SpaceX worked through the issues and got their static fire test done
late Friday. They currently hope to launch in a brief window at 8:29 pm
eastern Sunday. (Next window would be Tuesday.) Best wishes to their
operations crew for a successful flight in time for all to be home for
Christmas.
http://spacenews.com/spacex-planning-sunday-falcon-9-launch-after-test/
On 12/18/2015 8:51 AM, Henry Vanderbilt wrote:
I'd expect the first on-site run through of a significantly changed
operation to involve a few pauses to work out issues. Even money they
run into enough hitches that they end up breaking for Christmas. No
knock on them if they do; it's the nature of the business.
Mind, I'm still a bit surprised they're combining such significant ops
changes with the return-to-flight after the accident, but possibly the
changes were already in the pipeline such that it would have been a lot
harder to revert. Then again, it may be a case of "toujours l'audace!"
Best of luck to them either way.
Yes, I've been assuming that Cape permission to attempt the booster
flyback to shore this time is a result of SpaceX having demonstrated
that they can reliably get the booster under control to a specific
location. Counting on SpaceX to be able to then stick the landing, not
so much, yet. But I wouldn't be surprised if they do this time. Given
the nature of an unthrottleable >1G-thrust touchdown, removing the
barge's vertical motion from the equation has to be a big help.
On 12/17/2015 10:09 PM, Ben Brockert wrote:
The LOX is at -340 F, rather than the -300F of atmospheric. The RP-1
is at 20 F rather than 70F, which presents sealing issues.
The whole thing is a great demo of why it would be necessary to have
your manufacturing facility near your launch facility to make an
expendable rocket really cheap.
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is planning to evacuate the entire
base, except for launch essential personnel and security, because they
expect the first stage to come back but don't trust it to go well.
On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 11:26 PM, Henry Vanderbilt
<hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Developing your cryo ops at a low-humidity site can lead to surprises
when
you try to fly out of a high-humidity place, yes. (I'd assume that
loading
sub-cooled LOX involves significant changes in hardware and
procedures from
the normal 1-atmosphere boiling-point flavor, so they'd be doing this
at the
Cape for the first time.)
On 12/17/2015 7:42 PM, Anthony Graziani wrote:
In case any of you guys are following the SpaceX RTF launch, I'd
like to
start an update thread. It's scheduled to launch Saturday at 8:25 pm
EST. Last I heard they were having problems loading propellants for the
static fire. Part of Elons latest tweet - "Deep cryo liquid oxygen
presenting some challenges." Theory is that the humidity at CC is
causing more problems than anticipated.
I'm on my way down to CC right now so fingers crossed...
Anthony