GovSat-1 (SES-16) - Falcon 9 - Canaveral SLC-40 - 31.01.2018 21:25 UTC

[tnt22]

https://spaceflight101.com/spacex-falcon-9-launches-govsat-1/

Luxembourg's GovSat-1 in Orbit after Flawless Boost by Flight-Proven SpaceX Falcon 9
January 31, 2018


Photo: SpaceX

SpaceX's sixth flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket – sporting landing legs but flying in throwaway mode – blasted into the afternoon skies over Florida's Cape Canaveral on Wednesday to lift Luxembourg's GovSat-1 sate llite into a high-energy Supersynchronous Transfer Orbit. Liftoff from the Cape's Space Launch Complex 40 occurred at 21:25 UTC, 4:25 p.m. local time and Falcon 9 was in action for just over 32 minutes to dispatch its four-metric ton payload into a highly elliptical orbit peaking over the equator.

Wednesday's mission marked SpaceX's second flight in what is expected to become the company's busiest year yet with up to 30 launches. It also was the precursor to the maiden launch of the tri-core Falcon Heavy rocket that is currently next on the SpaceX manifest, having received its first-ever firm launch target – February 6 during a three-hour window opening at 18:30 UTC, though still subject to a number of reviews that need to provide clearance for launch preparations to proceed.

Спойлер

GovSat-1 – Image: SES

The GovSat mission comes after the January 8 Falcon 9 launch with the ultra-secretive Zuma mission that left a lot of discussion in its wake as unconfirmed reports of a failed payload separation claimed the billion-Dollar mission had been lost. SpaceX maintained the Falcon 9 rocket performed all its tasks during the overnight ascent mission and all data pointed to a nominal launch vehicle performance – still leaving open the possibility that a custom-made payload adapter, built by spacecraft manufacturer Northrop Grumman, malfunctioned.

While Zuma is still surrounded by much mystery, SpaceX pressed ahead with the company's manifest as scheduled – working through Falcon Heavy preparations at Kennedy's Launch Complex 39A while Space Launch Complex 40 some six Kilometers south supports operational Falcon 9 missions, having re-opened for business in December after over a year of downtime following the AMOS-6 testing mishap.


Photo: Orbital ATK / SES

Wednesday's Falcon 9 mission was tasked with lifting the SES 16 / GovSat-1 satellite into orbit for a mission of over 15 years, delivering tamper-resistant, encrypted communications for European government institutions and NATO members across Europe, Africa, the Middle East and vast stretches of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The X- and Ka-Band powerhouse was manufactured by Orbital ATK using the company's GEOStar-3 satellite platform that debuted just last week on the Al Yah 3 high-throughput satellite.

Orbital ATK – tasked with delivering GovSat-1 to Geostationary Orbit for regular service – was hoping for a smoother ride into orbit for their second GEOStar-3 mission after Al Yah 3 was placed in an incorrect orbit last week by its Ariane 5 launch vehicle. The GEOStar-3 platform offers a revamped structure and enhanced electrical power system to support heavier and more power-demanding payloads than Orbital's predecessor satellite bus and the addition of electric propulsion capability allows for flexible maneuvering and a longer operational life.

GovSat-1 was commissioned by LuxGovSat, a joint venture between leading telecommunications provider SES and the Government of Luxembourg, to provide secure communications services under Luxembourg's obligations to NATO while leftover capacity will be made available to government and institutional customers in need for jam-proof connectivity.


GovSat Coverage – Image: LuxGovSat

Outfitted with the equivalent of 68 X- and Ka-Band transponders, GovSat will combine a global X-band beam for wide-area communications, a European Anchor beam to interconnect agency headquarters and six high-powered, fully steerable spot beams that can direct focused capacity wherever it is needed, whenever it is needed. Services supported by the satellite include secure radio communications, data-intensive applications, mobile communications and Intelligence, Reconnaissance & Security services.

