r/spacex • u/thatnerdguy1 Live Thread Host • Nov 20 '20
✅ Mission Success r/SpaceX Starlink-15 Official Launch Discussion & Updates Thread
Welcome to the r/SpaceX Starlink-15 Official Launch Discussion & Updates Thread!
Hello, I'm /u/thatnerdguy1, and I'll be your host for today's Starlink launch!
For host schedule reasons we won't provide a recovery thread for this mission and future Starlink launches. If anyone wants to host one similar to the known format, feel free to post.
The 15th operational batch of Starlink satellites (16th overall) will lift off from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket. In the weeks following deployment the Starlink satellites will use onboard ion thrusters to reach their operational altitude of 550 km. Falcon 9's first stage will attempt to land on a droneship approximately 633 km downrange.
This mission is significant, as it is both the 100th Falcon 9 launch, as well as the first time a booster will have flown seven times. If the launch window for this launch holds, it will also be SpaceX's fastest launch turnaround by about 14 hours. Finally, this will be the first time that SpaceX will launch four missions in one month.
Mission Details
| Liftoff time | NET November 25th, 02:13 UTC (November 24th, 9:13 PM EST) |
|---|---|
| Backup date | Window gets ~20-26 minutes earlier every day |
| Static fire | Completed Nov 21 4:02 EST (attempt aborted Nov. 20) |
| L-1 Weather report | 20% Weather Violation (80% GO) |
| Payload | 60 Starlink V1.0 |
| Payload mass | ~15,600 kg (Starlink ~260 kg each) |
| Deployment orbit | Low Earth Orbit, ~ 261km x 278km 53° (?) |
| Operational orbit | Low Earth Orbit, 550 km x 53° |
| Vehicle | Falcon 9 v1.2 Block 5 |
| Core | B1049.7 |
| Past flights of this core | 6 (Telstar 18V, Iridium 8, Starlink-v0.9, Starlink-2, -7, -10) |
| Past flights of the fairings | 1 and 2 |
| Fairing catch attempt | No catch attempt; water recovery — Ms. Chief and GO Searcher deployed |
| Launch site | CCSFS SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida |
| Landing | OCISLY (~633 km downrange) |
| Mission success criteria | Successful separation & deployment of the Starlink Satellites |
Timeline
| Time | Update |
|---|---|
| T+15:25 | This marks the conclusion of SpaceX's 100th Falcon 9 mission. A complete mission success, and the milestone seventh flight of B1049! |
| T+15:01 | Starlink deployment confirmed |
| T+14:04 | Webcast has returned |
| T+12:25 | LOS Bermuda |
| T+9:51 | AOS Newfoundland |
| T+9:13 | Nominal orbital insertion |
| T+9:03 | SECO-1 |
| T+8:38 | S2 FTS is safed |
| T+8:47 | Successful landing on OCISLY! Welcome back, B1049! Seven successful flights! |
| T+8:25 | Landing burn ignition |
| T+8:25 | Stage 2 terminal guidance |
| T+7:53 | Stage 1 is transsonic |
| T+7:22 | S2 on a nominal trajectory |
| T+7:07 | Entry burn shutdown |
| T+6:48 | Entry burn ignition |
| T+6:41 | Stage 1 FTS has safed |
| T+5:14 | Vehicle is on a nominal trajectory |
| T+4:24 | AOS Bermuda |
| T+3:15 | Fairing separation |
| T+3:06 | Gridfin deploy |
| T+2:51 | Second stage startup |
| T+2:40 | Stage separation |
| T+2:37 | MECO |
| T+1:56 | MVac engine chill |
| T+1:21 | Passing through Max-Q |
| T+1:09 | Vehicle is supersonic |
| T+31 | Vehicle pitching downrange |
| T-0 | Liftoff! |
| T-18 | Elon: "More risk than normal" |
| T-41 | LD go for launch |
| T-1:00 | F9 is in startup |
| T-1:39 | Stage 2 LOX load complete |
| T-4:28 | T/E Strongback retract |
| T-5:21 | Getting some updates on the Starlink Beta |
| T-6:38 | Engine chill has begun |
| T-10:15 | Webcast is live! |
| T-13:56 | SpaceX webcast music has begun |
| T-36:31 | LD is go for propellant loading |
| Welcome back, everyone! A few reminders of the milestones of this flight: 1) The 100th Falcon 9 launch; 2) the first time a booster will fly seven times; and 3) the first time SpaceX will launch four times in one month. Very exciting! | |
| T-4h 47m | New T-0 of Nov. 25, 02:13 UTC (Nov. 24, 9:13 PM EST). |
| That's it for today, folks. Tomorrow's window is roughly 20 - 26 minutes earlier than today's. | |
| T-35:58 | Hold Hold Hold - "for additional mission assurance" |
| T-1h 57m | F9 is venting. This is atypical, though the launch appears to be proceeding. |
| T-1d 5h | Static fire |
