SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launched
Keith’s note: It worked.
SpaceX Falcon Heavy Roars Into Space, SpaceRef
“SpaceX Launched its first Falcon Heavy today. All indications are that the flight has been a complete success thus far. More to follow. Pictures below.”
I’m seeing much more mainstream news coverage with this than with other launches.
But SpaceX cut off after they lost signal from the remote barge, possibly due to vibrations. Also, would be nice to know if the 2nd stage and payload ascend directly to hyperbolic trajectory or does stage 2 shut down and then reignite to boost to escape velocity? Regardless, the fact that they launched, got through max-Q, separated the boosters and recovered them at the Cape, this is a major step toward going beyond LEO!
Ad LEO! Ad Luna! Ad Ares! AD ASTRA!
The Tesla won’t get to escape velocity for a few more hours. The flight plan calls for a five and a half hour cruise phase. The Department of Defense and other government agencies have a desire for a launch vehicle which delivers a payload directly to geostationary orbit. Most launches put the payload on a LEO-to-GEO transfer orbit, and leave stopping in geostationary orbit to the payload. So SpaceX is demonstrating the five and a half hour pause (and passage through the radiation belts) required for a direct delivery to GEO.
They do seem to know how to do a demonstration flight, don’t they.
Isn’t this the first private launch vehicle into a solar orbit? One for the record books.
Nope. SpaceX launched DSCOVR, which resides at L1 now. The 2nd stage from its Falcon 9 launcher is now in a solar orbit, as well.
I forgot about DSCOVR.
But DSCOVR was a government payload. If you count it then you have to count all the upper stages from the planetary missions NASA used commercial launch vehicles for.
By contrast the Roadster is a completely private payload.
The 3rd burn over-performed. Starman is headed for the Asteroid Belt, just short of Ceres.
0.98 x 2.61 AU, C3 = 12.0 km^2/s^2
https://uploads.disquscdn.c… 2
Elon Musk ✔ @elonmusk
Third burn successful. Exceeded Mars orbit and kept going to the Asteroid Belt.
10:46 PM – Feb 6, 2018
They DID have enough delta-v to do a Mars flyby if they wanted!
I think the “vibrations” were them knowing that only one of the three descent engines ignited, so they cut the signal.
Ha. They don’t “cut the signal”. It’s a common occurrence when the booster lands. They typically regain the signal after landing, so it is possible it did indeed crash. So what? Not the first one. Also, SX proudly shows their explosions just as they do their successes. I get the feeling that both ULA and NASA are very nervous since yesterday.
First demo flight of the (currently) heaviest rocket on earth. This is expected from American media.
It’s bigger than any other country launch vehicle at the moment.
The launch is still the top item on the BBC’s web site. That’s about seven hours after launch. They are pretty good about covering space-related stories, but this is the first time I’ve seen them run a story about a launch above the fold and successful launches usually aren’t covered at all.
As of 10 eastern, maybe sooner, the Starman live feed on YouTube had 3 million views.
I don’t think I have seen ANY space related thing score more than 5 digits. Most score 4 or less.
I must admit, I did not anticipate this level of impact. I have to rethink all of my predictions now.
Edit: at this moment its 4.2 million.
And let’s hope that the comparison with SLS is handled accurately, and fairly.
What was the final acceleration at engine cutoff? That would provide some indication of the throttling capability.
At the moment, we don’t even know if there was a final cutoff. The final, planned burn was supposed to be after a five and an half hour pause. At the time I’m typing this, that would have been about two or three hours ago. But I haven’t seen any reports about it.
But the engine in question is a Merlin and reports of ground tests and flight use say it can throttle down to 60% of maximum thrust. I really doubt SpaceX would have gone beyond that proven limit on the first flight of the Falcon Heavy. On test flights, it’s best to minimize the number of new things involved.
@elonmusk https://twitter.com/elonmusk shows a final orbit aphelion close to Ceres’ orbit.
According to Wikipedia the Merlin 1D Vacuum can throttle to 39%, or 360KN. Since the empty mass of the second stage is about 4 metric tons, if the payload were another 6 for 10mt in all, peak acceleration would be 36m/s^2 or about 3.8g.
