Everybody’s launchin’ this week!
(all times Eastern)
Per the Launch Handbook: Scrub, Reschedule, Rinse, Repeat
I expect this-week’s schedules to bounce around like a pool break.
Check back daily for the latest schedule guesses.
• Thu night Electron SARsat from NZ (previous mission had failed)
• Sun night 11pm Falcon9 Starlink from the Cape
• Dec 28 Falcon Heavy, USSF Spaceplane X-37B from the Cape
• Dec 28 Falcon9 Starlink from Vandenberg
I’ll add the video links when they’re available
“Everybody’s launchin’ this week”
Slightly sarcastic this ‘Everybody’?
🤔🤫😇🤔🙂
Yeah,
but just the ones I follow closely.
Remember, I’m just entertainin’ myself here.
Chinese & Russians have a few goin’ up, too; but I don’t care.
If anybody else newsworthy lights one off, I’ll link to it.
I have to get to Home Depot then pick up a Firehouse Sub to get back for the first.
Thanks, Doug!
–mech
Alas, scrubbed
Enjoy the sammich anyway
Doug. Question.
I understand the reasoning for expending the center booster.
What I don’t understand is why they are wasting a brand new booster, and not a reused one which theoretically could be getting near end-of life.
Thoughts?
SpaceX may not routinely keep new F9 boosters sittin’ around
(don’t know what their production plan looks like).
DoD would traditionally pay for new launcher hardware;
but with only one new booster available, the lowest-risk and/or
highest-performance option would likely be to put it in the center.
Don’t know the reliability numbers; and you can’t test-in reliability;
but I expect that a used booster might come with a lot more
confidence in the reliability math than a new one,
given a sufficiently large design factor of safety.
Best system test is a real mission and a post-flight inspection, eh?
The most experienced F9 booster has seen 17 launches, I think;
and they’re still looking for that real-world expected-lifetime number.
That’s kind of a new thing in the satellite-booster-rocket world.
It sounds like you think SpaceX is still trying to figure out the mean time to failure for their boosters?
Which, if that’s true, it makes me wonder if SpaceX had a number of launches before failure calculated and it turned out the design is far more robust than expected?
Yes, that’s what they are shooting for. They are inspecting the living dickens out of those older boosters but so far they are looking very healthy. They DO changes the rocket motors occasionally – they have complete telemetry on them.
They use new boosters for the “core” because the core has to have those struts to attach the boosters, and that’s a non-standard item. Cheaper to throw it away rather than store it for the next occasional launch. They also delete the hardware for the legs and other ancillary equipment (too numerous to mention).
Ahh, yes, the struts and landing legs
Good info!
Falcon Heavy pushed back to ‘no earlier than Wednesday’, according to USSF.
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=ussf-52
Got it
Thanks
Darn weather on the East Coast. West Coast isn’t much better, either.
Sneakin’ up on canceling crews’ Christmases all over the place
All I want for Christmas is a Falcon Heavy launch……
Looks like Santa failed us, kid
Santa needs as clear a sky as possible, though.
Still looking forward to each and it doesn’t affect my overtime anymore.
Maybe bump something to Dec 31 for a New Year’s candle. That could be fun.
–mech