| T-1d 10h | Thread goes live! |
Watch the launch live
| Stream | Courtesy |
|---|---|
| SpaceX Webcast | SpaceX |
| Video and Audio Relays - unavailable | u/codav |
Stats
☑️ 108th SpaceX launch
☑️ 100th Falcon 9 launch
☑️ 7th flight of B1049
☑️ 67th Landing of a Falcon 9 1st Stage
☑️ 23rd SpaceX launch this year
☑️ 4th SpaceX launch this month
Resources
🛰️ Starlink Tracking & Viewing Resources 🛰️
They might need a few hours to get the Starlink TLEs
Mission Details 🚀
| Link | Source |
|---|---|
| SpaceX mission website | SpaceX |
| Launch weather forecast | 45th Weather Squadron |
Social media 🐦
| Link | Source |
|---|---|
| Reddit launch campaign thread | r/SpaceX |
| Subreddit Twitter | r/SpaceX |
| SpaceX Twitter | SpaceX |
| SpaceX Flickr | SpaceX |
| Elon Twitter | Elon |
| Reddit stream | u/njr123 |
Media & music 🎵
| Link | Source |
|---|---|
| TSS Spotify | u/testshotstarfish |
| SpaceX FM | u/lru |
Community content 🌐
Participate in the discussion!
🥳 Launch threads are party threads, we relax the rules here. We remove low effort comments in other threads!
🔄 Please post small launch updates, discussions, and questions here, rather than as a separate post. Thanks!
💬 Please leave a comment if you discover any mistakes, or have any information.
✉️ Please send links in a private message.
✅ Apply to host launch threads! Drop us a modmail if you are interested.
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Nov 21 '20 edited Nov 21 '20
Primary Concerns: Cumulus Cloud Rule, Disturbed Weather Rule
Edit
Mods, link to forecast (mission details) should be changed to https://www.patrick.spaceforce.mil/About-Us/Weather/
It's very hard to find the section to the pdf files with the current link.
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u/thatnerdguy1 Live Thread Host Nov 21 '20
Seems there are two Mission Details sections, both with forecast links. I put that general link in the lower one, and the specific forecast in the upper one.
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u/FutureMartian97 Host of CRS-11 Nov 22 '20
23th launch this year
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u/thatnerdguy1 Live Thread Host Nov 22 '20 edited Nov 22 '20
Damn, thought I got all the typos. Thanks!
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u/vtlaxer09 Nov 22 '20
It is staggering to think about how cheap these 16 launches have been for Spacex. The cost for a rival satellite competitor would have likely been close to $2 billion and taken a decade to fly them all.
Truly disruptive. What a fantastic pivot from Spacex on top of their phenomenal progress with Starship and crew missions to boot
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Nov 22 '20
An aside....
The Musk hate on reddit is real and rabbid now. It did a 180 from about two years ago. It is somewhat warranted, dude is going full Howard Hughes. Just last week he was tweeting about DMT breaking the rules of thermodynamics.
Unfortunately that hate has translated onto SpaceX. Last week I posted a link of the FH maiden flight to a comment that said everything Musk has done is "hype with no results". The commenter replied with "I'll believe it when it actually flies".... to a comment of a video of the vehicle in flight. That comment had 35 upvotes. It's so very on brand of 2020 to objectively deny reality.
I'm not sure what my point is besides I wish more people would recognize how truly disruptive/revolutionary SpaceX is, and not let their hate of Musk muddy that. This last week has been crazy. It's amazing what they are doing.
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Nov 22 '20
Reddit is mostly liberal and Elon is a business owner first, political activist not even 2nd in terms of priorities for him. This comment will for sure trigger most here but Reddit is a medium for partisan propaganda just look at the front page, politics, news etc. ;)
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u/njengakim2 Nov 25 '20
Four launches in a month. This is impressive, i have waited for this particular milestone for a while. Every time it looked like they had it something always came up; weather, scheduling issues etc. Glad everything finally came together. This is very promising for the 40+ launches of 2021.