GovSat-1 was financed with €50 million from each of the two partners plus a €125-million loan from a Luxembourg bank consortium, covering the funding cost of the joint venture, the GovSat-1 satellite and Falcon 9 launch services. LuxGovSat is the first public-private partnership offering satellite communications in the government frequency bands, catered to customers looking for secure and robust satellite communication links – provided by the X-Band payload – and communications on the move, realized via the Ka-Band payload.

>> SES 16 / GovSat-1 Overview

Targeting a position at 21.5°E in Geostationary Orbit, GovSat-1 will operate for at least 15 years and carries fuel for over 16 years of active service.


Photo: SpaceX

Wednesday's launch was SpaceX's sixth mission with a previously flown first stage, the third with SES involvement after the company placed their SES 10 satellite on the very first 'flight-proven' Falcon 9 in March of last year followed by the launch of SES 11 in October. SES has been one of the 'early adopters' of the innovations SpaceX had to offer – placing trust in the California-based company in 2013 when putting SES 8 on the first Geotransfer flight of the Falcon 9 rocket and again in 2016 when SES 9 flew on the first GTO mission of the upgraded Falcon 9 Full Thrust vehicle.

In use on Wednesday was Falcon 9 Booster #1032, conducting the second flight of its career after giving a lift to the classified NROL-76 satellite on May 1st, 2017. That mission had a fairly benign flight environment in store for the Block 3 booster, allowing it to return to the Space Coast with minimal wear and tear.

>> Falcon 9 FT Launch Vehicle

Still sporting its sooty attire from the previous voyage, Booster 1032 fired up last Thursday for the usual hold-down test performed by SpaceX ahead of every launch and of particular importance for re-use missions that do not undergo re-acceptance testing at SpaceX's Texas site. Falcon 9 received its 4,230-Kilogram payload over the weekend and was wheeled back out to the launch pad in the early hours on Tuesday.


Photo: SES

SpaceX's Drone Ship was sitting this mission out at Port Canaveral as the Block 3 booster was earmarked for retirement via a watery grave as it lacks the provisions for multiple re-flight missions the newer generation boosters have.

However, the booster was equipped with landing legs and grid fins, indicating SpaceX was planning another round of post-separation testing of the vehicle, likely in a data-gathering effort in flight environments that can not be experienced in operational return missions. The same had been done in December on the Iridium-4 mission, but that flight's booster only sported fins for its soft splashdown attempt in the ocean.

Spending an additional night under the Florida sky after Tuesday's launch delay, Falcon 9 was lowered to its horizontal position to allow engineers to replace a faulty sensor on the rocket's second stage before it was once again raised to its vertical position, towering 70 meters over the grounds of Pad 40.


Photo: SpaceX Webcast

Falcon 9 headed into a lengthy countdown in the morning, local time, with several hours of checkouts and final hands-on work to ready the SLC-40 ground system for propellant loading. Two Launch Control Rooms at the Cape and engineering support in California were polled before computers were handed control of the count at the T-70-minute mark for the fast-paced tanking sequence.

Falcon 9 went through final flight control preparations and GovSat-1 switched to battery power while over 500 metric tons of rocket-grade Kerosene, chilled to -7°C, and sub-cooled Liquid Oxygen at -207°C were pumped into the vehicle. The start of engine chilldown at T-7 minutes marked the beginning of a rapid sequence of events to configure Falcon 9 for flight – putting onboard hydraulics through a final checkout, switching the two-stage vehicle to internal power, priming the Strongback for rapid retraction and arming the rocket's autonomous destruct system.


Photo: SpaceX Webcast

Falcon 9 finished propellant loading at T-2 minutes and its triple-redundant computers assumed control at T-1-minute for the final pressurization of tanks and ignition of the engines – signaled by the typical green flash of Falcon's igniter fluid. The 550-metric ton launch vehicle took flight at precisely 21:25:00 UTC when its nine Merlin 1D engines lifted Falcon 9 off the pad with a collective launch thrust of 700 metric ton-force.