0.98 x 2.61 AU, C3 = 12.0 km^2/s^2
Bill, I have noticed the same thing. More coverage of a space event is always good; a message the NASA TV doesn’t seem to get.
Being home early, I tuned in to the channel, only to discover that they were not covering this. Additionally, a message confirming no coverage was posted to the website.
Even better, I was watching the PBS Newshour coverage during lunch, the media started coverage at the top of the launch window and filled with space related content through the wind-sheer delays. Also, Eastern time-zone K-12 would have come home from school in time to catch part of the coverage. Here’s to a new generation of space geeks! AD ASTRA!
Could not agree more. The reaction of these younger folks took me back to my own memories of watching Apollo flights!
Listened to Leroy Chiao on CNN talk about “young people with popcorn” watching and reacting to the launch and subsequent flight milestones. Why NASA doesn’t get this is beyond me?
Oh, they get it just fine. Not covering it NASA TV was just their way of passing the torch of initiative. This is good for NASA but very, very bad for SLS.
It’s not a NASA event, why would they cover it?
Really???
NASA didn’t issue an RFP for it. Has no missions scheduled on it. Has “no” need for it since they are building the SLS. So why waste time covering it, when it’s not a NASA event?
Yes, NASA is being dumb in terms of PR, but why should that surprise anyone?
When all is said and done we agree on the PR issue. That is my main beef. In a day and age where NASA needs all the help it can get, I was dumbfounded by their decision not to get on the bandwagon. It wasn’t as if it would have cost them anything to switch over to their pad cameras or have a spokesperson go on the air for an hour or so.
It’s not. But it did launch off NASA’s most famous and historic launch pad.
True, but SpaceX has a long term lease on the pad so it’s arguably not NASA’s pad anymore.
Well, at least until the lease runs out.
That is the standard logic they use, but it’s not actually ‘logical’ from the standpoint of encouraging public support for the sort of work that they do. It toes the policy line, while completely missing the point.
While it may seem in the big picture like a bad decision for NASA TV to not cover the FH launch, what in NASA’s charter would support it doing so?
As Thomas noted, it is not a NASA event. In point of fact, it is a private commercial event, albeit one beginning on a leased govt launch pad and using some government support resources. But is it—really—NASA’s job to provide media coverage of any given company’s doings? NASA is not permitted to favor any one company over another since doing so can be interpreted as an endorsement (a major government no-no), so if they had covered the launch today must they then cover every other company’s private test flights?
I, too, would have liked to have watched it on NASA TV and I would prefer that NASA get smarter about its PR…but how exactly could a government agency justify expending taxpayer resources to cover this particular event?
I can’t fault your points from a legal perspective Bob; although I wonder how many extra (if any) $ costs would have been required given the existing infrastructure in place.
They are broadcasting 24/7, so why not just switch the feed from a ISS Q&A repeat (which was on) to the pad cams?
Anyway, just one man’s opinion. Not looking for a fight…lol.
NASA TV did do a live stream of the private Ansari X-Prize flight.
Thank you. In the back of my mind I thought that they had covered non NASA events; however I couldn’t recall any details and didn’t want to make a claim I could not support.
That was awesome – especially loved the 2 booster landing together
Wow, that was insane… hope the center core made it back safely.
Mission Accomplished! American ingenuity and free enterprise succeeds, again! Go SpaceX!
Absolutely wonderful! Let the new era begin.
This is how we do it how we do it how we do it…
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
That was amazing watching both boosters land right on the pads. Any word on the core stage on the barge?
A video on space news .. guy said it might be toast.
http://spacenews.com/spacex…
In the comments
Goose bumps still. My god! We just watched the start of Space V2!
Two perfect landings – it never gets old, seeing those boosters come out of the sky! But two!
Anybody remotely following space knows the trailblazing that NASA and Russia and others have done. Mr. Musk knows. The kids on the webcast know.
Steve Jobs knew what it is like to forge a new idea. As I watched the webcast I couldn’t help think of Steve Jobs, and of Elon Musk. Two guys with vision.
This was one of steve’s favorite sayings:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
― Margaret Mead
And now, Elon Musk.
