JetBuddy wrote:

One of two things happened:

1. The Falcon9 launch went as planned. The 1st and 2nd stages performed nominally. The Northrop Grumman made payload adapter failed to release Zuma, and it tumbled into the ocean with the 2nd stage. This would make SpaceX's statements that Falcon9 performed nominally true.
2. Or the Zuma satellite was compromised in some form prior to launch, and the only way to keep the satellite was to fake it's demise, while it at the same time works exactly as planned.

Or 3. Everything went exactly as planned and we just don't know what this flight was doing or testing.

As far as I can tell no one informed is actually saying it was a failure. It could have been testing a new adaptor and how it worked with the SpaceX interface for all we know. Or doing the "stealth" thing some have hypothesized. We just don't know yet.

We don't even know how much whatever it was really cost. Could have been a few million or a billion, the few million for a test to insure against the loss of a billion is very much something the government would do.

Tugg

Tugger wrote:

JetBuddy wrote:

One of two things happened:

1. The Falcon9 launch went as planned. The 1st and 2nd stages performed nominally. The Northrop Grumman made payload adapter failed to release Zuma, and it tumbled into the ocean with the 2nd stage. This would make SpaceX's statements that Falcon9 performed nominally true.
2. Or the Zuma satellite was compromised in some form prior to launch, and the only way to keep the satellite was to fake it's demise, while it at the same time works exactly as planned.

Or 3. Everything went exactly as planned and we just don't know what this flight was doing or testing.

As far as I can tell no one informed is actually saying it was a failure. It could have been testing a new adaptor and how it worked with the SpaceX interface for all we know. Or doing the "stealth" thing some have hypothesized. We just don't know yet.

We don't even know how much whatever it was really cost. Could have been a few million or a billion, the few million for a test to insure against the loss of a billion is very much something the government would do.

Tugg

Yes, option 3 is basically what I meant with option 2. Besides theorizing that the functionality and mission of Zuma had been compromised somehow (possibly by foreign intelligence), leading them to stage this confusion.

According to the Satellite Catalog, Zuma is listed as USA 280 with no decay data. This means two things, Zuma has entered the desired orbit, and secondly it has orbited the earth at least one round.

https://www.celestrak.com/satcat/search.asp

itchief wrote:

A quick goole search, Non-military intelligence funding for FY2016 was about $54 billion and the Trump FY2018 has $511 billion in nondefense discretionary spending. Plenty of room for other agencies to pay for ZUMA. I was able to complete the google search without my tinfoil hat.

Sure, but whom other than the Department of Defense or an intelligence agency would launch a classified payload into orbit?

It's not going to be the Department of Energy because the Outer Space Treaty prevents the stationing of nuclear weapons in orbit (plus an actual nuclear weapon would be controlled by Space Command and/or Global Strike Command under the USAF and not the DoE).

It's not going to be the FBI because their purview is domestic surveillance and ZUMA is not in a geostationary orbit over the United States.

It's not going to be the Department of Commerce because NOAA does not classify their Earth Observation birds.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

salttee wrote:

MatthewDB wrote:

The CIA (is) not "military", they are civilian agenc(ey).

You're flat wrong about that. The first CIA director Admiral Sidney Souers wanted the CIA to be purely for intelligence, but by the time Bedell Smith became DCI the CIA was carrying on military ops. Currently, among other things, they are conducting drone strikes in Pakistan at least. The initial invasion of Afghanistan was purely a CIA operation.

We're arguing over definitions here. The accepted definition of "military" are people who wear a uniform and fight under a flag, are expected to follow the laws and conventions of warfare, are expected to be afforded humane treatment if captured, and are under a command and control structure. In the United States, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, plus the Coast Guard in times of war are the only military organizations.

Other agencies can certainly conduct combat operations, but they are not military. They are combatants, but in the parlance of international law, they are not military.

Since you're getting hung up on that one word, you think people here are arguing that the satellite isn't for foreign surveillance, including possible US aligned combatant support. No one is making that argument. That's certainly not what I meant. You continuing to argue they/we are is making a strawman argument.

salttee wrote:

You can live in fantasyland if you want, but don't ask me to join you.

This is a very civil thread, and you're throwing insults at people over the definition of a word. Kindly refrain or go away.