Clearing its tower, Falcon 9 pitched and rolled to attain a south-easterly heading as it embarked on its first Geotransfer mission in three months. Active propellant utilization kicked in around half a minute into the mission to deliver an optimized propellant mixture to the engines, consuming 2,450 Kilograms of propellant each second of powered flight. Falcon 9 soared through the sound barrier just over a minute into the mission and the engines throttled back briefly as the vehicle headed through Maximum Dynamic Pressure at T+78 seconds.


Photo: SpaceX Webcast

The first stage fired for two minutes and 38 seconds, just around five seconds shy of its maximum possible burn time to deliver the performance needed to send GovSat-1 toward its high-energy target orbit. MECO occurred after the first stage accelerated the stack to a speed of 2.32 Kilometers per second and the two stages of Falcon 9 parted ways two seconds later via four pneumatic pushers.

The second stage immediately fired up its MVac engine, soaring to a thrust of 95,000-Kilogram-force on a planned burn of five minutes and 54 seconds to lift the stack into a slightly elliptical Low Earth Transfer Orbit. Passing 111 Kilometers in altitude just before reaching T+4 minutes, Falcon 9 dropped its 13-meter long fairing halves to shed no-longer needed weight.


Fairing Separation – Photo: SpaceX Webcast

SpaceX has quietly continued progress in the area of fairing recovery, deploying a new contraption for the company's west coast launches via the sea-going vessel 'Mr Steven' that is equipped with a four-armed device designed to catch descending payload fairing halves – presumably with a net between the arms. The company does not yet have this capability on the East coast, but SpaceX's Go Quest and Go Searcher support vessels departed Port Canaveral on Saturday – either to observe the soft landing of the first stage, fish a fairing out of the water or both.

Stage 2 shut down eight minutes and 34 seconds after liftoff, transitioning into a passive flight phase of nearly 19 minutes to continue on its south-easterly flight path so that the apogee boost could center the equator and thus position the high point of the resulting orbit over the equator. While crossing the Atlantic, the second stage traversed a communications black zone before being re-acquired via the Gabon tracking station that oversaw the critical second burn.

This rocket was meant to test very high retrothrust landing in water so it didn't hurt the droneship, but amazingly it has survived. We will try to tow it back to shore. pic.twitter.com/hipmgdnq16
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 31, 2018

Photo: SpaceX Webcast

The MVac engine re-ignited 26 minutes and 44 seconds into the flight to significantly raise the apogee of the orbit, placing it above the Geostationary Belt, and also reducing the orbital inclination. Falcon 9 was programmed to execute a minimum-residuals shutdown – firing its engine until all but a minimum of propellant on the second stage was expended – allowing the stage to operate longer than for a guided shutdown and so deliver some additional delta-v to put the satellite into a higher orbit with the goal of reducing its fuel expenditure toward GEO.

The burn had a planned duration of 68 seconds, but appeared to run a few seconds longer than that, indicating Stage 2 had some reserve propellants to give GovSat-1 an additional boost. The delta-v for the second burn was 2.64 km/s which should result in an apogee altitude well over 40,000 Kilometers.

Set free from Falcon 9 at T+32 minutes and 20 seconds, SES 16 / GovSat-1 headed off to Geostationary Orbit – targeting a series of apogee maneuvers to circularize its orbit and reduce the inclination to zero to enter its operational slot, interlocked with Earth's rotation to remain centered above the same coverage area.

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[tnt22]

НОРАД зарезервировал 2 номера для объектов запуска - 43178/18013A и 43179/18013B, наборв TLE, скорее всего, не будет

Jonathan McDowell‏Подлинная учетная запись @planet4589 9 ч. назад

... No TLEs from the SpaceX launch - it's possible GovSat orbit is secret.

