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SES-9 status?



 
 
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  #1  
Old February 26th 16, 08:32 AM posted to sci.space.policy
snidely
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Posts: 1,303
Default SES-9 status?

Wednesday, postponed to chill the tanks?

Thursday, postponed but Space-X hasn't said why yet?

/dps

--
I have always been glad we weren't killed that night. I do not know
any particular reason, but I have always been glad.
_Roughing It_, Mark Twain
  #3  
Old February 27th 16, 04:50 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
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Posts: 2,307
Default SES-9 status?

In article . com,
says...

On 2016-02-26 06:30, Jeff Findley wrote:

Same reason. Issues with sub-chilling the LOX.



The customer, SES, wants the maximum performance possible on this
flight. In fact, the final orbital parameters won't be known until
after payload orbital insertion because the customer wants the 2nd stage
to burn nearly to completion, again for maximum performance.



Is this so the satellite itself will use the least amount of its own
fuel in order to give it longer life ?


Yes. Fuel not used for the final insertion into a geosynchronous orbit
can be used for station keeping, which extends the useful life of the
satellite and allows SES to maximize the profit of that particular
satellite.

Or is it because SpaceX isn't quite sure it can launch the thing to
geosynchronous altitude because the payload is borderline too heavy ?


No. If that were the case, SpaceX would have deleted the landing legs
and grid fins and used the fuel allocated for landing on the barge for
the actual launch. As it is, they will attempt a barge landing, but the
fuel reserves are very thin, so they've set the expectations
accordingly.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.
  #4  
Old February 28th 16, 07:40 AM posted to sci.space.policy
snidely
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,303
Default SES-9 status?

On Friday or thereabouts, Jeff Findley asked ...
In article mn.cd847e0211341c87.127094@snitoo,
says...

Wednesday, postponed to chill the tanks?

Thursday, postponed but Space-X hasn't said why yet?


Same reason. Issues with sub-chilling the LOX. This is the heaviest
GTO payload that SpaceX has ever launched, so achieving the lowest
possible LOX temperature is critical to "densifying" the LOX in order to
maximize performance.

This is still relatively new, from an operational perspective. It's no
surprise that there are issues which need to be worked.

The customer, SES, wants the maximum performance possible on this
flight. In fact, the final orbital parameters won't be known until
after payload orbital insertion because the customer wants the 2nd stage
to burn nearly to completion, again for maximum performance.

Also, because of the performance requirements, there is a higher than
normal likelihood that the barge landing attempt will fail. SpaceX has
been setting expectations accordingly.


Thanks. I wasn't following the livecast, and SpaceX didn't have much
on either their home site or Facebook ("technical difficulty"). It
appears that Sunday is the new launch date.

/dps

--
Maybe C282Y is simply one of the hangers-on, a groupie following a
future guitar god of the human genome: an allele with undiscovered
virtuosity, currently soloing in obscurity in Mom's garage.
Bradley Wertheim, theAtlantic.com, Jan 10 2013
  #5  
Old February 29th 16, 05:19 AM posted to sci.space.policy
snidely
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,303
Default SES-9 status?

After serious thinking Snidely wrote :
On Friday or thereabouts, Jeff Findley asked ...
In article mn.cd847e0211341c87.127094@snitoo,
says...

Wednesday, postponed to chill the tanks?

Thursday, postponed but Space-X hasn't said why yet?


Same reason. Issues with sub-chilling the LOX. This is the heaviest GTO
payload that SpaceX has ever launched, so achieving the lowest possible LOX
temperature is critical to "densifying" the LOX in order to maximize
performance.

This is still relatively new, from an operational perspective. It's no
surprise that there are issues which need to be worked.

The customer, SES, wants the maximum performance possible on this flight.
In fact, the final orbital parameters won't be known until after payload
orbital insertion because the customer wants the 2nd stage to burn nearly
to completion, again for maximum performance.

Also, because of the performance requirements, there is a higher than
normal likelihood that the barge landing attempt will fail. SpaceX has
been setting expectations accordingly.


Thanks. I wasn't following the livecast, and SpaceX didn't have much on
either their home site or Facebook ("technical difficulty"). It appears that
Sunday is the new launch date.


Someone missed a NOTAR? Was the boat intrusion the reason for today's
scrub?

/dps

--
Ieri, oggi, domani
  #7  
Old March 1st 16, 12:10 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
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Posts: 2,307
Default SES-9 status?