We live in wonderful times. And god bless America for allowing Musk to do what he’s done.
There are two commercial flights scheduled on FH this year, that will give it a flight rate about the same as the Saturn V. It is indeed a game changer for space!
Two commercial flights? There’s the ArabSat 6 launch and an Air Force launch, but I don’t know about a second commercial flight. Mr. Musk made some comments that implied the tourist flight around the Moon was off. But the phrasing wasn’t crystal clear about that.
The USAF will be flying a number of satellites on it, so I assume they are paying him, so that makes as much commercial as commercial crew is:-) BTW the Planetary Society also has their new Lightsail launching on it.
After the USAF the next two listed are the tourist flight to the Moon and ViaSat.
At the post-launch presser Musk said the Dragon 2 circumlunar flight has been deferred as work on the BFSpaceship is progressing faster than expected. They expect to start Greasshopper-style test flights in 2019. Musk also said the Spaceship will be capable of SSTO (single stage to orbit) with a reduced payload.
IF work on BFS lags, a Crew Dragon FH could get brought back.
Wired reported a Spaceship factory in San Pedro, and NASASpaceFlight reported a BFR factory for KSC with NASA, Space Florida and SpaceX in the talks.
Holy crap. If BFS does just one reusable SSTO flight, that will literally be one for the record books. It will also be vindication for all of the reusable SSTO supporters dating back to the early days of spaceflight.
With the Blue Origin factory nearing completion at KSC, SpaceX will see how much time and money can be saved by eliminating cross-country shipment. Maybe we will even see static tests again on Static Test Road.
There will be no cross country possiblity with BFR… it is 9 meters .. the road is limited to their 3 meter F9
Perhaps they’ll build it in CA or TX, the fly it to FL for orbital launch.
And at Kennedy there are no pesky interstate highway rules limiting the diameter of the rocket.
Hawthorne isn’t too far from the Pacific. About 10 miles. It wouldn’t be as flamboyant as a suborbital hop, but they could use a boat to get a BFR to all their launch sites. The Panama Canal can handle nine meters without any problem.
But doesn’t such a route feel like a kludge? Particularly from a hyper-efficient org like SX?
Maybe. But when they were looking for places to build Johnson and Stennis, access to water transportation was a requirement. (Yes, I know the actual selections were political, but where in Texas or Mississippi was partially based on practical considerations.) Transporting a Saturn V stage by train or road wouldn’t have worked.
Pity, as it would have been a great way to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11. I wonder if NASA had anything to do with it, after all they killed Dragon2 landing on land…
It also makes you wonder if any Dragon2’s will be available to Bigelow Aerospace to use for its B330.
Here’s hoping BFR goes forward at flank speed. Who knows, the way NASA is determined to drag out the ISS, it may be operational in time to take a couple of hundred tourists per trip to see the ISS in orbit. Not dock of course because ISS couldn’t handle that many visitors, but just a quick pass to see/photograph the antique on their way to the Bigelow Aerospace Hotel for the weekend 🙂
Well said sir. Is it too bold a pronouncement to say that this launch was historic – epic – a defining moment in our race to the stars. “Ad Astra de esprita”
Incredible launch! But whoever decided to cut away from the full screen view of the Falcon Heavy in flight to the three box video views showing the cameras on the FH waiting for booster separation, should be… corrected!
Please release the video of the FH from launch to stage separation, Full Screen!
Everyone’s a critic. I could also say the booster landing could have been better framed. It would have been nice if they had a drone up (far enough away for safety) so we could have seen it with the coastline in the background. But it was still spectacular, and there will be more chances for spectacular footage of future launches and landings.
I’d go further. I swear, the two lower video panels seemed to be the same stream. Hmmmm. I am going back to watch it again… Did anyone else notice it?
Now, this is just nitpicking. I watched it live from KSC and it was unbelievable. The returning boosters were coming one ahead of the other, but then it seems like the one ahead “waited” for the other for a near simultaneous touchdown. The sonic booms were like a machine gun. Could not count how many I heard.
