Falcon 9 Launch Success

On Jun 4, 3:45*pm, Michael Gallagher wrote:
Congratulations to SpaceX on the sucess of the Falcon 9. *The best
video clip is with the CNN story:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/04/spa...ex.html?hpt=T2

It should be remembered that rocket science is all its cracked up to
be; failures can and do happen. *But still, here's hoping SpaceX has
continued success.

You can also find video on the SpaceX web site now.

/dps

snidely writes:

On Jun 4, 3:45Â*pm, Michael Gallagher wrote:
Congratulations to SpaceX on the sucess of the Falcon 9. Â*The best
video clip is with the CNN story:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/04/spa...ex.html?hpt=T2

It should be remembered that rocket science is all its cracked up to
be; failures can and do happen. Â*But still, here's hoping SpaceX has
continued success.

You can also find video on the SpaceX web site now.

Notes from the post-flight teleconference he
http://www.hobbyspace.com/nucleus/in...p?itemid=21153

A few photos from the launch:
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-060610a.html

Another launch video shot from the KSC VAB Roof:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah2NP...eature=related


Well done, SpaceX!


Jochem

--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

On Jun 4, 4:23*pm, Brian Thorn wrote:
On Fri, 04 Jun 2010 18:45:57 -0400, Michael Gallagher

wrote:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/04/spa...ex.html?hpt=T2

It should be remembered that rocket science is all its cracked up to
be; failures can and do happen. *But still, here's hoping SpaceX has
continued success.

Congratulations, SpaceX!

I'm not the company's No.1 fan, but I've said all along I'll applaud
them *after* they achieve success, not before. They achieved it today.
Woo hoo! (clap-clap-clap-clap-clap...)

Brian

Same here. I'd personally go with either Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, or
United Launch Alliance, but I'm willing to give credit where it's
due.But one successful first flight does not a program make.

On Jun 6, 2:50*pm, Jochem Huhmann wrote:

Notes from the post-flight teleconference hehttp://www.hobbyspace.com/nucleus/in...p?itemid=21153

A few photos from the launch:http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-060610a.html

Another launch video shot from the KSC VAB Roof:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah2NP...eature=related


Thanks! (and to Spacearium and ChrisJr, too)

/dps

On Jun 5, 2:13*am, Pat Flannery wrote:
On 6/4/2010 8:42 PM, Mike DiCenso wrote:



At least two notable events occured out of spec, however; the roll
oscillation seen towards the end of the second stage burn has now been
confirmed as unexpected and the first stage did not survive to be
recovered as hoped for, and the floating debris is being recovered by
Freedom Star. I don't know how this constant failure to recover the
Falcon 1 and now 9 first stages are going to affect Space X's
operations plans, and their hoped for reduction of launch costs.

Although I can see recovering something the size of Falcon-1's first
stage via parachute, trying it on something the size of Falcon-9's
sounds like it's going to be tricky, especially if you want it back in
good enough shape to reuse. It's a lot less robust than the big steel
casings on the Shuttle SRB, and a lot of those segments got damaged
enough during flight and recovery early on that they were never reused.
Unless they can get this system working in the next flight or two, I
think there's going to be a great temptation to ditch the recovery
system in favor of more orbital payload capability.

Sorry I'm a bit late with this reply, but matters elsewhere have been
occupying me.

You're over-exaggerating a bit, Pat. The only loss early on of SRBs
was during STS-4 when a paracute failure caused them to crash into the
ocean and sink. There is no significant loss or damage recorded that I
can find until STS-51-L when those SRBs were obviously destroyed by
the RSO following the break-up the launch stack. After that there are
a few odd mentions of fustrums and aft skirts being damaged, but not
constant losses. Whatever the reason for their loss, Space X must
start finding a solution to the problem, or scale back the design so
that they won't be expending so much money per flight in building a
robust first stage booster, only to lose it. It is a credibility issue
here as any technical one. It'll be very interesting to watch the
first recovery attempts of the Dragon capsule as well.
-Mike

On 6/22/2010 7:56 PM, Mike DiCenso wrote:

You're over-exaggerating a bit, Pat. The only loss early on of SRBs
was during STS-4 when a paracute failure caused them to crash into the
ocean and sink. There is no significant loss or damage recorded that I
can find until STS-51-L when those SRBs were obviously destroyed by
the RSO following the break-up the launch stack. After that there are
a few odd mentions of fustrums and aft skirts being damaged, but not
constant losses.

I'm going to see if I can figure out total numbers of the segments
manufactured during the Shuttle program; they are made by
Morton-Thiokol's Wasatch division, and were designed to be good for 20
flights each.
Obviously, all the pre-Challenger ones were scrapped after the design
change to the field joints, but it would be interesting to know how many
have been made, and compare that to the total number of flights to find
out real-world figures on what their average lifespan was.
Someone here mentioned years back that by the time they were fully
checked out after a flight and recertified for use, the cost was nearly
the same as building new ones.
That would not be the case in regards to Falcon-9, but they might want
to remember that even the Redstone stage of a Mercury-Redstone was seen
to be in flames when it fell into the sea after a launch, by a fishing
boat in the vicinity...which led to the ban on ships in the expected
impact area of rocket boosters.
The stresses on the stage when it pretty much falls straight into the
atmosphere at thousands of mph have to be pretty high if the G-forces
experienced by the Mercury astronauts on the sub-orbital flights are
anything to go by.

Pat

On Wed, 23 Jun 2010 01:45:37 -0800, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Obviously, all the pre-Challenger ones were scrapped after the design
change to the field joints,

No, they were modified to incoporate the capture feature, third
o-ring, and joint heaters. I remember seeing photos of pre-Challenger
SRBs being fired at Utah so that Thiokol could get to work modifying
them (firing them was the easiest way to get the propellant out.)

You're right that some segments were occasionally written off, but
that wasn't unexpected and Thiokol planned for it. The only big
unexpected loss was the STS-4 parachute glitch.

Brian

Pat Flannery wrote:


That would not be the case in regards to Falcon-9, but they might want
to remember that even the Redstone stage of a Mercury-Redstone was seen
to be in flames when it fell into the sea after a launch, by a fishing
boat in the vicinity...which led to the ban on ships in the expected
impact area of rocket boosters.
The stresses on the stage when it pretty much falls straight into the
atmosphere at thousands of mph have to be pretty high if the G-forces
experienced by the Mercury astronauts on the sub-orbital flights are
anything to go by.

The high g-forces experienced by the Mercury sub-orbital astronauts were
caused by going very high with low horizontal velocity. A stage of a
vehicle going to orbit would likely have higher horizontal velocity,
so it will somewhat glide back to Earth and have less g-forces than
the early sub-orbital flights. If one wants to have the first stage
return to launch site, then you might go straight up a little longer
and have those problems. I don't know what are the plans for Falcon-9
recovery, do they want to do a recovery at or near the launch site? If
no, high g-loads are not likely to be an issue when the stage falls
back to Earth.


Alain Fournier