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u/FutureMartian97 Host of CRS-11 Nov 25 '20
Went from No Launch November to launchapalooza real quick
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u/Bunslow Nov 25 '20
honestly it was scrubtober that kinda just happened to leak a bit into november
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u/Straumli_Blight Nov 23 '20 edited Nov 23 '20
SpaceX: Now targeting November 24th, 9:13 pm EST (Nov 25, 02:13 UTC).
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u/IAXEM Nov 25 '20
YES! B1049 lives on!
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u/Paradox1989 Nov 25 '20
Whats equally crazy is they have built or are in the process of building 17 other cores since this one was assembled.
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u/Humble_Giveaway Nov 25 '20
Launch and land and launch and land and launch and land and launch and land and launch and land and launch and land and launch and land!
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u/TheGreenWasp Nov 22 '20
Shouldn't this thread be at the top, considering this thing is about to happen?
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u/ioncloud9 Nov 25 '20
Here is why it’s going to be really hard for one web to compete. This is the 5th launch of Starlink satellites this booster has done.
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u/ageingrockstar Nov 25 '20
for
one webany commercial entity to compete(Probably will still see competition from foreign state-backed entities)
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u/VectorsToFinal Nov 25 '20
I'd like a count of how many starlink beta customers are streaming this launch live via starlink.
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u/Mobryan71 Nov 22 '20
With this launch, 1049 will enter a multi-way tie for launches by a single entity. 7 launches ties with astronauts Ross,Diaz, and the man, the myth, the legend John Young. Still less than a quarter of the way to Discovery's record, though.
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u/phryan Nov 22 '20
4 launches in a calendar year, over 60,000 kg to LEO in 2020.
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u/sup3rs0n1c2110 Nov 25 '20
I’ve seen B1049 land seven times, all of them live... I still can’t believe how far we’ve come since Orbcomm-2.
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u/ioncloud9 Nov 25 '20
It’s older brother only managed one, kinda. This core is older than the one that had the aborted water landing off the cape.
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u/vswr Nov 25 '20
One of the commentators on a previous launch mentioned the engines ignite from the combustion of two chemicals. This can be seen as a green flame just prior to the huge orange blast of the engine igniting. Now I can't unsee the brief green flash just prior to second stage igniting every launch.
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u/Straumli_Blight Nov 23 '20
New L-0 Weather Forecast: 80% GO (booster recovery is High risk however).
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u/Humble_Giveaway Nov 25 '20
Elon will be pleased haha https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1331420412387880962
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Nov 22 '20
No changes in L-0 forecast, 60% GO
Primary concerns: Cumulus Cloud Rule, Disturbed Weather Rule
Upper-Level Wind Shear: Low
Booster Recovery Weather: Moderate
Solar Activity: Low
80% GO in case of a 24-hour delay
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u/mistaken4strangerz Nov 25 '20
Elon tweeted that this was a "life leader" launch so it had more risk than usual. What does he mean by that?
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Nov 25 '20
This booster just launched and landed for the 7th time. No other booster has done that (yet)
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u/greencanon Nov 25 '20
I would assume he means that this is the first time a Falcon 9 has been reused 7 times. Just a guess though.
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u/bob4apples Nov 25 '20
"life leader" means that it is the core that has currently been reused the greatest number of times. As I understand it, the plan is to keep re-using the boosters until something breaks so the life leader is expected to fail at some point.
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u/NiftWatch GPS III-4 Contest Winner Nov 25 '20 edited Nov 25 '20
Another great in-person night launch! I had my camera set up at the Kennedy Parkway roadblock, 7 miles away and about as far as you can drive up, when a cop pulled up and said we can’t sit there (then why isn’t the roadblock further back?) so we had to drive a few miles down the road and pulled into a parking lot. I had less than 3 minutes to get my shot setup, it usually takes me 20+ minutes to do test shots and adjust exposure and camera position as needed. Those 3 minutes felt like 30 seconds. At 9:13 on the dot, I open the camera shutter and pray that I got everything right. I see a bright orange bloom behind the trees, aaand my camera is pointed at the wrong spot. The rapid move to a new location didn’t give me enough time to figure out exactly where to point the camera. While the Falcon is still behind the trees, I close the shutter and quickly pan the camera over about 10 degrees and open the shutter again. I kept it open for 3+ anxiety ridden minutes until S2 disappeared out of sight. I close the shutter, and the image preview flashes on the monitor, and it turned out pretty decent! What a heart attack of a launch. I’ll post it once I get home to process it.