Regarding Zuma:
UsLaunchReport, the guys who captured the Amos 6 failure, where lucky again. They caught fairing separation, right when they where supposed to, on camera:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MouF4CXkt7o
They just came to the wrong conclusion. They think one fairing was stuck, as you can see only one fairing falling away. That`s wrong, if you look closely, there is a short, brighter spot on the lower side as well, just not as good to see due to the different angle. The fairing is black inside, so you can see them only if the white, outer side gets illuminated by exhausts just at the right time.

I think one fairing cannot get stuck as the active half pushes both apart.

What`s really fishy in hindsight is that no 3 letter agency claimed the ownership for the bird as usual. As if they new that a failure was going to happen or was going to be pretended and they didn`t want that on their public success/failure sheet - if it was a failure after all.

Interesting analysis by a spy-satellite tracker:
https://sattrackcam.blogspot.de/2018/01/fuel-dump-of-zumas-falcon-9-upper-stage.html
Looks plausible. So stage 2 should have achieved orbit after all.

Which leads to the conclusion that the anonymous source who said it didn`t reach orbit either lied or doesn`t have sufficient knowledge on that matter to make such a statement. So 1 out of three anonymous sources should be ignored.

At least all sources seem to have gone silent. Nothing substancially new on the matter anywhere.

o0OOO0oChris wrote:

Which leads to the conclusion that the anonymous source who said it didn`t reach orbit either lied or doesn`t have sufficient knowledge on that matter to make such a statement.

Or they were deliberately given misinformation with the expectation that would be passed on to the public.

KarelXWB wrote:

It's difficult to understand all these safety issues. Space Shuttle ferried astronauts to the ISS, and so does Soyuz. What makes Dragon 2 (and Boeing's CST-100 Starliner) so difficult to meet similar safety standards?

I very much doubt Soyuz fulfils those safety standards, yet NASA choses to remain a slave to that Russian system rather than have something American. Hardly understandable in my book.

KarelXWB wrote:

It's difficult to understand all these safety issues. Space Shuttle ferried astronauts to the ISS, and so does Soyuz. What makes Dragon 2 (and Boeing's CST-100 Starliner) so difficult to meet similar safety standards?

There's no problem meeting similar standards. The problem is meeting completely different standards, written by people who are not in favor of commercial manned spaceflight.

KarelXWB wrote:

Jayafe wrote:

The question Karel is, was this 270 flights standard made up brand new, or also applied to Soyuz?

You can create a list of requirements that no manufacturer can meet. It's a safe way of saving money and dropping the project...

It's a new standard, and clearly made up by bureaucrats.

For reference, Space Shuttle had a Loss of Mission rate of 1 to 90.

There were 135 launches, 134 made it to orbit and 133 returned (intact). That's a 1:67.5 rate.

KarelXWB wrote:

And while I don't have the official number for Soyuz, it had 16 failures out of 140 missions (thus 1 to 9).

I'm not able to find numbers either. Going back 10+ years, I know Soyuz was considered the most reliable launch vehicle but the success rate has declined recently.

The irony here is that if NASA blocks SpaceX, they're going to be committing to use exclusively Soyuz.

Stitch wrote:

o0OOO0oChris wrote:

Which leads to the conclusion that the anonymous source who said it didn`t reach orbit either lied or doesn`t have sufficient knowledge on that matter to make such a statement.

Or they were deliberately given misinformation with the expectation that would be passed on to the public.

Yes. I believe it was misinformation on purpose to create this confusion.

Target for the next try is 4PM ET tomorrow.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/national/spacex-test-falcon-heavy-rocket-monday-kennedy-space-center/ThSAPvWLDbuPvxShGjL7BI/

MatthewDB wrote:

The irony here is that if NASA blocks SpaceX, they're going to be committing to use exclusively Soyuz.

Or they're committing to use exclusively SLS for manned missions.