In article ,
says...

Jeff Findley wrote:


From what I read on Twitter last night, it sounds like the intrusion of
the (NAVY?) vessel, and the resulting delay, may have directly
contributed to the problem.


Where'd you get the idea that it might have been a Navy ship? I find
that just pretty unlikely.


Supposedly the info originally came from this site:

http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/...455232/zoom:10

I firsts saw the info on Twitter, which is why I added the "?" in the
parenthesis. We all know info comes in fast and loose on Twitter.
According to Reddit, the vessel was the USNS Lawrence H. Gianella (T-
AOT-1125).

The accusation that it was a Navy ship is still on Reddit and on other
online forums:

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comm...r/rspacex_ses9
_official_launch_discussion_updates/t1_d0hgyp2

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthre...1189085&page=3

But, all "legitimate" news sites have just said it was a "boat" without
any other information.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.
  #8  
Old March 2nd 16, 01:03 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Rick Jones[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 106
Default SES-9 status?

Jeff Findley wrote:
Supposedly the info originally came from this site:


http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/...455232/zoom:10


I firsts saw the info on Twitter, which is why I added the "?" in the
parenthesis. We all know info comes in fast and loose on Twitter.
According to Reddit, the vessel was the USNS Lawrence H. Gianella (T-
AOT-1125).


The accusation that it was a Navy ship is still on Reddit and on other
online forums:


https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comm...r/rspacex_ses9
_official_launch_discussion_updates/t1_d0hgyp2


http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthre...1189085&page=3


But, all "legitimate" news sites have just said it was a "boat" without
any other information.


http://www.floridatoday.com/story/ne...crub/81102952/

Claims it was a tug with a barge.

rick jones
--
the road to hell is paved with business decisions...
these opinions are mine, all mine; HPE might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hpe.com but NOT BOTH...
  #9  
Old March 4th 16, 02:31 AM posted to sci.space.policy
William Mook[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,840
Default SES-9 status?

On Friday, February 26, 2016 at 8:32:16 PM UTC+13, snidely wrote:
Wednesday, postponed to chill the tanks?

Thursday, postponed but Space-X hasn't said why yet?

/dps

--
I have always been glad we weren't killed that night. I do not know
any particular reason, but I have always been glad.
_Roughing It_, Mark Twain


HERE ARE THE NOMINAL FIGURES:

http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities

Capability: 4850 kg GTO

HERE IS WHAT THEY'RE DOING TODAY:

http://www.floridatoday.com/story/te...iday/81169226/

SES will launch a 5300 kg communications satellite to GTO. This is 200 kg less than the 5500 kg achievable with 'densified' propellant.

Check it out;

5300 kg is 450 kg or 9.3% greater than the nominal mission.

LET'S LOOK AT THE DETAIL:

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/falcon9.html

The Falcon is a LOX/RP1 two stage rocket.

DENSITY CHANGES WITH TEMPERATU

http://www.nist.gov/srd/upload/jpcrd423.pdf
https://goo.gl/26Xswz

http://www.slideshare.net/chem_engin...perties-by-ifp

http://www.nist.gov/data/PDFfiles/jpcrd122.pdf

The book "Rocket Propellants" by S.F. Sarner lists for density at 15 C:

JP-1: 810 kg/m^3 (narrow cut kerosene, to expensive to make, abandoned)
JP-2: 764 kg/m^3 (experimental, not now used)
JP-3: 760 kg/m^3 (wide cut, wide boiling, volatile, not now used)
JP-4: 773 kg/m^3 (current jet kerosene)
JP-5: 827 kg/m^3 (narrow cut, low volatility similar to RP-1)
JP-6: 817 kg/m^3 (similar to JP-5 but lower freezing point)
RP-1: 806 kg/m^3 (specified for 1950+ US rockets)
T-1 : 825 kg/m^3 (Russian jet fuel similar to JP-5)

The density of RP-1 with temperature isn't listed, but that of RP-1 is:

50 C : 802
20 C : 824
0 C : 838
-20 C: 852
-40 C: 867

The density of LOX is increased by 15% by cooling and the density of RP-1 is increased by a factor of 8%.