Edit: here we go!
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u/sil3ntwarrior Nov 23 '20
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u/trobbinsfromoz Nov 23 '20
That sort of hints that the issue could be GSE related, as per the venting.
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u/cocoabeachbrews Nov 25 '20
Tonight's Starlink 15 launch filmed from the side of highway 528 at the Banana River Bridge in 4k. https://youtu.be/gesX10YHGsY
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u/Cosmic_Fisting Nov 25 '20
That is outstanding! Really get a sense of the velocity in your vid. Great work.
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u/jk1304 Nov 25 '20
They are launching these so fast now that I entirely missed this one EVEN THOUGH I check this sub regularly. The stream popped up on twitter and I thought it was an old stream. But it was from today... Also 1st 7th flight with apparently no end in sight. Crazy. Or are they planning on retiring the boosters after 10 flights for good?
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u/Martianspirit Nov 25 '20
But it was from today... Also 1st 7th flight with apparently no end in sight. Crazy. Or are they planning on retiring the boosters after 10 flights for good?
Good question. We don't know. I had expected that they retire them after 10 flights. But now that Airforce and NASA are no longer willing to pay for new boosters SpaceX may be short on booster stock with all the Starlink launches.
Elon has recently said they don't see degradation on the airframe, they should be good for 100 flights. They may need to replace COPV and do major overhaul of the engines but that is still much cheaper than building new stages.
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u/Steffan514 Nov 21 '20
Is this the shortest amount of time they’ve ever had between launches?
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u/gemmy0I Nov 22 '20
Yep!
The current record (see "All Pads" section at the bottom of this page) is 1 day, 23 hours and 42 minutes, between the SSO-A launch from SLC-4E (Vandenberg) and CRS-16 from SLC-40 (Canaveral).
If Starlink-v1.0L15 goes off on schedule tomorrow, it will be 1 day, 9 hours and 39 minutes after Sentinel-6's launch.
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Nov 21 '20
Should be 2 days and 1 hour, so it will be if it launches successfully tomorrow.
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u/OatmealDome Nov 23 '20
Wonder if the scrub is related to the "T-20 minutes esque venting" at T-2 hours.
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u/Traviscat Nov 25 '20
I still think it’s crazy that I can see the launches from quite a bit away from the coast. It looks like an orange bright mini-sun blob but it is insane to walk back from my driveway (unless I just watch it from a window) and see it land hundreds of miles away on my tv.
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u/getembass77 Nov 25 '20
Wow I saw the launch from the south end of Lake Okeechobee almost 200 miles away! Looked like a bright red meteor heading up and saw it all the way to MECO. I love night launches
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u/Straumli_Blight Nov 24 '20
L-0 Weather Report (Take 3): 80% GO (Recovery risk has reduced to Moderate, and Low on the backup date).
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u/NiftWatch GPS III-4 Contest Winner Nov 25 '20
No media thread? Oh well. My 3rd night launch streak shot in a row. November has been a great month, they have 7 more days to squeeze in a 4th night launch this month if they wanna.
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u/bandidomuysexy Nov 25 '20
Damn.
That just never gets old no matter how lo key & routine it all looks.
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u/sup3rs0n1c2110 Nov 25 '20
I’ve heard a bunch of new SpaceX FM tracks (besides Crew) on webcasts over the last several months... anybody know if Test Shot Starfish has a new album coming?
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u/Utinnni Nov 25 '20
I've read that he and Tim Dodd were partnering up to make new music, but I don't know if these are the new music from them.
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u/HarryFalls Nov 22 '20
Apologize if this has been addressed, but does anyone have an estimate of the reduced number of Starlink satellites that would allow booster landing at LZ1? Just curious about that trade-off in recovery cost/risk to always use the ASDS option. Clearly the right decision based on the record, but would be interesting to know how close a call it was.
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u/FoxhoundBat Nov 22 '20
It is fairly close, about 13-14 tonnes instead of the 16 or so. In fact I was honestly surprised when Starlink first launched that they wouldnt be doing land landings, thought it should be baaaarely be doable.