4PM.Hope it goes will for them.Dont want to mess up the launch pad!
It's extraordinary how much additional power has been developed for these Falcon engines.I read somewhere that they are now 40% more powerful than the origonal ones.
Thing is that means a Block 5 (or full thrust) F9 can send nearly every 'standard' payload into space these days.Of course that could not have been known when they started on the FH a decade ago.I think there are only 3 commercial flights booked for this behemoth.

parapente wrote:

4PM.Hope it goes will for them.Dont want to mess up the launch pad!
It's extraordinary how much additional power has been developed for these Falcon engines.I read somewhere that they are now 40% more powerful than the origonal ones.
Thing is that means a Block 5 (or full thrust) F9 can send nearly every 'standard' payload into space these days.Of course that could not have been known when they started on the FH a decade ago.I think there are only 3 commercial flights booked for this behemoth.

There have already been several Falcon 9 payloads which were originally booked for the Falcon Heavy, but launched on a Falcon 9 after various capability increases in the rocket.

mxaxai wrote:

MatthewDB wrote:

The irony here is that if NASA blocks SpaceX, they're going to be committing to use exclusively Soyuz.

Or they're committing to use exclusively SLS for manned missions.

You are a bit confused between rocket and spaceship.

International Designator NORAD Catalog Number Name Source Launch Date Launch Site Decay Date Status Latest TLE
2018-001A 43098 USA 280 (ZUMA) US 2018-01-08 AFETR + TLE
Status is + (operational)

clam285 wrote:

International Designator NORAD Catalog Number Name Source Launch Date Launch Site Decay Date Status Latest TLE
2018-001A 43098 USA 280 (ZUMA) US 2018-01-08 AFETR + TLE
Status is + (operational)

What's the epoch date on this TLE? (TLE=Two Element Set)

If it's from the date of launch it does not mean much at this point.

Jayafe wrote:

mxaxai wrote:

MatthewDB wrote:

The irony here is that if NASA blocks SpaceX, they're going to be committing to use exclusively Soyuz.

Or they're committing to use exclusively SLS for manned missions.

You are a bit confused between rocket and spaceship.

It's not as if you could mount a soyuz on a falcon heavy.

Nomadd wrote:

moo wrote:

The point is that the second stage deorbited as planned and into the planned splashdown area on earth- which means it had no unexpected mass or volume on the way down, so separation did occur...

The payload mass was probably pretty small compared to the almost empty 2nd stage mass, so it wouldn't have made much difference in 2nd stage re-entry.

I had to double check this to be sure, but when the 2nd stage does it's re-entry burn, it burns until a certain velocity change occurs, not for a set time. So, if there was the extra mass of a payload still attached when the stage re-entered, it would still come down in the right spot unless it ran out of fuel.

Nomadd wrote:

Nomadd wrote:

moo wrote:

The point is that the second stage deorbited as planned and into the planned splashdown area on earth- which means it had no unexpected mass or volume on the way down, so separation did occur...

The payload mass was probably pretty small compared to the almost empty 2nd stage mass, so it wouldn't have made much difference in 2nd stage re-entry.

I had to double check this to be sure, but when the 2nd stage does it's re-entry burn, it burns until a certain velocity change occurs, not for a set time. So, if there was the extra mass of a payload still attached when the stage re-entered, it would still come down in the right spot unless it ran out of fuel.

You aren't taking into account the aerodynamic effects of the extra mass, which would cause it to take a different trajectory.

mxaxai wrote:

MatthewDB wrote:

The irony here is that if NASA blocks SpaceX, they're going to be committing to use exclusively Soyuz.

Or they're committing to use exclusively SLS for manned missions.

You have far more confidence in SLS than I. They've already spent insane amounts of money for the pathetic results to date. I suspect the project is going to die.

mxaxai wrote:

Jayafe wrote:

mxaxai wrote:

Or they're committing to use exclusively SLS for manned missions.

You are a bit confused between rocket and spaceship.

It's not as if you could mount a soyuz on a falcon heavy.

When you're talking about Soyuz, you get to use the name for all of the above. It's the name of a project, the name of a space vehicle (Soyuz-MS) and the name of a rocket (Soyuz-FG).

Delaying another day: https://sg.news.yahoo.com/spacex-pushes ... 38008.html

MatthewDB wrote:

Delaying another day: https://sg.news.yahoo.com/spacex-pushes ... 38008.html

A January launch is looking less and less likely - I did put my money on "no earlier than February" much earlier in the thread, and it increasingly looks like SpaceX are going to agree with me

A twitter post said that today, from 16:00 EST, there will be a wet dress rehearsal. Only if everything is perfect, they will fire her up.