Now LOX/RP1 Oxidizer fuel ratio for peak performance is 2.56:1

So, an increase of

1.15 * 2.56 / 3.56 + 1.08 * 1.00/3.56 = 1.13 ~ 13%

So, 8% is easily achievable, 12% will be achieved as the technique matures. This is what the documents I've seen indicate.

Merlin has an exhaust speed of 2.73 km/sec at sea level and 3.07 km/sec in vacuum. Its reported to have 4850 kg at GEO and 13,150 kg at LEO with a 505,846 kg TOW.

So, using the Tsiolkovsky equation we can estimate the following;

TOW: 505,846 kg
Prop: 402,286 kg
Struc: 22,000 kg
u: 0.795
d-Vee: 4.330 km/sec

S2-TOW: 81,560 kg
Prop: 64,867 kg
Struc: 3,543 kg
u: 0.795
d-Vee: 4.870 km/sec

**Payload: 13,150 kg LEO** NOMINAL

GEO Maneuver

TOW: 16,693 kg
Propellant: 8,300 kg

**Payload 4,850 kg GEO** NOMINAL

u: 0.497
d-Vee 1.06 km/sec

**DENSIFIED MERLIN:**

An 8% increase in propellant weight - structure same - which is less than the 13% possible.

TOW: 544,733.2 kg
Propellant: 434,468.9 kg
Structu 22,000.0 kg
u: 0.798
d-Vee: 4.36 km/sec

S2-TOW: 88,304.4 kg
Propellant: 70,056.4 kg
Structu 3,543.0 kg
u: 0.793
d-Vee: 4.84 km/sec

Payload: 14,705.0 kg ** DENSIFIED (by 8%) **

GEO Maneuver:

TOW: 18,028 kg
Propellant: 8,964 kg
Structu 3,543 kg

Payload: 5,520 kg GEO **DENSIFIED (by 8%) **

u = 0.497
d-Vee: 6.10 km/sec

A similar calculation using a 12% increase in propellant increases payload to LEO to 15,490 kg and a payload to GEO of 6,025 kg.

SO, this is where this vehicle could go in performance near term.

4,850 --- 6,025 is a 24.2% increase in payload to GEO.

At $61.2 million per launch, this represents a reduction in cost from $12,618 to $10,158 - a reduction of $2,460 per kg to GEO.

The payload to LEO increases by 18.8% with similar reductions in cost per kg.

13,150 kg --- 15,490 kg
$4,654/kg --- $3,951/kg

  #10  
Old March 4th 16, 03:50 AM posted to sci.space.policy
William Mook[_2_]
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Posts: 3,840
Default SES-9 status?

With a 12% densified launcher, and an 18,000 kg payload on orbit, the final speed of the second stage is 7.25 km/sec. This stage circles the Earth and lands back at the launch center. Meanwhile, another 0.65 km/sec is added to the 18,000 kg payload by burning 2,416 kg of LOX/Lh2 propellant. 15,584 kg is in LEO.

There are two stages. The first stage totals 7,807 kg and the second stage totals 7,777 kg. The first stage boosts the second stage into a lunar free return trajectory. This brings the stage back to Earth to land on Earth for reuse. The second stage lands 2,345 kg on the lunar surface and returns it safely to Earth. That stage too lands on Earth and is reused.

Each stage masses around 325 kg. It has a LOX/LH2 engine array that is MEMS based, and has a tremendous Thrust to Weight. It has a cryogenic system on board, and a number of other features. At 195 kg per person, a dozen persons are taken to the moon and back!

The first stage is basically a 3.45 m diameter sphere, with a 2.2 m diameter LOX sphere inside, with a MEMS array rocket at the base. The second stage is a 3.1 m diameter sphere with a 2.0 m diameter LOX sphere inside, with a MEMS array rocket at the base. The two together have a total height of 6..55 m. A pyramidal space frame with a 3.10 m base with a 6.4 m tall apex is attached to the equator of the second stage sphere. The entire system is 11.4 m tall. There are three levels, 1.6 meters apart, each containing four seats that are orientaed radially outward, one every 90 degrees within the spaceframe structure.

The space frame structure fits within the aeroshell

http://goo.gl/ByyNnv

And unfolds creating a frame 10 m tall with a 6.20 m base.