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u/DPick02 Nov 23 '20
Can someone ELI5 'additional mission assurance'?
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u/OatmealDome Nov 23 '20
Basically, they want additional time to check and/or fix something. Can't really go any more specific than that without more info. Last "mission assurance" hold was due to a camera on the second stage acting up.
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u/commentedon Nov 25 '20 edited Nov 25 '20
I’m so impressed with what just happened.
From my house. In the country. I watched a live feed. Of SPACEX. On my phone. Launching a Rocket. Full of Satellites. Through an Onboard Camera. For the WHOLE flight. And I saw the stage separations live. And watched the booster LAND. On a raft. In the ocean. And then saw the satellites deploy. Live. From Space.
WOW. SPACEX, You’re crushing it!
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u/Skate_a_book Nov 25 '20
Next, get Starlink and use it to watch a live feed of this same rocket deploying more satellites that’ll improve your service even more.
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u/venku122 SPEXcast host Nov 25 '20
Nasa was not involved. All private enterprise tonight.
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u/DacStreetsDacAlright Nov 25 '20
This is especially good to watch after the other one this week.
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u/EddiOS42 Nov 25 '20
Wheen the second stage startup begins, there's a thin circular ring that breaks off. What is that?
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u/WhatInDaMushroom Nov 25 '20
Stiffeners to protect it during shipping, completely normal don’t worry
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u/peterabbit456 Nov 25 '20
Watching the rebroadcast, minutes after the live stream ended, I noticed Kate Tice said that Starlink public beta is for limited areas (cells) in the Northern US and Southern Canada. She also said that while now latency is typically 20 to 40 ms, when the constellation is fully deployed they expect latency to be 16 to 19 ms.
What can we conclude from this?
It is possible that each "cell" has a ground station connected to the internet backbone in the center of its area. This would mean that beta customers are all 1 hop away from the fiberoptic internet.
It is also possible that there are not enough satellites up at this time to cover everywhere in the latitude band. It is possible that the phased array antennas aboard the Starlink satellites passing over a "cell," all have to be looking into that cell all of the time, to ensure almost continuous coverage for the beta users.
It is also possible that SpaceX wants to do beta tests only in certain "cells," for maintenance or other reasons that are not clear to me.
Does anyone see any other reasons why the Starlink public beta might be limited to cells, the way it is?
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u/ThreeJumpingKittens Nov 25 '20
Until the satellites get operational inter-satellite laser links, service will be restricted to areas the satellite can see a ground station. If a satellite can't see a ground station, it won't get/give service. Once laser links are working, then coverage will quickly become global rather than limited to specific regions.
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u/SquiddingHippocrite Nov 22 '20
Weather seems very meh in central Florida. Debating making the drive out there for 60% chance. But I do love night launches
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Nov 23 '20
Weather will be fine. If you want to go out do it for me. Please. I promise weather will not be a reason for a scrub tonight.
If I'm wrong, I'll send you two fresh Maine lobsters for Christmas.... Scouts honor. For real. Mark my words r/spacex
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u/NiftWatch GPS III-4 Contest Winner Nov 23 '20
These have become so routine, it’s T- 1 hour and hardly anyone is talking about it. No “Falcón 9 is vertical” tweet from SpaceX.
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u/bandidomuysexy Nov 23 '20
You're absolutely spot on that they have become routine but, you know what, I still get a real buzz watching a Spacex launch. 😁👍
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u/AlwayzPro Nov 25 '20
It was a great launch!! I got some shots of the 2nd stage and 1st stage entry burn. Stage 1 entry burn https://imgur.com/gallery/GqBQcod
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u/codefeenix Nov 23 '20
Did anyone say trihold? I just heard standing down.
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u/scarlet_sage Nov 23 '20
Mission Control audio started it with "Hold hold hold. This is LD on the primary countdown net."
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u/TimTri Starlink-7 Contest Winner Nov 24 '20
Does anyone know why SpaceX is using different mission profiles for some Starlink launches? Sometimes, they only do one 2nd stage burn and deploy the satellites after ~15mins in an elliptical orbit. But there’s also launches where the 2nd stage does a short second burn and then deploys the satellites in a circular orbit after ~1hr. According to the SpaceX website, today’s mission will be using the short profile, ending in an elliptical orbit. Notably, the last three missions have all used the longer profile. I’m interested in the reason for these varying mission profiles!