The two bottom panels were definitely from the same booster. Just before the landing, you can see both pads, and the two panels show the view from a booster heading towards the same pad. But, earlier, I did notice how similar those two views were, and they weren’t completely identical. Features on the Earth’s surface left the frame at different times. So it could be the same camera with different processing or two different cameras on the same booster (which would be odd unless they we’re really into redundancy…)
I believe they were out of sync by milliseconds, so it fooled me for a bit (thought they were different sources). When I played it back, I noticed they both went to the same landing pad. I guess they lost the signal from the other booster so they just played the same one. For the next flight, this will be corrected. =)
What a beautiful, fantastic, amazing, stupendous, and flawless launch. I never thought anything could come close to how fantastic a shuttle launch was. I was wrong. FH is right up there!
I have to admit I teared up a bit. It was well worth the wait to see this bird fly. Congratulations to SpaceX! Here’s to many more successful missions as we endeavor to become a multi-planet species!
Seeing that monster of a rocket take off, those two boosters landing, and the fairing separating to reveal that shot of the car in space, those were amazing moments.
I am still amazed that we live in a country in which we hand over the keys to such a historic launchpad, for something such as this.
Has anyone said for how long / from how far away we will be able to receive the camera feed from the Roadster, once it leaves Earth orbit?
Not that I know of, but there have been some speculations (including some of my own.) Without a high gain antenna and attitude control, don’t expect video for more than a few days. Occasional, still images should be possible for longer. (It’s not like the manikin in the space suit is going to move around, and the view isn’t changing.) But I wouldn’t bet on anything more than a carrier after a week or so.
It has been said that the batteries will be good for 12 hours after launch
Said by whom? And at what power usage? And also, what sort of batteries? Those are all things we don’t know. As a result, we’re just guessing. The guesses may be good to within a factor of five, but not much better than that.
I was listening to a synopsis of the pre-launch press conference waiting for the launch hold. I don’t remember the source.
Elon said it during the press conference – 12 hours of batteries, then done. (said in response to a question by Keith, if I remember correctly – cheers to NASA PAO for giving you the mic!)
Elon was asked that at the presser. Twelve hours of juice from launch. So sometime in the early morning hours we’ll lose the signal for good.
Congratulations to SpaceX, USAF and everyone else involved. Watching the thing go up as well as the two boosters returning and landing in sync was a spectacular sight.
Fingers crossed for primary mission success. This will be a long 6hrs. Go Starman!..
Being old enough, I have been eyewitness to the first and last launch of the Apollo program and men going to the moon and the first and last launch of the Space Shuttle program. This was incredible, and I never thought I would see a booster land; not to mention two at the same time. I teared up too. Congratulations Elon and the SpaceX team, this is just the beginning… On to Mars!!!
Yes, it worked! Congratulations SpaceX, America has a Moon Rocket again!
Ummm…Saturn V was 90k to lunar orbit.
In the 1960’s. Advances in electronics and in material science make it possible to build spacecraft lighter today. The FH is powerful enough to send a Dragon2 around the Moon.
Note that a free-return trajectory requires a lot less mass than something that can achieve orbit, land crew & equipment, return them to orbit, and depart back for Earth.
Also note that the lunar mission didn’t need vehicles as large as the CSM and LM
http://www.astronautix.com/…
Lunar landing by Gemini, boosted by a
Saturn C-3, in competition with Apollo, as part of the revised original
Gemini program plan (September 1961)
And FH has much more payload than the Saturn C-3
http://www.astronautix.com/…
Key word: “was”. Saturn V was a great vehicle, but was cancelled due to high costs. SpaceX is advertising Falcon Heavy at $90 million per launch, which is an incredible bargain.
It doesn’t get much better than that. Congrats, Space X; very, very well done (and not just the engineering!).
When will the urban legend launch that somebody’s corpse was in the Starman suit?
Does anyone know if Jeff Bezos has been seen in public since the Falcon Heavy was rolled out to the launchpad?
Yes, and he even went out of his way to wish Musk and SpaceX the best of luck. Bezos is a good guy.
https://www.geekwire.com/20…
Well, to be fair, he put out some nasty digs on Twitter in the past and got called on it. His PR chops have improved, and that’s cool.
