SpaceX Falcon 9

[Max Andriyahov]

Шикарный

[Leonar]

а во сколько в млн долларах обошлось за запуск крайний?

[Apollo13]

Leonar пишет:
а во сколько в млн долларах обошлось за запуск крайний?

Судя по давности контракта (2009 год) недорого.

[Leonar]

Apollo13 пишет:
недорого.

а недорого - это сколько?

[Apollo13]

Сравнение данных NASA LSP и фактических значений

[Apollo13]

Leonar пишет:

Apollo13 пишет:
недорого.

а недорого - это сколько?

Здесь можно посмотреть примерные цены тех времен.

[Leonar]

Apollo13 пишет:
Здесь можно посмотреть примерные цены тех времен

Orbcomm-G2 6 спутников на ССО по 172кг? по цене в 21,3млн?

PONTE VEDRA, Fla. — Satellite messaging service provider Orbcomm has renegotiated its 18-satellite contract with Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) and will now pay $42.6 million for the launch of "up to" 18 Orbcomm satellites on two SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets, Orbcomm said Dec. 27.

т.е. за оба запуска?

т.е. и тут так же может быть или 65 за запуск как с иридиумами?

[Apollo13]

Leonar пишет:
т.е. за оба запуска?

да

Leonar пишет:
т.е. и тут так же может быть или 65 за запуск?

Может быть все что угодно, но скорее значительно меньше 60.

[Leonar]

Apollo13 пишет:
Может быть все что угодно, но скорее

то-то и оно... хотелось бы фактов по железобетоннее

[tnt22]

Chris B - NSF‏ @NASASpaceflight 5 ч. назад

ARTICLE:
Israel's first mission to the moon - to launch on a Falcon 9 - delayed a few weeks -

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/10/israels-first-moon-launch-falcon-delayed-weeks/ ...

- By Thomas Burghardt (@TGMetsFan98)

Спойлер

[свернуть]

[Apollo13]

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3583/1

Debating reusability

by Jeff Foust

Monday, October 8, 2018

It's increasingly difficult for SpaceX to mark new firsts when it comes to reusability, but they managed Sunday night.
That evening, a Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, carrying Argentina's SAOCOM 1A radar imaging satellite. As the rocket's upper stage send the spacecraft into orbit, the first stage returned to Earth—not to a drone ship downrange, but to a landing pad on the former site of Space Launch Complex 4W at Vandenberg, a short distance from SpaceX's launch site at SLC-4E.

"It's not clear that reusability is the one and only solution," Wörner concluded.

While that launch was the first time a Falcon 9 first stage made a landing back at Vandenberg, the landing was otherwise part of an increasingly routine part of SpaceX's operations. The company has now landed first stages 30 times, and reflown boosters more than a dozen times, including this launch: the Block 5 first stage that lifted off Sunday first flew in July, carrying a set of Iridium NEXT satellites.
From a technical standpoint, there seems to be little doubt that operational reusability—routinely recovering and reflying boosters—is feasible. But while others announce plans for reusability, like Blue Origin's New Glenn, not everyone is convinced that reusability is always desirable.
"Reusability is fine from an ecological point of view. From an economic point of view, I don't know," said Jan Wörner, director general of ESA, in a recent interview. He compared it to the production of water bottles: some are meant to be used over and over, while others are used only once and then recycled. "You even find bottles which are just destroyed," he said.
"It's not clear that reusability is the one and only solution," he concluded. That conclusion, of course, reflects the current state of Europe's launch vehicles: neither existing vehicles or ones under development, the Vega-C and Ariane 6, are designed to be reusable. However, ESA and European national agencies are investing in technology for future reusable vehicles. One example Wörner cited is Prometheus, a methane/liquid oxygen engine designed for low-cost production and multiple reuses.
The French and German space agencies are developing a reusable technology experimental vehicle called Callisto (for Cooperative Action leading to Launcher Innovation in Stage Toss back Operations) to test vertical takeoffs and landings, powered by a Prometheus engine. Models of Callisto, on display by those agencies in their exhibits at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Bremen, Germany, made it look very much like a Falcon 9 first stage, complete with retractable landing legs and fins near the top.
Wörner, though, was skeptical that these would be sufficient. "But personally I'm not convinced that this is the one and only solution," he said. "I believe we have to go into more disruptive solutions for launches in the future."
And what does he mean by disruptive? "Any disruption is welcome. We are looking at winged bodies, we are looking into new propulsion systems, hybrid propulsion systems, air-breathing systems, and so on," he responded. "So it's really we are looking to all the different possibilities because it's not clear what is most promising solution for the future."
He added that the lower costs promised by reusability were not everything. "Ariane 5 itself is not one of the cheapest launchers, but reliability counts."

