In article , says...

On 1/14/2018 9:21 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article , says...

If the rumored price tag for Zuma is correct, I'd say likely two things:
1) It was a fairly big payload. 2) Too expenive to be a cover for
something else.

1. I agree with the assertion that it is likely "fairly big". But,
given the fairly high orbital inclination (50 some degrees) of the
launch and the fact that the first stage returned for a landing at Cape
Canaveral, that places a clear upper limit on the mass. This would be
nowhere near the Falcon 9 fully expendable payload to a 28 something
degree orbit in LEO, which would be the maximum. So, emphasis on
"fairly" when saying "fairly big".
[...]

Speculation is that it is likely a failed payload adapter, which was not
provided by SpaceX. I don't believe that there have been any failures
of the "standard" SpaceX payload adapter.

All good points. To be clear, I was thinking more in the terms that this
was not a "cubesat". And *probably not* a cluster of cubesats either as
I've seen speculated on elsewhere. Although cost is not a definitive
proof that it was not. Also I would concede that a cluster configuration
would probably entail the use of a specialized payload adapter that was
the speculated culprit here. But my instinct was that it was not and
that is just a S.W.A.G. on my part.

Agreed it's not very likely to be a cluster of cubesats. If it were, I
doubt the 2nd stage would have been programmed to do such an early
reentry. That and you'd think lots of cubesats would want to be
deployed in a fairly long sequence so that they're not right on top of
each other. This would have been similar to a 10 satellite Iridium
deployment if that were the case. A quick Google search says Iridium
satellites are deployed about 90 seconds apart.

Jeff
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