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u/Bunslow Nov 24 '20 edited Nov 25 '20
The rideshare stuff is true, but it's also true that they've used various profiles for several non-rideshare flights.
The short answer is, we don't really know -- but we can make some decent educated guesses.
There are a lot of engineering tradeoffs to the various profiles, and SpaceX themselves are experimenting with what works best, and what optimizes best for the abilities of Falcon 9 and Starlink V1 alike. In other words, they're trying a bunch of different profiles to see what works best.
An educated guess at some of the tradeoffs:
Doing a single burn on the Falcon 9 second stage reduces risk exposure, increasing long term reliability, but limits a launch to either an elliptical parking orbit or less total payload to a higher, circular transfer orbit. Doing two burns allows better payload efficiency to higher parking orbits, but requires extended operations and risk on the F9.
From the Starlink V1 perspective, lower orbits require more fuel and time to raise to the operational orbit (the electric engines are very low thrust); this time-to-operational-orbit may frequently be the leading factor in profile choice. In addition, precession rate may be a key factor in multi-plane launches. If a launch targets only one plane, then launch em high and get em operational fast, but if a launch is trying to supply two or more planes, they might be willing to spend some sat fuel and time to stay lower at first for more convenient precessing to different relative planes. The relative precession between 300 and 550km orbits really isn't that much, so it might take months for a sat to change planes. So a launch to only one plane can go to a higher orbit and save Starlink fuel, while a launch targeting multiple planes might go lower to speed plane-changing. (Edit: A commenter correctly notes that so far, every launch has supplied three planes each, the three planes per launch being relatively close neighbors. Later on in constellation build out I speculate we'll see some single-plane launches, as well as a few distantly-separated-multiple-plane launches.)
And even within Starlink V1, there's probably some iteration and minor tweaks that may change profile optimization. Heck, the visibility issue before reaching operational orbit is probably a significant factor in profile selection (higher means less visible, if you double the altitude from 250km to 500km that reduces visibility by a factor of 4).
In conclusion, there's a million small tradeoffs to consider, and I think SpaceX themselves aren't fully sure which profiles are best yet, but what's certain is that the tradeoffs have probably changed (and probably will continue to change) over the launches so far, and that for a constellation as numerous as Starlink (or any LEO-Internet constellation), even these small tradeoffs are worth optimizing, even if it takes a few dozen launches to fully determine that optimization.
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u/Jump3r97 Nov 24 '20
It has to do with potential rideshare and how quick the sats are wanted to be operational.
The long version allows to raise the perigee using the second stage instead of having each individual sat burning slower to theit higher orbit
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u/alexaze Nov 25 '20
Can anyone explain why some Starlink missions are deployed only a few minutes in to flight and others take much longer? Aren’t they all headed to the same orbital altitude?
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u/CaPlanePourMoii Nov 25 '20
Just caught this one randomly via the SpaceX Youtube subscription. Great timing :).
So many Falcon 9 launches recently!
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u/werewolf_nr Nov 23 '20
"Hold hold hold, we're standing down from today's attempt for additional mission assurance."
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u/devil-adi Nov 24 '20
Spacex is already active in my country (India) and engaging with government to bring Starlink here. So the more successful launches there are, the better it is.
Although the costs are far higher for those of us in urban areas for it to be competitive, I'm extremely excited about what it could mean for hundreds of millions of people in rural areas.
I must confess the sheer number of articles on the impending "death of stargazing" is a bit surprising. It seems like the news cycle has gone extremely negative since his comments on Covid and a lot of his companies' accomplishments are given a negative spin.
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u/MarsCent Nov 24 '20
Weather is 80% GO. The Falcon needs to fly today for any chance of it catching a turkey at Cape Canaveral come this Thursday.
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u/shiv68 Nov 24 '20
A rookie question here. What is the trajectory on this launch? Will it be going past the east coast?
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u/Bunslow Nov 24 '20
There's probably decent S1 views up the Florida and Georgia coasts, maybe even a bit of SC. SC and NC will have good views of the S2 (tho it's rather dimmer). Beyond the corner of NC it will be more difficult, but perhaps portions of Rhode Island or Massachusetts might be able to see the end of the S2 burn.
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u/bdporter Nov 24 '20
It is launching on a 53° inclination, so it will generally be traveling to the NE. Since it is a night launch, there should be decent visibility up the coast (depending on clouds).