"You really want to maximize for some missions the mass you can put into deep space as opposed to using some of that mass to recover and return the vehicle," Shannon said.

Then there's NASA's Space Launch System, a vehicle that makes use of some of the core technologies demonstrated with the Space Shuttle program. In a decision galling to many space advocates, many of those technologies intended to make the shuttle reusable, notably the Space Shuttle Main Engine, or RS-25, won't be reused on SLS. Engines that previously flew multiple times on shuttle missions, will be expended on initial flights of the SLS until a new variant of the RS-25 engine, intended for single-use missions, enters service.
In a call with reporters last week to upd ate progress on the SLS core stage, John Shannon, vice president and program manager for SLS at Boeing, said the decision not to reuse engines or other components was based on performance.
"If you're going to have a reusable vehicle, you have to take from the performance—the amount of hardware you can take up into space—you have to reduce that by the part of the mass required for propellant, for recovery systems, for anything you need to guide back to a landing," he said.
That "makes a lot of sense," he argued, for many missions, but not those being flown by SLS. "For going into deep space, though, the mass you can get is really at a premium."
He cited as an example a new effort to improve the performance of the Exploration Upper Stage, which will be used on the later Block 1B version of SLS. With NASA's decision earlier this year to delay the Block 1B's introduction until the SLS' fourth mission, versus its second, NASA has asked Boeing to find ways to increase the amount of additional "co-manifested" payload it can carry on missions to cislunar space. A lot of work is planned, he said, to get "one or two extra tons of co-manifest payload."
"You really want to maximize for some missions the mass you can put into deep space as opposed to using some of that mass to recover and return the vehicle," he concluded.

Hans Koenigsmann, a SpaceX vice president, discussing the company's work on reusable rockets during a talk at the International Astronautical Congress in Bremen, Germany, October 3. (credit: J. Foust)

In defense of reusability
Defending the practice of launch vehicle reusability at last week's IAC was Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of build and flight reliability at SpaceX. With Elon Musk staying home this year after giving famous—or infamous—keynotes at the previous two conferences, Koenigsmann was the main representative for the company at this year's event.
Koenigsmann, though, was no stranger to Bremen—he worked at ZARM, the local microgravity research center, for several years prior to SpaceX—or IAC, or even IACs in Bremen. The last time the conference was held in the German city, 15 years ago, Koenigsmann was there along with others from the then-fledgling company to discuss development of the Falcon 1.
"Both Elon and Gwynne [Shotwell] were actually at the meeting here," he recalled of the 2003 event. "We basically got no attention at all. We were just quietly around and looking at other people's hardware."
Times have changed, but the interest in reusability has not: even then, when the company was developing the Falcon 1, it was looking at ways to recover the first stage through parachutes. "Why reusability?" he asked. "Why are we so fixed, almost obsessed, with reusability?"
He said he couldn't think of something in transportation that cost on the same order of a Falcon 9—$50 million— that was only used once. "I couldn't find anything," he concluded. "I don't know of a high-value object that you use once, and then that's pretty much it."
The challenge, he acknowledged, is both technical, in terms of being able to land a first stage in the first place, but also financial, in that the recovery and reuse of that first stage needs to be less than a new rocket. "You've got to have the rocket recovered and reused with minimal refurbishment," he said.