[Чебурашка]

Бу-га-га... а может он тоже заZUMAлся 

[tnt22]

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/01/31/spacex-rocket-flies-on-60th-anniversary-of-first-u-s-satellite-launch/

SpaceX rocket flies on 60th anniversary of first U.S. satellite launch
January 31, 2018 Stephen Clark


A Falcon 9 rocket takes off Wednesday with the GovSat 1 satellite. Credit: SpaceX

A SpaceX Falcon 9 launcher boosted a 4.7-ton military-grade communications satellite for SES and the Luxembourg government toward a perch 22,300 miles over the equator following a spectacular late afternoon liftoff Tuesday from Florida's Space Coast, clearing the last mission off the launch company's manifest before the long-awaited debut of the massive Falcon Heavy rocket.

Спойлер

Lifting off from Cape Canaveral on the 60th anniversary of the launch of Explorer 1, the first U.S. satellite, the commercial booster rumbled into a clear late afternoon sky a day after SpaceX scrubbed a countdown to replace a sensor on the Falcon 9's second stage.

The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket fired nine Merlin 1D main engines and climbed away from Cape Canaveral's Complex 40 launch pad at 4:25 p.m. EST (2125 GMT), launching a few miles from the site of Explorer 1's historic blastoff from the Complex 26 launch facility on Jan. 31, 1958.

The Falcon 9's engines gimbaled to steer the rocket on a trajectory east from Florida's Space Coast, and the rocket's first stage booster — reused after a launch in May 2017 — shut down and detached for a descent into the Atlantic Ocean.

About a minute later, the composite shroud that protected Luxembourg's GovSat 1 communications satellite during the initial stages of liftoff jettisoned, shedding weight for the Falcon 9's upper stage powering into orbit.

The Falcon 9 rocket's booster stage made a controlled splashdown at sea a few hundred miles east of Cape Canaveral, testing the effectiveness of a high-thrust landing burn using three of its engines, instead of the usual one.

As expected, SpaceX's drone ship was not in position to recover the first stage as it normally does, but the Falcon 9 booster on the GovSat 1 mission was fitted with landing legs and grid fins, hardware necessary for a controlled descent.

Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that the recovery team will try to tow the first stage back to port.


The Falcon 9's first stage booster floats in the Atlantic Ocean after Wednesday's launch. Credit: SpaceX

Meanwhile, the upper stage's single Merlin engine shut down around eight-and-a-half minutes into the mission after reaching an initial parking orbit. The kerosene-fueled engine reignited about 18 minutes later for a roughly minute-long firing, aiming to place GovSat in an elliptical, high-altitude "supersynchronous" transfer orbit stretching as high as 36,000 miles (58,000 kilometers) above Earth at its highest point.

The Falcon 9's upper stage deployed the 9,325-pound (4,230-kilogram) GovSat 1 spacecraft, also known as SES 16, around 32 minutes after liftoff.

Owned by GovSat, a public-private joint venture between SES and the government of Luxembourg, the new satellite will offer secure, military communications services for Luxembourg authorities and the country's allies in Europe and NATO.

SES declared the mission a success in a post-launch press release.

"The launch of GovSat 1 opens up a new era of secure satellite connectivity for governments and institutions," said Patrick Biewer, CEO of GovSat, in a statement. "It brings differentiated capabilities on secure X- and military Ka-band, leveraging private sector efficiencies and strong governmental support. GovSat-1 was designed to meet the specific needs of government customers, and will enable a wide array of defense and civilian security applications, even in the most remote locations."

GovSat 1's on-board thruster will reshape the satellite's orbit to reach a circular path around Earth's equator. Several orbital adjustment maneuvers are planned in the coming weeks, and GovSat 1 should reach its perch in geostationary orbit at an altitude of nearly 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers) by mid-February.

In a briefing with reporters before the launch, Biewer said GovSat 1 should be operational by the beginning of March, once the satellite reaches its final orbit and completes activation and testing procedures.

The satellite project was financed with 100 million euros ($123 million) invested in a 50-50 shareholder arrangement between SES and the Luxembourg government, plus a 125 million euro ($154 million) loan from a consortium of Luxembourg banks.