I always wanted to see a wet dress rehearsal.

Where can we watch it live? SpaceX doesn't have a live stream announced...

David

SpaceX typically does not webcast static fires.

Take a look at US Launch Report on YouTube. They generally will have a camera running - not necessarily close to the pad though. These are the same folks that caught the Amos-6 static fire explosion at SLC-40

spaceflightnow.com is offering a live feed for a paid membership. I didn't buy so I don't know the quality.

It's off again.

NASA informed local National Seashore Park Svc that today's planned #FalconHeavy test fire has been cancelled, they were not advised of a reschedule for tomorrow. No further details at this time.

Following this Falcon-Heavy testing closely will lead to nothing but frustration. The way these things go when testing a major new launch configuration... is lots of little problems pop up, each can cause a few days of delays. Also there is a possibility of larger hardware and software issues that must be revisited -- causing weeks of delays or longer.

So we hope a full static engine test will happen soon, but more delays are likely. The launch of Falcon-Heavy could easily slip into the spring or summer...we hope not -- but that is a short time considering it is at least a year behind schedule already.

SpaceX is hopefully giving the crew downtime to recharge, overworked engineers and technicians can make things worse. We don't want another event like the 2016 Pad-40 explosion, either. I follow SpaceX, but try not to hang on every scheduled event...when the news comes of a real test, then I will read about it and watch videos.

SpaceX has lost the range support from now until the ULA Atlas 5 launch has occurred, so nothing is likely to happen now until at least the weekend, more probably next week.

Better to be right than quick.There is no real rush as long as it works.
None the less the FH is like waiting for Godot!

Personally I think the safety committee's criticisms/concerns over both the Dragon2 and (more importantly imho) the F9 safety is troubling.
They remain concerned about the pad explosion a year ago when the F9 liquids froze on high cooling.Apparently a 100% alternative fix is costly and heavy.Spacex has gone down the carbon flibre route for their pressure vessels (good idea imho) and I can't see that changing now.

Of course it is right that human safety is of a primary concern (they are not 100% happy with Boeing).But there is a very very high steaks 'game' going on with NASA(SLS) Lockheed and Boeing ie the traditional US space players and the Government.Nearly all they are doing would be rendered obsolete if the Spacex programme works ok.
Just can't see them letting this happen myself.
I note Spacex is actively developing their own alternative launch pad complex in Texas.Do they see it too?

I don't think SpaceX is developing the Texas launch site to pull back from the cape, but to gain capacity.

That said, it has several advantages. It's the closest to the equator you're ever going to see a launch site in the continental US. The site is a few miles from the Mexican border. Only the tip of Florida is closer, and it's too populated. Also, a launch in Texas opens the possibility of a landing in Florida.

Just because I'm unabashedly curious:

Did SpaceX ever consider solid fuel engines, either as a stage, or as boosters?

David

MatthewDB wrote:

quote="KarelXWB"]And while I don't have the official number for Soyuz, it had 16 failures out of 140 missions (thus 1 to 9).

I'm not able to find numbers either. Going back 10+ years, I know Soyuz was considered the most reliable launch vehicle but the success rate has declined recently.
[/quote]

Manned Soyuz had two failures with loss of life. the first ( Komarov) and the tenth mission (G. Dobrovolsky, V. Patsayev, V. Volkov.)
Last start was mission 136. Still in progress. Not a bad record.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_S ... uz_program
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_R ... e_missions

flyingturtle wrote:

Just because I'm unabashedly curious:

Did SpaceX ever consider solid fuel engines, either as a stage, or as boosters?

David

It would be impossible to answer that as no one was in all the engineering meetings, so no one can legitimately say "nope, *never* considered it", but realistically solid fuel engines wouldn't fit with the goal SpaceX intended to reach for from the very start.

You can't throttle solid fuel rockets on demand, and you cant start and stop them on demand multiple times - both of which SpaceX needs to recover the boosters.

And how would solid fueled rockets make a return flight from mars?