"My job is reliability, and reliability benefits tremendously from reusability," Koenigsmann said.

Much of his talk dived into the details of how landing of Falcon 9 stages works, as well as their experience with the less visible part of reuse, the refurbishment of the boosters after landing. That includes inspections and checkouts of the booster, including static fire tests. "The majority of the work is on the engines, the thermal protection system, and the aero covers," he said. "We have a long-term plan to reduce the refurbishment to routine inspections and periodic maintenance, but in order to do this we need to collect data, we need to collect experience."
A lot of that experience has worked its way into the Block 5 version of the rocket, introduced earlier this year. The company has se t a goal of flying each Block 5 booster a minimum of ten times with only minor refurbishment. The experience from the handful of Block 5 launches to date has been promising, he said.
"I'm surprised on how well the engines have held up," he said. "At this point in time, I'm pretty happy. I think the rocket is really good." He added, though, that the company was still working to "perfect" some of the hotter reentries.
While the Block 5 is intended for at least ten flights, no booster has flown more than twice so far, including Sunday night's launch. However, Koenigsmann said after the talk that a Block 5 booster could make its third flight later this year, possibly on the SSO-A mission, a "dedicated rideshare" mission of dozens of smallsats planned for November from Vandenberg.
Reusability, he noted, offered benefits beyond lower costs. Being able to reuse first stages, he noted, enabled the company to sharply increase its launch rate: 17 launches so far this year, with several more on the manifest before the end of the year. "That is, for us, the enabling part on reusability," he said.
It also has benefits for reliability, in terms of being able to inspect the vehicle. That is of specific interest to him given his job title of vice president of build and flight reliability. "My job is reliability, and reliability benefits tremendously from reusability," he said.
In fact, he played down some of the economic benefits of reusability, at least in the ability of SpaceX in the near term to lower prices. "This didn't happen overnight. We worked on this for many, many years. We put a lot of money in there," he said. "And it's our own money that we put in there."
After the talk, he said the ability to lower prices will depend on how the company can recoup that investment. "At some point, I'm pretty sure they'll come down. I hope it will come down, because that's our goal," he said of launch prices. "So we will drop them eventually, but I don't know when it happens."
Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

Третий пуск одной и той же ступени возможно состоится в ноябре. Миссия SSO-A.

[tnt22]

Michael Baylor‏ @nextspaceflight 47 мин. назад

SpaceX has filed a NOTAM with the FAA and is set to perform a fairing drop test from a helicopter. The test is expected to utilize recovery vessel Mr. Steven. The ship's crew have set her destination to "DROPITLIKEITSHOT."

Track Mr. Steven: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:3439091/zoom:9 ...

[tnt22]

Michael Baylor‏ @nextspaceflight 16 с. назад

Track live: A Blackhawk helicopter is conducting a #SpaceX fairing drop test. Mr. Steven is in position to attempt a catch.

[tnt22]

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-mr-steven-helicopter-drop-test-practice/

SpaceX's Mr. Steven returns with Falcon fairing half in net after drop test practice

By Eric Ralph
Posted on October 11, 2018

Captured in a series of photos taken by Teslarati photographers Pauline Acalin and Tom Cross over several days, SpaceX Falcon fairing recovery vessel Mr. Steven and recovery technicians and engineers have been preparing and practicing for a campaign of controlled fairing drop tests.

Спойлер

By using a helicopter to lift and drop a fairing into Mr. Steven's net, SpaceX will be able to gather an unprecedented amount of data and control far more variables that might impact the success of recoveries. If the fairing is not destroyed in the process, this test series could be as long-lived as SpaceX's Grasshopper program, used to work the largest up-front kinks out of Falcon 9 booster recovery.

