News SpaceX heavy-lift vehicles: Launch Thread

So it's on pad at LC-39a, not sure if its vertical this morning yet, or not, but we may see a static fire test later today. With luck that Tesla Roadster is going to mars in a couple of weeks. This will be the most rocket engines fired at the same time, if I am correct, since the N-1 rocket tests in the early 1970's.

 

Let's hope it fares better than those four N-1 launches.

 

next stop, Mars (after the launch of course)

 

I'm not sure the debris from the pad 39A service structure will reach Mars even if a rocket that big blows up.

 

Whatever became of plug nozzle engines?

 

In preparation for Falcon Heavy launch on 6th, Elon Musk presents a new epic failure:

Falcon 9 rocket fails to break apart, explode and disintegrate as planned, making an unintended successful soft landing

 

Fingers crossed.

 

Woah, it's today, in less than 12 hours. Not sure if I'll watch this live, because it's going to blow and I'm not ready for that kind of suspense.

Elon gives it 67% chance of success, which I find unrealistically low. The worry is the interaction of the three F9 cores and 27 Merlin engines, which has never been tested in flight (kind of obvious, since that's the only thing that's new). But fixing that issue has been why they have been delaying the Heavy until now. I don't think they would fly if they weren't confident that had fixed any known troubles with that – if they haven't, no amount of good telemetry from a test flight will solve them for the ArabSat 6A launch, which is ‘early’ this year.

So I presume the 33% chance of failure Elon gives is about unknowns they didn't foresee in their simulations, and other shortcomings of those simulations or the static fire as a source of data. But that means he doesn't know the actual chance, and if it is 33% and we don't blow, they may not even notice the issue until a future rocket blows, which doesn't seem reasonable.

And I don't think they would be risking damage to the pad if the chances were really this low.

Doesn't the worry here also apply to their future Mars rocket, which has even more engines that are way bigger? I guess they might be willing to blow up some Heavy rockets to get the BFR right, but that sounds far-fetched.

I think the flight will be successful, but I still won't watch. Call me when SpaceX are actually confident they can fly this thing.

 

seeing the ballet the returned boosters are going to have to perform to get back to the lz (two on the ground, one on the barge) is going to be interesting.

 

They do it with one booster pretty convincingly so 3 should be doable.

 

More importantly, it will look cool.

 

pushed back to 3:05pm eastern

 

T-11 Looking good!

 

No kaboom. Falcon Heavy part of the mission a success. Wowwww.

 

Both boosters landed vertically at the same time! WOW!!

Congratulations SpaceX!

 

That was the most extraordinary thing I've ever watched. Spectacular.

The simul-landing was absolutely beautiful. What's with the centre core cover-up though?

Oh, and that's absolutely hilarious:





I hope the second stage comes back online tomorrow after the coasting, and the Roadster heads towards TMI.

 

Amazing!

 

Wow that double landing made my jaw drop....

 

A good graphic of the insanity we witnessed.

With some caveats:
- Three-engine landing of the centre core failed.
- Graphic omits the 5 hour coasting that the second stage is doing ATM* as a demonstration for the USAF (original Elon comment was about a 6 hour coasting before restart).
- Fairing recovery still pending.
- The seriously humourous ending is not in the picture.

* Elon: “Upper stage restart nominal, apogee raised to 7000 km. Will spend 5 hours getting zapped in Van Allen belts & then attempt final burn for Mars.”

ETA: Live stream from the Tesla

 

Never quite seen the point of landing the boosters vertically. Are they too big/awkward/not structurally sound when empty to parachute back to earth like NASA did with the Shuttle SRBs. Parachutes aren't light but surely lighter than the fuel and landing struts (and less chance for boom if something goes wrong).