The startup investments and loan covered GovSat's founding costs, and the procurement of the GovSat 1 spacecraft and its launch on a Falcon 9 rocket.


The GovSat 1 satellite. Credit: Orbital ATK

Built by Orbital ATK, GovSat 1 carries Ka-band and X-band telecom equipment to relay data, radio signals and other communications across a zone stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean. Parked in geostationary orbit at 21.5 degree east longitude, GovSat 1 will move around Earth in lock-step with the planet's rotation, giving it a fixed geographic coverage range.

GovSat 1 will provide military units deployed by Luxembourg's European and NATO allies secure communications links via fixed land positions or antennas on ships in the Mediterranean Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

"The launch of the GovSat 1 satellite is certainly the most exciting moment in our young company's history, the company being founded back in 2015," Biewer said. "Our approach to the market is that we intend to pioneer a new approach to what's known as secure communications services, and we want to provide this to governments and institutions for defense and civilian use."

GovSat 1 merges the secure, encrypted telecom capabilities of traditional government-owned military communications satellites with a commercial business model, resulting in cost savings.

"In X-band, we are featuring a so-called global beam, probably the highest power that is available on the market today, and this is very well suited for providing support for maritime and land-based operations," Biewer said. "It will also be featuring five steerable X-band mission means that provide high-power support for mobility applications in this very resilient frequency.

"The second mission of the payload of this satellite is in military Ka-band," Biewer said. "Here we are deploying an anchor beam that is ideally suited to providing connectivity to headquarters, and we also have two steerable high-power military Ka-band beams. One is designed and shaped to cover the Mediterranean Sea to support high-power and high-bandwidth applications, specifically for ISR, which is for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance applications."

GovSat 1 is not hardened against a nuclear attack, like some government-owned relay satellites, but engineers built the satellite to be resilient to jamming and other threats.

"We are featuring an extensive set of security capabilities, the most secure crypto-technology on the satellite," Biewer said. "We also have advanced anti-jamming capability, which is supporting the two frequencies in X-band and military Ka-band."

GovSat 1 will support military operations, civilian security forces, emergency responders and border forces, including patrols in the Mediterranean Sea, a region trafficked by migrants from the Middle East and North Africa.

"This is to avoid a disaster," said Xavier Bettel, Luxembourg's prime minister, who attended the launch in Florida. "We don't want the Mediterranean Sea to be the cemetery of tomorrow, and this is what is happening at the moment. It is very important through satellites, and through the help of this satellite, we will be able to avoid (this) and have the information if there are boats in the Mediterranean with people on-board."

"NATO is certainly a focus user group that we target, specifically in the context of Luxembourg defense having acquired a significant part of the capabilities on this satellite that they can use for supporting their obligations toward NATO," Biewer said. "Next to NATO nations, we also provide satellite communications to European nations, we provide it to the U.S., and any allied nation."

A contingent of dignitaries from Luxembourg traveled to Cape Canaveral for GovSat 1's launch, including Bettel and Etienne Schneider, Luxembourg's deputy prime minister. Luxembourg's Heriditary Grand Duke Guillaume and his wife the Heriditary Grand Duchesse Stephanie were also present for the launch.

For SES, GovSat 1 is an opportunity to expand the company's reach into the international government services market. SES already has a unit based near Washington, D.C., to oversee the company's business with the U.S. government, but its role is restricted outside the United States, according to Karim Michel Sabbagh, CEO of SES.

Sabbagh said GovSat 1 will help SES's ongoing support to help respond to natural disasters, providing telecom services in the aftermath of earthquakes and hurricanes. Humanitarian and peacekeeping missions in Africa could also be aided by GovSat 1.

Спойлер

SpaceX will follow Wednesday's launch with the long-delayed debut flight of the Falcon Heavy rocket as soon as Tuesday, Feb. 6, from launch pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

The triple-core rocket, made of three Falcon 9 booster stages bolted together, has a three-hour launch window Tuesday opening at 1:30 p.m. EST (1830 GMT).