Pauline Acalin‏ @w00ki33 20:45 - Oct 6, 2018

Mr Steven looks ready. Should be leaving port at some point today ahead of SAOCOM-1A launch scheduled for Sunday, Oct 7, 7:21pm PT #mrsteven #SpaceX

Although SpaceX technicians managed to reassemble and install Mr. Steven's net and arm fairing recovery mechanisms in just a handful of days, finishing less than 48 hours before the West Coast launch of SAOCOM 1A, the ship remained in port for the mission, passing up its fifth opportunity to attempt recovery of one of Falcon 9's two fairings halves. Why exactly Mr. Steven never left port is unclear and unconfirmed, although SpaceX did mention that recovery would not be attempted this time around during its official launch webcast.

The most likely explanation is mundane – sea states with average swells as large as 4m (13ft) were forecasted (and later recorded) at and around the optimal fairing recovery zone. As a Fast Supply Vessel (FSV) explicitly designed to rapidly and reliably resupply oil rigs and other maritime work areas almost regardless of weather conditions, 4m waves would normally be a tiny pittance for ships as large and heavy as Mr. Steven and would be a nonsensical reason to halt deep-sea operations.


Thanks to their relatively high angle of attack, Mr. Steven's newest arms should not seriously impact his stability, but there is a chance that they limit his operational envelope in high sea-states. (Chuck Bennett)


Mr. Steven seen listing roughly 5 degrees to port during arm installation, July 10th. (Pauline Acalin)


A few-degree list seen during fairing recovery practice, August 13th. (Pauline Acalin)
 
On the other hand, Mr. Steven is without a doubt the most unusual FSV in existence thanks to his massive arms and net, stretching at least 60m by 60m. Based on photos of the arm installation process, significant lists of 5+ degrees are not uncommon when arms are unbalanced during normal staggered (one-at-a-time) installations, and SpaceX quite clearly installs the first two arms on opposite sides and orientations in order to minimize installation-related listing. This indicates that his newest arms have significant mass and thus leverage over the boat's roll characteristics, perhaps explaining why Mr. Steven has performed anywhere fr om 5-10 high-speed trials at sea both with and without arms installed.

Most recently, however, Mr. Steven spent a solid six weeks armless at Berth 240 while some sort of maintenance, analysis, or upgrade was undertaken with those four arms and their eight shock-absorbing booms. It's hard to know for sure, but there are no obvious visual changes between the arms installed in July and August and those now present on his deck, and the net also looks almost identical.

FAIRING DROP TESTS?

What's less familiar these days is an oddly arranged Falcon 9 payload fairing half that has been floating around SpaceX's Port of Los Angeles berths for the last two or so weeks. Up until October 4th, the purpose of that single half was almost entirely unclear. On October 4th, Teslarati's entire space team (Tom, Pauline, and I) coincidentally arrived at the same time as 5-10 SpaceX technicians were working on the fairing, attaching a series of guylines and harnesses and inspecting a number of actuating mechanisms on the half.


First spotted at Berth 52 (JRTI's home), the particular fairing half appears to both be significantly unfinished and potentially cobbled together fr om hardware not meant for flight. Note the writing on the leftmost port: "NOT FOR FLIGHT ... SCRAP". (Pauline Acalin)

Just minutes after we arrived, a worker called out a short countdown and a wholly unexpected crashing noise sounded, followed immediately by several loud clangs as the harness connection mechanisms swung back and connected with metallic parts of the fairing. After the adrenaline wore off, the initial crashing noise was almost certainly the sound of the same mechanical jettison mechanism used to separate fairing halves ~3 minutes after the rocket lifts off.

Once photos of the event could be examined more carefully, that was exactly what we found – the six harness connections were attached to the fairing by way of the same mechanical interface that allows two halves to safely attach to each other. What we had witnessed was a harness separation test, using pressurized gas stored in COPVs (the gold striped cylinders) to rapidly actuate a latch, allowing the metal harness connectors to fall away. This is further evidenced by the presence of neon orange zip-ties connecting the ends of those harnesses to any sturdy fairing structure near the connection port, an easy and (presumably) affordable way to prevent those heavy connectors from swinging down and damaging sensitive piping and components.


