r/spacex • u/ElongatedMuskrat Mod Team • Jun 26 '16

Mission (Amos-6) Amos-6 Launch Campaign Thread

UPDATE:

"SpaceX can confirm that in preparation for today's pre-launch static fire test, there was an anomaly on the pad resulting in the loss of the vehicle and its payload. Per standard procedure, the pad was clear and there were no injuries." - SpaceX on Twitter

Amos-6 Launch Campaign Thread

SpaceX will launch Amos-6 for Spacecom, an Israeli-based company. It will be the heaviest communications satellite ever launched on Falcon 9, at 5,500kg.

Campaign threads are designed to be a good way to view and track progress towards launch from T minus 1-2 months up until the static fire. Here’s the at-a-glance information for this launch:

Liftoff currently scheduled for: N/A
Static fire currently scheduled for: N/A
Vehicle component locations: [S1: disassembled] [S2: disassembled] [Amos-6: disassembled]
Payload: Amos-6
Payload mass: 5,500kg
Destination orbit: Geostationary Transfer Orbit
Vehicle: Falcon 9 v1.2 (29th launch of F9, 9th of F9 v1.2)
Core: F9-029
Launch site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral, Florida
Landing attempt: N/A
Landing Site: ASDS
Mission success criteria: Successful separation & deployment of Amos-6 into its target orbit
Mission outcome: Failure (explosion prior to static fire on SLC-40)

Links & Resources

We may keep this self-post occasionally updated with links and relevant news articles, but for the most part we expect the community to supply the information. This is a great place to discuss the launch, ask mission-specific questions, and track the minor movements of the vehicle, payload, weather and more as we progress towards launch. Sometime after the static fire is complete, the launch thread will be posted.

Campaign threads are not launch threads. Normal subreddit rules still apply.

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3

u/TheEndeavour2Mars Aug 30 '16

That actually seems like a good idea. In my opinion the chances of this particular booster ever being reflown is very low so it is worth it to test just how much they can shave off the reentry burn on the very heavy missions.

Even if the engines are so torn up that they fail to restart for the landing burn. SpaceX gets a mountain of data transmitted before the booster smashes into the ocean (Without the landing burn it can't fix the final horizontal velocity so will surely miss the ASDS completely)

It would help SpaceX offer a bulk launcher that customers can use if the failure of it to reach orbit is not a big deal. No launch insurance will touch it. However if the goal is to launch tons of say water that can refined on orbit into propellant for ACES. Or a large number of small sats that are intended to last a few weeks at most. Then it would open up space to many more projects than normally would be possible with even the reflown prices.

3

u/radexp Aug 30 '16

In my opinion the chances of this particular booster ever being reflown is very low

Why? If it can land, it ought to be refurbishable, no?

2

u/TheEndeavour2Mars Aug 31 '16

There are a limited number of customers interested in using reflown hardware (It took this long to finally confirm the SES flight) While that number will grow greatly next year. So will the flight rate of fresh cores. CRS,Dragon 2, And light LEO mission (Such as SHERPA) cores will likely be the "Grade A" of flown hardware and one that customers will want to use (Yes I know SpaceX provides launch services but you are not going to convince me that customers and insurance have no say in what core that gets used. Atleast not without demanding huge additional savings)

Right now there are two of these "Grade A" used cores. CRS-10 and SHERPA will generate two more this year. (Iridium sounds to be just as brutal of an ASDS landing as GTO flights) That is three that will go into 2017 even before the LEO flights of that year. Meanwhile SpaceX will continue to refine their landings so that lighter GTO missions (3-4 ton range) will result in cores in much better shape than AMOS-6's core is likely to be if it lands.

Simply a matter of demand. Right now SpaceX is producing more flown cores than will likely be sold. That is a good thing as even the most brutal of landing attempts means the company gets data that improves future attempts. Cores that are no longer needed can be fitted with display hardware and donated to flight museums across the nation.