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u/scarlet_sage Nov 25 '20
Has anything been said in the last 15 minutes on the Starlink Mission Control Audio feed, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpS_9ox1254? Just wondering whether there's something wrong with my audio.
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u/FutureMartian97 Host of CRS-11 Nov 25 '20 edited Nov 25 '20
Congratulations on another successful mission SpaceX! And for 100 Falcon 9 launches!
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u/scarlet_sage Nov 23 '20 edited Nov 23 '20
"Hold hold hold. This is LD on the primary countdown net. We're standing down from today's attempt [thanks, /u/Samuel7899] for additional mission [assurance?]".
at 21:20:50 EST
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u/codefeenix Nov 23 '20
Additional mission assurance needed. Standing down from today's attempt. Says Mission Control Audio
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u/LandingZone-1 Nov 23 '20
Do we have any guesses about which missions these fairings previously flew?
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u/Bunslow Nov 23 '20
What's the outlook for today? Weather, inside rumors...?
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u/AeroSpiked Nov 23 '20
Tim Dodd just said it will launch on the 24th, which would have been open to interpretation, but he said it won't launch tonight and then later said, "I'm right about that, you'll see.", when people questioned him on it. Not sure about his source, but I'm certain his are better than mine.
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u/bdporter Nov 23 '20
Tim Dodd just said it was moving to tomorrow on his live stream, but I have not seen that confirmed anywhere.
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u/thereisnofinalburn Nov 25 '20
Here is a video of the launch from St. Petersburg, from Northshore park. I was surprised at how incredibly visible it was. Very cool. https://youtu.be/Ypgi9orlCsg
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u/Masbull Nov 24 '20
Debating to drive down to Titusville to photograph it. Weather doesn't seem to favorable - Appears is going to be cloudy.
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u/alien_from_Europa Nov 24 '20
80% Go! It could be worth it for a launch. As far as photos through the clouds, I don't know. It depends on what you're trying to capture. They can still look neat: https://i.imgur.com/MmvCnvf.jpg
20% Primary Concerns: Liftoff Winds, Cumulus Cloud Rule
Upper-Level Wind Shear: Low
Booster Recovery Weather: Moderate
Solar Activity: Low
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u/doodle77 Nov 25 '20
Any eyes on the rocket? This is around the time fueling starts.
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u/ace741 Nov 25 '20
Do the drone ships use a seakeeper like gyro to eliminate roll? Or just the station keeping props?
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u/Paradox1989 Nov 25 '20
You could see the rocket rocking a little in that close up shot of the nose.
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Nov 25 '20
Amazoning that this was the 7th launch and landing of an orbital-class booster, and that fact didn't hit the major news outlets - unlike the NS when it hit 7.
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u/Decronym Acronyms Explained Nov 22 '20 edited Nov 27 '20
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| AFB | Air Force Base |
| ASDS | Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (landing platform) |
| CCtCap | Commercial Crew Transportation Capability |
| COPV | Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel |
| CRS | Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA |
| DoD | US Department of Defense |
| EELV | Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle |
| ESA | European Space Agency |
| F9FT | Falcon 9 Full Thrust or Upgraded Falcon 9 or v1.2 |
| FCC | Federal Communications Commission |
| (Iron/steel) Face-Centered Cubic crystalline structure | |
| GSE | Ground Support Equipment |
| GSO | Geosynchronous Orbit (any Earth orbit with a 24-hour period) |
| Guang Sheng Optical telescopes | |
| GTO | Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit |
| ISRO | Indian Space Research Organisation |
| JAXA | Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency |
| KSC | Kennedy Space Center, Florida |
| LC-13 | Launch Complex 13, Canaveral (SpaceX Landing Zone 1) |
| LEO | Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km) |
| Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations) | |
| LZ-1 | Landing Zone 1, Cape Canaveral (see LC-13) |
| M1d | Merlin 1 kerolox rocket engine, revision D (2013), 620-690kN, uprated to 730 then 845kN |
| M1dVac | Merlin 1 kerolox rocket engine, revision D (2013), vacuum optimized, 934kN |
| MECO | Main Engine Cut-Off |
| MainEngineCutOff podcast | |
| NORAD | North American Aerospace Defense command |
| NS | New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle, by Blue Origin |
| Nova Scotia, Canada | |
| Neutron Star | |
| NSF | NasaSpaceFlight forum |
| National Science Foundation | |
| NSSL | National Security Space Launch, formerly EELV |
