunset landing on the OCISLY Drone Ship. Pieces of the engine section heat shield were seen flying off and the aluminum grid fins were glowing white hot before onboard video cut out. Photos of the booster after its return showed part of the grid fins facing the hypersonic flow had burned away and molten aluminum had been deposited onto the interstage downstream.

Although Booster #1031, a Block 3 vehicle, is unlikely to fly to space a third time, its recovery will provide SpaceX with additional data on how repeat mission cycles affect the different components on the booster. This knowledge can be used to tweak the design of the Falcon 9 Block 5 vehicle that will represent the launcher's final design iteration, optimized for high performance and easy re-use of the first stage without extensive refurbishment work in between flights to realize SpaceX's goal of considerably cutting costs for access to space.


KoreaSat-5A in final processing – Photo: Thales Alenia

With both boosters back on dry land, SpaceX will begin shifting focus to its next mission, still targeting an October 30 liftoff from LC-39A with the KoreaSat-5A communications satellite. After that, a previously undisclosed mission has shown up on the East Coast manifest – going only by the code name Zuma with no payload or customer associated with it. This flight, documentation filed by SpaceX with the Federal Communications Commission shows, is targeting launch as early as mid-November with filings indicating the mission would feature a Landing Zone 1 recovery of the first stage. It is highly unusual for a mission to remain secret until this close to launch.

After the mysterious Zuma launch, SpaceX will move Falcon 9 east coast operations back to Space Launch Complex 40 that was knocked offline on September 1st, 2016 – sustaining extensive damage in the explosion of the Falcon 9 rocket carrying AMOS-6 during the countdown toward its Static Fire Test. Moving back to SLC-40 with the Dragon SpX-13 mission (NET Late November), SpaceX will be clear to enter outfitting tasks on LC-39A to set up for the inaugural mission of the three-core Falcon Heavy rocket.

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[Oleg]

хорошо решетки обуглились, как будто сосиски на них жарили

[Georgea]

tnt22 пишет:
SpaceX Drone Ships Return to Home Ports with More & Less Used Falcon 9 Rockets

Интересная же статья. Почему по-русски никто такое не напишет или, хотя бы, не переведет? Непонятно...

[tnt22]

Сабж завершил 2-й манёвр по подъёму перигея