SRB's (fireworks) go against the fundamental business philosophy of Spacex -reusability.I doubt they gave it more than a few seconds thought personally.
If you are going to chuck everything away it would have to really cheap.Even then it probably wouldn't work.I think Boeing are launching their capsule on a 1960's Atlas.Perhaps that is cheap as it has been around such a long time -but that's pure speculation.The SLS is pretty much 100% reusing old stuff but it certainly ain't cheap!
With Spacex and Jeff B's New Glen both being reusable (and Virgin I suppose) it's hard to see how the 'old disposable way' surviving very long.Am surprised the European Ariane people can't see that.But perhaps they have a way dunno.

parapente wrote:

SRB's (fireworks) go against the fundamental business philosophy of Spacex -reusability.I doubt they gave it more than a few seconds thought personally.
If you are going to chuck everything away it would have to really cheap.Even then it probably wouldn't work.I think Boeing are launching their capsule on a 1960's Atlas.Perhaps that is cheap as it has been around such a long time -but that's pure speculation.The SLS is pretty much 100% reusing old stuff but it certainly ain't cheap!
With Spacex and Jeff B's New Glen both being reusable (and Virgin I suppose) it's hard to see how the 'old disposable way' surviving very long.Am surprised the European Ariane people can't see that.But perhaps they have a way dunno.

You might want to rethink your statement. STS/SLS SRB's are reusable.

itchief wrote:

You might want to rethink your statement. STS/SLS SRB's are reusable.

at twice the cost of a new one.

WIederling wrote:

itchief wrote:

You might want to rethink your statement. STS/SLS SRB's are reusable.

at twice the cost of a new one.

Maybe you can educate me on this. The STS SRB's were twice cost to refurbish vs buying new and NASA did this for every shuttle launch?

itchief wrote:

Maybe you can educate me on this. The STS SRB's were twice cost to refurbish vs buying new and NASA did this for every shuttle launch?

As per some info around the internet, it was actually between x2.5 and x3. Obviously not what they had in mind when they designed the whole thing (in the end the amount of material that could be reused was much less than expected and reconditioning it more expensive than predicted), but sometimes depending on the urgency, building facilities and other circumstances, they had to go ahead with it.
Problem with prototype design is that you can't always buy new and/or on time. This was not a linear-car-factory (which is actually what SpaceX intends to establish in the industry).

Out of 270 SRBs launched over the Shuttle program, all but four were recovered – those from STS-4 (due to a parachute malfunction) and STS-51-L (Challenger disaster).[3] Over 5,000 parts were refurbished for reuse after each flight.

Jayafe wrote:

itchief wrote:

Maybe you can educate me on this. The STS SRB's were twice cost to refurbish vs buying new and NASA did this for every shuttle launch?

As per some info around the internet, it was actually between x2.5 and x3. Obviously not what they had in mind when they designed the whole thing (in the end the amount of material that could be reused was much less than expected and reconditioning it more expensive than predicted), but sometimes depending on the urgency, building facilities and other circumstances, they had to go ahead with it.
Problem with prototype design is that you can't always buy new and/or on time. This was not a linear-car-factory (which is actually what SpaceX intends to establish in the industry).

Out of 270 SRBs launched over the Shuttle program, all but four were recovered – those from STS-4 (due to a parachute malfunction) and STS-51-L (Challenger disaster).[3] Over 5,000 parts were refurbished for reuse after each flight.

I was making a little joke on the educate me part. I can find all the info you have posted above, except the x2.5 and x3 part on cost. Your "As per some info around the internet" makes me smile because we all know everything on the internet is true. I know NASA is a government agency but for them to get away with spending 2 to 3 time the amount on refurbing the SRB vs buying new would not happen.

itchief wrote:

Jayafe wrote:

itchief wrote:

Maybe you can educate me on this. The STS SRB's were twice cost to refurbish vs buying new and NASA did this for every shuttle launch?

As per some info around the internet, it was actually between x2.5 and x3. Obviously not what they had in mind when they designed the whole thing (in the end the amount of material that could be reused was much less than expected and reconditioning it more expensive than predicted), but sometimes depending on the urgency, building facilities and other circumstances, they had to go ahead with it.
Problem with prototype design is that you can't always buy new and/or on time. This was not a linear-car-factory (which is actually what SpaceX intends to establish in the industry).

Out of 270 SRBs launched over the Shuttle program, all but four were recovered – those from STS-4 (due to a parachute malfunction) and STS-51-L (Challenger disaster).[3] Over 5,000 parts were refurbished for reuse after each flight.