Each person on board is equipped with a long-duration biosuit and supplies. Hydrogen and oxygen are fed from the propellant tanks to each of the 12 persons on board. The LOX/LH2 is combined to form electricity and water for each. Oxygen is also supplied from propellants. Surplus hydrogen is used to clean the air of dors and carbon dioxide. CH4 and waste water is produced, which is evaporated to keep the system cool. The suit also has MEMS based thrusters that permit flight around the lunar surface using LOX/LH2. 100 kg or propellant is allocated for each person. 50 kg per person is used to provide oxygen and 500 Watts of electrical power, along with 5.6 litres of water per day, for 14 days. 50 kg per person is used to provide suit propulsion. This is 1.9 km/sec delta vee capability, with two charges, of 0.8 km/sec each, to a 514 mm diameter sphere. This provides 10 minutes of continuous hovering time on the lunar surface per charge. An automated flight control system will carry the astronaut anywhere on the lunar surface and back, up to a distance of 75 km from the landing point, and back, per charge.

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/ran...008/RM3752.pdf

You can explore what that means here;

https://www.google.com/moon/

If we have a pilot and co-pilot, and ten passengers, the launcher is $6.12 million per passenger.

http://www.space.com/10611-space-adv...ist-trips.html

At $30 million per person, that's $300 million for ten people to go to the moon and back!

Four days out, three days back, seven days on the moon, with the ability to fly up to 75 km from the landing point and back.

http://www.space.com/27285-astronaut...pacesuits.html

With 5 km/hr walking speed, and 7 days on the lunar surface, its possible to walk 420 miles - assuming 12 hours per day walking (three four hour shifts).

http://old.marssociety.org.au/images...MCPS_large.JPG

After landing the people on board jet out of the harnesses in which they are seated, and fly down to the lunar surface. There they walk and fly to points of interest, and back again.

The ideal thing would be for people to walk along a route of interest, and use rocket power to hop over any obstacle encountered, or climb the mountains of the moon, jetting in and out of rough terrain. Then, when within a few dozen miles of the lander, they jet to the landing point and jump back to their seats belt in for take off back to Earth.

Arriving at Earth they separate from their spacecraft and each individually fly in for a landing, using a wingsuit type attachment. The rocket belt is used to break their fall at the last minute instead of a parachute. They also have up to 30 kg of moonrocks and other collected items in a knapsack..

If you've never done wingsuit flying, you don't understand just how cool and easy it is! lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp8_A1HGgV4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q971MCu8MyY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7EY9hnu-d4

10,000s of people pay $100,000s of dollars each to do this. In this group there are 100s that would pay $10,000,000s to fly to the moon and back in a winged biosuit - as described above.

The stage re-enters and the strut with the harnesses folds back out of the way, and all pieces and parts are fully recovered and reused.

Once he has all parts and pieces of the launcher flying, buying a used ship from Musk for $50 million and paying $5 million to launch it, and selling ownership in the ship at say $10 million and selling it onward to the next buyer, depreciating it appropriately, is a way to handle this aspect of the journey. This would eventually reduce prices to the $1 million range, and you'd need a fleet of launchers operating full time to keep up with demand!

The first ten (or twelve, if we organise it so ALL pay, and THEY vote who's their leader, and follow emergency rules and so forth in their training) I think we could charge $50 million a seat, and that's $600 million per launch, and $540 million margin, and I think $500 million profit on the first deal - potential.

If we share income for promotional videos, that is, each person is filmed from several angles and so forth, and the data stream in UHDTV is kept - and profesionally put into an IMAX/3D film - and other formats - and professionally sold, the $50 million for each person would be radically reduced, eliminated, or even turn into a profit center for the first persons!

The first twelve, would be the first to visit the moon in the 21st century. The first woman would be the first woman in history to be on the moon. The first people from their nation, outside the USA would be the first person from their nation in history, to visit the moon. These are all worth $50 million to the right parties.

Couple of things we're working on;

(1) Motorised titanium exoskeleton that protects a person to make a 300 kph crash survivable.
(a) wingsuit,
(b) motorcycle,- flexible multijointed connection to helmet that freezes when accelerometer activated
(2) Heads up helmet display, and communications gear
(3) Helmet & suit based video suite,
(4) Jet wing with VTOL capability,
(5) Rocket boost to stratosphere, and return, (biosuit mark 1)
(6) Rocket boost across the Pacific, (biosuit, with tps, mark 2)
(7) Rocket boost to orbit and back, (biosuit with extended LS, mark 3)

Then we're ready for the moon trip as a payload on the Falcon 9.







 




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