That’s the sort of class that many wish NASA had shown.
Awesome – a fantastic launch. A bit of a mystery about the central core, but I presume we’ll find out in good time. Just watching Starman Live on my work computer…
SpaceX have really delivered what they promised and now are able to credibly challenge NASA’s SLS for getting payloads back to the Moon. IF government persist with SLS – over budget, behind schedule, low flight rate, and wasteful – then the only reason is pork. Congress should throw its support behind commercial space for launch, and tell NASA to focus on developing technologies to enable us to operate in space more easily, safely and cheaply.
Starman orbiting earth: I predict that image will become iconic. I’m just waiting for the memes to begin. And what a great marketing tool for Tesla, “Where do you want to go today? The sky’s the limit.” 😉
By the way, spacex is still streaming starman live, for those who want to see him while he’s still in Earth orbit.
“Hey, dude? Are you the one who called an Über for Mars?”
Not just an Uber, but an Uber X.
Man! I am apoplectic with glee! Seeing it happen just like in the simulation videos warped my brain. Someone down the hall at work came over to see what I was screaming about.
Apparently it is still transmitting though it looks to be at least 20,000km out:
https://spaceflightnow.com/…
They could have done a direct injection to a hyperbolic trajectory but chose to go into a 200×7000 eliptical parking orbit somewhat similar to a GEO transfer and then do another burn about seven hours later at apogee. Most LVs just put payloads into GEO transfer orbit, and the payload has to do a series of apogee burns to transition to a circular GEO orbit, which requires time and payload fuel. This was a demonstration that the FH can can deliver a satellite (or car, if desired) directly to GEO with enough LOX remaining in the second stage to do the GEO insertion burn (and presumably deorbit the second stage after separating the payload). This was a capability the DOD wanted.
DOD got it, and then some, using Block 3 and Block 4 boosters running at only 92%. All future FH’s will be Block 5 cores with 205,000 lbf Merlin 1D+’s running at 100%. With a very good size margin.
Friggin’ BEAST
The standard practice for geostationary spacecraft is to boost them to a slightly higher orbit (a bit over 300 km, if memory serves.) It’s easier that deorbiting, and virtually no one puts working spacecraft in almost-geostationary orbits. I’d assume the same thing is done with the occasional spent upper stages.
You know, there are cheaper ways to get rid of a used car. (But admittedly, none more spectacular.)
Musk and SpaceX are being totally silent about the center core. My guess is that it missed the barge and went into the ocean somewhere.
Elon Musk tweeted that the burn on orbit worked and the Tesla is on its way past Mars and into the asteroid belt (going out to 2.61 AU!). Boldly going where no roadster has gone before!
Unless I am mistaken this is the first private payload launched into a solar orbit. The perfect end to a historic day!
Fun story. I teach evening classes at a local small town community college. At the end of class tonight we had some spare time, so I asked if they had heard about the launch of the car. No one had. I asked if they had heard of Elon Musk and Tesla. They all had! I then asked if they knew he owned a rocket company. None did. So I showed them Starman in orbit. They couldn’t believe it was real. I then showed them the launch video with twin returning rockets and faring separation, then explained about boosting it to Mars orbit and how it would be cycling between Earth and Mars for millions of years to come. They thought the whole thing was awesome.
Well done. You are on the front lines.
Awesome accomplishment by SpaceX.
ULA is done. SLS? Orion? Should NASA get out of the launcher business and focus on cool payloads and putting some funds back into science and aero? Will SLS still be going in 2 or 3 years? Lots of questions to be answered.
yes
How do you figure that? The DoD has unequivically stated that they want TWO launch providers and not one.
So ULA will get government launches.. end of story. Plus ULA will be launching the Boeing Capsule.
ULA, SpaceX and likely Blue Origin are the best bets. I don’t see NGL as getting off the ground any higher than Liberty did.
If Falcon Heavy flies successfully two more times before years end – with big, real payloads – then the knives could be or should be out for SLS. It would then be a LITERAL ‘Emporer Has No Clothes’ situation… Or more accurately; the Black Knight from ‘Monty Python’s Holy Grail’, with Elon Musk playing the part of King Arthur and SLS/Boeing playing the part of the Black Knight….