Once SpaceX's Falcon Heavy clears the pad, two more Falcon 9 missions are on track for liftoffs in February with Spanish-owned satellites.

One Falcon 9 rocket will lift off Feb. 17 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with the Spanish Paz Earth observation satellite, followed by a Falcon 9 launch from Cape Canaveral around Feb. 22 with Hispasat 30W-6, a multipurpose telecom craft.

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Спойлер

Explorer 1's launch aboard a Juno 1 rocket Jan. 31, 1958. Credit: NASA

Wednesday's launch came 60 years after the first U.S. satellite, Explorer 1, rocketed into orbit from Cape Canaveral aboard a Juno 1 launcher designed by Wernher von Braun and his team of German and U.S. scientists at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.

NASA and U.S. Air Force officials, together with surviving members of the original Explorer 1 launch team, gathered at Cape Canaveral's Complex 26 launch pad Wednesday to celebrate the occasion and unveil a new historical market.

Designed and built at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Explorer 1 satellite detected the existence of the Van Allen radiation belts, named for Explorer 1 scientist James Van Allen.

Explorer 1 was the third human-made satellite sent into orbit, launching after the Soviet Union's Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2 spacecraft blasted off in late 1957.

An attempt to place a small satellite in orbit with a U.S. Navy Vanguard rocket in December 1957 failed in spectacular fashion, ending with an explosion on the launch pad.

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Спойлер

"We may have gotten off to a bit of a fiery start in the beginning, but here we are now leading the world, and we launch again today," said Brig. Gen. Wayne Monteith, commander of the U.S. Air Force's 45th Space Wing, in remarks Wednesday shortly before the launch of GovSat 1. "With the successful launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 GovSat mission ... we will have launched 3,568 rockets from the Eastern Range, not at all bad considering how we began.

"And with our partners at NASA, we are the busiest spaceport in the world. With over 30 launches on the horizon for the rest of this year, I am in absolute awe of the progress we have made in only 60 years," Monteith said. "We continue to make history every single month, and we continue to break barriers."

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[vlad7308]

SGS_67 пишет:
Видимо, испытывается новый рубеж скорости движения ступени в атмосфере, по причине малости запаса топлива на возврат.

Скорее испытывается посадка с максимальным обратным ускорением
Чем выше ускорение при посадке, тем ниже расход топлива и меньше влияние ветра.
Поэтому садиться выгоднее всего с максимально возможным ускорением.

[che wi]

Пресс-релиз от Орбитал АТК

https://www.orbitalatk.com/news-room/release.asp?prid=328

Спойлер

Dulles, Virginia 1 February 2018 – Orbital ATK (NYSE: OA), a global leader in aerospace and defense technologies, today announced the successful launch of the GovSat-1 multi-mission satellite. Orbital ATK built the satellite for GovSat, a public-private partnership between the Government of Luxembourg and world-leading satellite operator SES. GovSat-1 launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and marks the second GEOStar-3 satellite built by Orbital ATK to launch this month. It will be used to provide service to governmental and institutional customers.

[свернуть]

Liftoff occurred on January 31 at 4:25 p.m. EST from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The satellite separated successfully from the launch vehicle approximately 32 minutes into the mission after reaching its targeted orbit. Orbital ATK completed the satellite's initial post-launch health check and configuration in preparation for 16 days of orbit-raising procedures and in-orbit tests. Once testing has been completed, operational control of GovSat-1 will be handed over to GovSat.
 
"Our initial testing of GovSat-1 shows the satellite is performing nominally," said Amer Khouri, Vice President of the Commercial Satellite business at Orbital ATK. "The company has previously delivered six GEOStar satellites to SES, one of GovSat's shareholders. GovSat-1 demonstrates continued confidence in the company's GEOStar products."