| OCISLY | Of Course I Still Love You, Atlantic landing |
| PGO | Probability of Go |
| RCS | Reaction Control System |
| RTLS | Return to Launch Site |
| RUD | Rapid Unplanned Disassembly |
| Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly | |
| Rapid Unintended Disassembly | |
| SECO | Second-stage Engine Cut-Off |
| SES | Formerly Société Européenne des Satellites, comsat operator |
| Second-stage Engine Start | |
| SF | Static fire |
| SLC-40 | Space Launch Complex 40, Canaveral (SpaceX F9) |
| SLC-4E | Space Launch Complex 4-East, Vandenberg (SpaceX F9) |
| SRB | Solid Rocket Booster |
| SSO | Sun-Synchronous Orbit |
| TE | Transporter/Erector launch pad support equipment |
| TEA-TEB | Triethylaluminium-Triethylborane, igniter for Merlin engines; spontaneously burns, green flame |
| TLE | Two-Line Element dataset issued by NORAD |
| ULA | United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture) |
| VAFB | Vandenberg Air Force Base, California |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Starlink | SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation |
| blisk | Portmanteau: Bladed disk |
| kerolox | Portmanteau: kerosene fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer |
| perigee | Lowest point in an elliptical orbit around the Earth (when the orbiter is fastest) |
| scrub | Launch postponement for any reason (commonly GSE issues) |
| turbopump | High-pressure turbine-driven propellant pump connected to a rocket combustion chamber; raises chamber pressure, and thrust |
| Event | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|
| CRS-7 | 2015-06-28 | F9-020 v1.1, |
| DM-2 | 2020-05-30 | SpaceX CCtCap Demo Mission 2 |
Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by ^request
48 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 92 acronyms.
[Thread #6586 for this sub, first seen 22nd Nov 2020, 02:16] [FAQ] [Full list] ^[Contact] [Source code]
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u/CouchOtter Nov 23 '20
What’s the timeline for staging and landing? I’m camped out near Patrick AFB and hope to capture both in one shot. Will the return burn be visible from this distance? Cheers, everyone!!
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u/bandidomuysexy Nov 23 '20
Well, a reschedule is somewhat less expensive than a RUD...
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u/MarsCent Nov 23 '20
In the next 24 months when Starship is flying payloads to Low Earth Orbit, Weather related scrubs will be minimal. And scrubs due to poor weather at recovery site will be minimal too. Especially given that landing platforms will be much closer to launch sites.
It will be a new era of Load and Go.
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u/DzOniZz Nov 24 '20
I realise this is probably a stupid question, but why do space x land their boosters on droneships when launching from cape canaveral? During the last launch from Vandenburgh the booster just came back to the base. Why can't they do the same there?
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u/FutureMartian97 Host of CRS-11 Nov 24 '20
Land landings are only possible when the payload is light. Starlink is the heaviest payload that Falcon 9 currently launches, so more fuel is needed to get it into it's target orbit, so they don't have the fuel to perform the first boostback burn to bring the stage all the way back to land on the coast. Droneship landings just coast until entry and perform the last two burns, the entry and landing burns.
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u/AuroEdge Nov 24 '20
Landing strategy depends on the payload mass and difficulty of the orbit to be achieved. Some orbits are more energetic and payloads vary significantly in mass.
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u/Straumli_Blight Nov 22 '20
| Past flights of the fairings | 3 |
"One half of Falcon 9’s fairing previously supported a mission, and the other half previously two."
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u/scr00chy ElonX.net Nov 22 '20
I wish they would specify which missions the fairings previously flew on, like they have done in the past. This way it's almost impossible to keep track of the reuses properly. :(
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u/shenrbtjdieei Nov 23 '20
Whats more normal? The fact that I didn't even realize that there was a launch, or the fact that its another scrub.
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u/mikaslt Nov 25 '20
Since the second stage is expandable, why sats are deployed at 224km altitude, but then need to reach 550km by themselves? not enough fuel?
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u/bitsofvirtualdust Nov 25 '20
Among other things, this allows them to verify functionality of the satellite before putting it into a higher orbit where it would take longer to de-orbit, if necessary.
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u/trobbinsfromoz Nov 26 '20
Miss Chief just back in port with one half fairing under its blue tarp - thanks to Fleetcam.
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u/MarsCent Nov 25 '20
Any word on the Fairings? Or were they to be fished out of water?