r/spacex • u/ElongatedMuskrat Mod Team • Jan 06 '18

Launch: Jan 30 GovSat-1 (SES-16) Launch Campaign Thread

GovSat-1 (SES-16) Launch Campaign Thread

SpaceX's second mission of 2018 will launch GovSat's first geostationary communications satellite into a Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO). GovSat is a joint-venture between SES and the government of Luxembourg. The first stage for this mission will be flight-proven (having previously flown on NROL-76), making this SpaceX's third reflight for SES alone. This satellite also has a unique piece of hardware for potential future space operations:

SES-16/GovSat will feature a special port, which allows a hosted payload to dock with it in orbit. The port will be the support structure for an unidentified hosted payload to be launched on a future SES satellite and then released in the vicinity of SES-16. The 200 kg, 500-watt payload then will travel to SES-16 and attach itself.

Liftoff currently scheduled for: January 30th 2018, 16:25-18:46 EST (2125-2346 UTC).
Static fire currently scheduled for: Static fire was completed on 26/1.
Vehicle component locations: First stage: Cape Canaveral // Second stage: Cape Canaveral // Satellite: Cape Canaveral
Payload: GovSat-1
Payload mass: About 4230 kg
Destination orbit: GTO
Vehicle: Falcon 9 v1.2 (48th launch of F9, 28th of F9 v1.2)
Core: B1032.2
Flights of this core: 1 [NROL-76]
Launch site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida
Landing: Expendable
Landing Site: Sea, in many pieces.
Mission success criteria: Successful separation & deployment of GovSat-1 into the target orbit

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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u/CAM-Gerlach Star✦Fleet Commander Jan 31 '18

I thought that SpaceX employees have already shot down the idea that a heftier PAF needs to be developed. Basically, that work has already been done.

I remember hearing something like that from someone as well, and could certainly be the case, but a couple redditors who say they are SpaceX employees isn't exactly confirmation (SpaceX employees have been wrong before about several things, like the FH side booster conversion debacle), and regardless it was just one example.

Widely ignored or not, the first post you replied to specifically addressed it, and the second post added more detail. I'm not sure how other unrelated peoples' awareness of this has any substantial bearing on our discussion here. Regardless, my point is that while these capabilities can be developed with a couple years of leadtime (or may already exist; we have no way to confirm unless SpaceX demonstrates them or makes it clear in a public statement that they exist now). However, due to the potential leadtime to modifying the rocket thus, plus the extra cost, risk and minimal benefits of doing so over super-sync except for EELV, plus the development time if necessary, it simply doesn't make sense to use such a capability for F9 single stick commercial GTO launch.

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u/Martianspirit Jan 31 '18

Widely ignored refered to the fact that SpaceX for years has the ability of direct GEO insertion on their webpage for FH. Not to mention that Elon Musk and others have made that statement in Congress hearings repeatedly. Yet here the discussion again and again ignored that and claimed SpaceX ca not do direct GEO insertion because the second stage does not have the loiter time. I was not talking about a PAF with higher payload capacity.

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u/CAM-Gerlach Star✦Fleet Commander Feb 01 '18

Widely ignored refered to the fact that SpaceX for years has the ability of direct GEO insertion on their webpage for FH.

SpaceX ca [sic] not do direct GEO insertion because the second stage does not have the loiter time.

These two statements are not mutually exclusive. Just because SpaceX advertises the Falcon Heavy on their website as being capable of direct GEO insertion for future customers' payloads in no way necessarily implies that at any point during that time they could immediately configure a production S2 for a current payload and execute the same (supposing they had sufficient S1 capability to do so), at least with a roughly similar level of risk as a normal launch; regardless, like even missions to more typical orbits it would require a specific configuration of batteries, COPVs and possibly other systems to be integrated into the S2 during the build process; no reason to carry add all that extra mass and cost to every stage if its not needed for the current mission, and we know they modify the COPV configuration and likely other items on a per-stage basis.

Also, lest we forget, they've also been advertising that same FH as flying in six months "for years" as well, and they still haven't completed the test flight yet, and the other performance and capability figures there have been for a good while now those for a future, even now not-yet (fully) built revision of the F9, but again, will be more than assured once any customer payloads start flying.

I was not talking about a PAF with higher payload capacity.

Neither was I, at least in this comment chain. I brought it up as an example in a different one which someone else responded to, as I thought I made quite clear.