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Congrats to SpaceX on what looked like a flawless launch and 2 out of 3 stage recovery effort! That’s excellent for a first test flight of such a complicated system.
Buzz Aldrin used to advocate for sending poets and musicians on space missions because he felt that, as an engineer, he didn’t have the skills or words to communicate the powerfulness of emotion from spaceflight. I feel much the same way about this launch. Joy, pride (even though I didn’t work FH at all), glee, excitement… and so many more emotions. I’m not quite old enough to remember Apollo, but I understand how overpowering it must have felt to see it.
I watched many S5 launches, including A11, from the Banana River, and yes, the excitement level was high.
But this feels different – and I think it’s because Mercury/Gemini/ Apollo was so incremental that in many ways 11 snuck up on us. Probably Apollo 8 (lunar circumnavigation) has the biggest impact.
Even though SX’ progress has been incremental, at least partly, or maybe because I am now much older, the company’s efforts seem punctuated in my minds by just a few events: the spacecraft ‘bumping’ of F1, version 3; the first orbital launch of F9; watching boosters come out of the clouds at the Cape, and now FH.
I said that art created in space will be another niche market..
I tuned in just as FH was going through max Q, I thought it was cool they had crowds cheering behind the SpaceX PIO pair that were giving verbal updates (but if something went bad, would we hear the crowd groan?). I thought it was nice SpaceX PIO gave thanks to Range people and FAA providing permits.
I also thought of all those who pulled a lot of allnighters along with 60 hr work weeks for months.
yes you would hear them.. the launch that was lost was aired.
Just checked SpaceX and a few other space sites… looks like that Tesla space-cam is still running. I realize eventually it’ll peter out, but considering other space projects’ estimates on lifespans were usually way under estimated, maybe we’ll get another day or two out of it?
I’m curious: Are these regular webcams (maybe HD)? What’s the normal energy usage of those things? If we multiply by 4 or 5 (for all those different shots), plus the transmitter, might all this still last a little longer?
OTOH, if they’re still running that David Bowie audio continuously (though I hadn’t heard it since launch day), it’s a miracle it hadn’t been drained dry already!
“I’m curious: Are these regular webcams (maybe HD)? “
At least one is a low light, space rated RED camera. AIUI they’re ~$25k each and less than 30 were made. Standard RED’s are made for digital cinematography.
Can anyone explain the color of the rocket exhaust as the two boosters touched down?
I associate – wrongly, perhaps – that orange-y color with hypergolic fuels, which isn’t the case here (I know hypergolic are used to start the main engines). But why would the exhaust be that color?
I’d figured maybe…. dirt? Not necessarily from the pads — I’m sure they got a pre-mission sweeping, to avoid possible FOD impacts. But perhaps the area just outside of the pads were hit by the outward fountain effects of the exhausts. Remember these areas have no flame ducts to redirect the downward exhaust; so the plume hits center of the pad … and then spreads out radially (and forcefully).
So, that would be beach sand getting kicked up. It looks more like (yellowish) smoke to me.
My guess is, it may be from an ablative coating applied to the pad to keep the concrete slab from getting blasted away. It could also just be the logo paint burning off. They probably have to re-paint the bullseye X after each landing.
My guess is some sort of ablative coating. They do have SX logos as the bullseye, so they must need repainting after each use. The ablative makes sense because the hot exahust would otherwise erode the concrete slab. However, the time is pretty short.
I’m not sure. Hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide have a nice, purple color. See for example, the cover picture on _Space_System_Failures_
http://www.springer.com/us/…
One pad had a dark Space X logo, the other pad had a white Space X logo. One cloud was darkish, the other lightish.
Coincidence?
Thinking about putting together an article for the my organisation’s blog (see https://www.aspistrategist…. ) on the military and national security implications of Falcon Heavy. I’ve already done one on BFR late last year (see https://www.aspistrategist…. ), but what do you think might be the key opportunities for the US military with Falcon Heavy until BFR flies sometime in the early 2020s? Thoughts anyone?
30 tons to GEO.