I was making a little joke on the educate me part. I can find all the info you have posted above, except the x2.5 and x3 part on cost. Your "As per some info around the internet" makes me smile because we all know everything on the internet is true. I know NASA is a government agency but for them to get away with spending 2 to 3 time the amount on refurbing the SRB vs buying new would not happen.

Never assume that a bureaucracy will change course just because it's glaringly obvious to all involved that another course is a better choice. After all, the shuttle was far more expensive than throw away rockets. NASA figured out that the promise of the shuttle didn't pan out but kept right on going regardless.

The reason NASA didn't just throw away the SRB after one use is that the design was very expensive, and throwing away that booster wasn't cheaper than re-using that booster. Now if you compare the shuttle SRB to one designed to be throw away to begin with, the shuttle SRB is easily that much more expensive. Now to make the change, a new booster would have to be designed and qualified. That's not cheap either, so NASA didn't go down that road.

As I've pointed out before, not only has that booster been a very expensive call, it is the cause of 31% of all astronaut / cosmonaut deaths. It needs to be retired and never used again.

No am happy with what I said.Am well aware they were parachuted down and towed into port.Am also aware of how the costs turned out.
The same is true of the shuttle itself.The refurbished costs were horrible (and time consuming).
In fact they wanted to use the (empty) fuel tanks as part of a space station at one time but that did not work out either.

This is NOT to criticise NASA.They had a damn good go at reusablity.And I give them full credit for trying.
I would also say that right now we have no idea how the F9 refurbished costs are going as they have not said much about it.Although I believe they have said that it's harder than they thought.The F9 block 5 is heavily redesigned.One might say that this is an indication of how hard they have found it to do.
Will they be able to use Block 5's for X10 uses? Who knows.But if one suddenly blows up it will certainly cause trouble.This is virgin territory for the space industry.

Regarding Matthew DB's comments on SRB's.Strong stuff.I hope you are wrong as ,as it stands, humans will again be relying on them.
I would prefer to think that the one disaster they had was 100% avoidable and that otherwise ( however crude they are - and they are) they do a simple job well.

MatthewDB wrote:

As I've pointed out before, not only has that booster been a very expensive call, it is the cause of 31% of all astronaut / cosmonaut deaths. It needs to be retired and never used again.

Which was caused by starting outside the allowed working conditions envelope.
( with an "I tell you" prewarning from a qualified employee at that. Ignored.)

Not even bad luck but commanded into failure.

Forget the weekend.

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy static fire test at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is now expected no earlier than Monday.

Does anyone know if the US government shutdown will affect the Heavy launch? Presumably SpaceX is paying for range services, which technically means there should be no break in availability, but then again...

Read an interesting article on Teslerati.It was a Director John Brost (of Govt contracts) for Spacex.
Much was simply building on what Elon has already said.But the Emphasis on the Moon ( over Mars) was what caught Teslerati's eye.
As previously discussed it's not hard to see why.Its what the President has decreed for NASA and thus it's funding.Obviously right now they are the only company who has a plan that could achieve it.
Furthermore they are commencing build ( he reiterated it But of course it could slip) in 2018.It also looks like their new Texas launch system is where it will go from.
On one side I am very excited for them.It is also sensible to gain knowledge on landing something like the BFR spacecraft somewhere 'easier' first.
But
I fear for them.Boeing !Lockheed! And other majors have had this government playground all to themselves for over 50 years.The voice of NASA was the voice of God in all this.
Putting it bluntly they will try anything to stop Spacex dead in its tracks.I really believe this.I hope I am misguided in this concern.

Regarding the idea of a space station in a moon orbit vs a geostationary orbit, wouldn't a geosynchronous orbit not be much better with regards to radiation and overall reachability?

aviationaware wrote:

Regarding the idea of a space station in a moon orbit vs a geostationary orbit, wouldn't a geosynchronous orbit not be much better with regards to radiation and overall reachability?

Geosynchronous moon orbit in a postition towards the earth would make sure we always could communicate. Any other position would require satellites in orbit around the moon, but that might be something we should do anyway.

But as far as I understand, the proposed moon space station will act as a refueling / resupply / slingshot / crew quarters station for future Mars mission. But I could be wrong.