Спойлер

GovSat-1 was built in Orbital ATK's satellite manufacturing facility in Dulles, Virginia. It is an X-band and military Ka-band satellite that provides high-powered and fully steerable spot beams for multiple government missions. The satellite will be positioned on the European geostationary orbit arc and provide coverage to Europe, the Middle East and Africa, along with extensive maritime coverage over the Mediterranean and Baltic seas, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

The GEOStar-3 platform is the newest, highest power and most advanced platform in the flight-proven GEOStar product line. The spacecraft bus features an increase in both battery capacity and solar array power. An additional GEOStar-3 satellite is planned for launch this year.

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[tnt22]

НОРАД идентифицировал оба объекта запуска. Наборы TLE (ожидаемо) не публикуются

 

[Not]

vlad7308 пишет:

SGS_67 пишет:
Видимо, испытывается новый рубеж скорости движения ступени в атмосфере, по причине малости запаса топлива на возврат.

Скорее испытывается посадка с максимальным обратным ускорением
Чем выше ускорение при посадке, тем ниже расход топлива и меньше влияние ветра.
Поэтому садиться выгоднее всего с максимально возможным ускорением.

Страшного ветра [(с) Аполло13] или какого то другого ?  

[Чебурашка]

Самый прикол, что орбиту можно посчитать из трансляции.
Там на экране до самого конца показывалась высота и скорость. Вот вам и полная энергия в конце активного участка. А следовательно, известно и полуось орбиты с периодом обращения.

[tnt22]

Чебурашка пишет:
орбиту можно посчитать из трансляции

А зачем считать? В чем соль-то?

Известна точка стояния КА на ГСО (21.5° E), она не скрывалась, открыто фигурирует на сайте https://www.govsat.lu/

https://www.govsat.lu/admin/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/govsat-technical-specifications.png

[igel]

Ох, чую я, баржи скоро могут и не понадобиться: :-)

[Чебурашка]

tnt22 пишет:
А зачем считать? В чем соль-то?

А зачем скрывать TLE-шки если это спутник на банальной геопереходной орбите, причём конечная точка путешествия известна.
Может там какая-та ещё секретная ПН есть?

[tnt22]

Chris G - NSF‏ @ChrisG_NSF 24 ч. назад

Achievement unlocked. #GovSat1 #SES16 #SpaceX #Falcon9


Robin Seemangal‏Подлинная учетная запись @nova_road 23 ч. назад

New patch for the collection

[tnt22]

Попытка реставрации посадки 1-й ст на воду (анимация)

Brady Kenniston‏ @TheFavoritist 21 ч. назад

SpaceX today. Probably.

Video

[Sergei]

Hrono пишет:

Видимо в прошлом полёте без спасения было то же самое, но показывать это никому не стали. Но всё же интересно, ноги-то ей зачем приделали?

Интеграционное тестирование.

[ВВК]

Sergei пишет:

Hrono пишет:

Видимо в прошлом полёте без спасения было то же самое, но показывать это никому не стали. Но всё же интересно, ноги-то ей зачем приделали?

Интеграционное тестирование.

Точно с этого раза осталась, может уже давно там "лежит"?

[George]

ВВК пишет:
Но всё же интересно, ноги-то ей зачем приделали?

Вероятно, для обеспечения контакта с поверхностью океана, по которому отключается двигатель. Как только опоры коснулись воды, двигатель отключился. Так же, как и на сушу или баржу. Вероятно, испытывается возможность посадки на воду без использовании баржи, так дешевле. Ведь для этого нужен один буксир, а для баржи два + сама баржа. Правда, подобное крохоборство не совсем понятно, неужели два буксира с баржой настолько дороже чем один буксир? Интересно, будут ли восстанавливать эту ступень хотя бы для прожига.

[Старый]

George пишет:  Вероятно, испытывается возможность посадки на воду без использовании баржи, так дешевле. Ведь для этого нужен один буксир, а для баржи два + сама баржа.

После окунания в воду двигатели врядли удастся использовать повторно. И корпус скорее всего тоже.

[Serge V Iz]

Возможно, материаловедам/прочнистам будет интересно посмотреть на останки.

[Serge V Iz]

Эээ... мокрое? ))