An overview of the weird fairing test article just before the harnesses were jettisoned. (Pauline Acalin)


Note the taut, yellow ropes connected to the fairing at its original serparation connector ports. (Pauline Acalin)


Zip-ties prevented the harness connectors from smashing (too hard) into the fairing's innards. (Pauline Acalin)


A Falcon 9 fairing during encapsulation, when a launch payload is sealed inside the fairing's two halves. This small satellite is NASA's TESS, launched in April 2018. (NASA)
 
According to someone familiar with these activities, the purpose of that testing is to prepare for true fairing drop tests from a helicopter. The jettisonable harness would be a necessity for easy drop testing, allowing the helicopter to carry a basic cargo hook and line while technicians inside communicate with the fairing to engage its built-in separation mechanism, all while ensuring that it immediately begins a stable glide or free-fall after dropping.

Observed on October 4th, it was at least moderately disappointing to see Mr. Steven remain in port during the spectacular Falcon 9 launch of SAOCOM 1A, October 7th. Reasons aside, roughly 12 hours after launch, Mr. Steven left on a 10+ hour cruise ~100 miles off the coast, wh ere he repeatedly met up with tugboat Tommy and circled Santa Catalina Island once before heading back to port. Just 24 hours before launch (Oct. 6), the test fairing seen above was placed in Mr. Steven's net for communications and harness testing – 24 hours after launch, Mr. Steven returned to Port of San Pedro after his 10-hour cruise with the same fairing half resting in his net.

[свернуть]

Mr. Steven returned to Port of San Pedro around 7pm on October 8th after a day spent at sea, apparently with a Falcon fairing half in tow. This is the second known time that a fairing has been in Mr. Steven's net. The fairing was eventually lifted off around noon the following day. (Pauline Acalin)


An overlay of the paths of travel of a test-related helicopter and Mr. Steven, both on Oct. 8. The yellow plane is the heli at the beginning of a hover, while the gap between blue triangles in the lower left is wh ere Mr. Steven was during that hover. (MarineTraffic + Flightradar24)
 
How and why it got there is unknown, as is the purpose of half a day spent boating around with the half in his net. However, a helicopter known to be involved in fairing drop tests was seen hovering and flying around Mr. Steven at the same time. Perhaps the two were practicing for real drop attempts, or perhaps the helicopter actually dropped a Falcon fairing (from > 2000 feet) and Mr. Steven successful caught it.

What is clear is that SpaceX is just getting started with efforts to perfect fairing recovery and eventually make the practice as (relatively) routine as Falcon 9 booster recovery and reuse is today. The latter was hardwon and the former will clearly be no easier.

[tnt22]

SpaceX SAOCOM 1A - Launching & Landing pads at SLC-4 comparison in sizes - 4K

Jay DeShetler

Опубликовано: 14 окт. 2018 г.

SpaceX SAOCOM 1A - Vandenberg SLC-4

(0:32)

[Apollo13]

Пуск GPS III-1 похоже будет без спасения первой ступени.

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/9kzbng/rspacex_discusses_october_2018_49/e7u3vco/

FCC launch permit for the GPS III-1 mission on December 2018. No landing permit, expendable mission.

I looked into the RFP and apparently the injection orbit requirement is 1200km x 20181km @ 55deg.

[Max Andriyahov]

Последние Блок-4 топят?

[Apollo13]

Max Andriyahov пишет:
Последние Блок-4 топят?

Нет это новый Блок 5 предположительно 1050.

[tnt22]

Michael Baylor‏ @nextspaceflight 41 мин. назад

SpaceX will conduct another fairing drop test between 19:00 UTC on October 17th and 00:01 UTC on October 18th. Mr Steven is enroute to the drop zone.

[tnt22]

Pauline Acalin‏ @w00ki33 3 ч. назад

After an apparent fairing drop test out at sea today, Mr Steven arrived back at port with the fairing half on deck, but no net, at 1:15am PT.
#mrsteven #spacex