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Blue Origin Thread (merged)


Aethon

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Cool video. Shame it has to be edited. I strongly wish for KSP to give us the adequate load range to actually do this seamlessly and without a ridiculous trajectory. Itd be common practice. You would need MechJeb to fly the second stage to orbit though.. Ive done it before. With BDArmory 300km load distance. Really... really fun. And it works really well.

Edited by Motokid600
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"Upon further review of the static fire data, SpaceX has determined that an additional day prior to launch will allow for more analysis and time to further chill the liquid oxygen in preparation for launch. Please note that we will now be targeting launch for tomorrow, Monday, December 21 at 8:34 pm ET."

Edited by Frida Space
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Soso. Landing is always a secondary goal, sure. This is the proof. Orbcomm must be very patient and also eager to see the booster landing to accept this. Maybe 10% increase in successful landing, but also increase in weather being worse than today, and we had perfect weather today. Well then

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Tomorrow nights wind forecast shows winds at 8mph as opposed to tonight's 10mph. Partly cloudy tonight. Cloudy tomorrow.

Hopefully not too much clouds. I guess its understandable. They want the best conditions possible. Especially for RTF.

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Orbcomm got this launch very cheap after their contract was carried over from an order of falcon 1s; there's a good chance it's actually below cost for spacex. They're not really in a position to make demands about how or when the launch is done.

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That's nonsense, Kryten. More importantly: Orbcomm has like two thirds of their whole new constellation on this rocket, a constellation already a year late to begin operations. This is a nailbiting launch for them. I reckon that the only reason they agreed to go first on a new rocket is because RTF missions historically have a higher success ratio than routine missions (there's a much higher attention to triple-checking everything).

If the launch provider says they think it makes sense to postpone one day, then the customer says "yes please" because it'll make the launch safer and the customer wants a safer launch. (Nevermind Elon's tweets about "landing chances". Mr Musk is good at many things, but PR is not one of them ;))

 

Edited by Streetwind
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4 hours ago, Streetwind said:

That's nonsense, Kryten. More importantly: Orbcomm has like two thirds of their whole new constellation on this rocket, a constellation already a year late to begin operations. This is a nailbiting launch for them. I reckon that the only reason they agreed to go first on a new rocket is because RTF missions historically have a higher success ratio than routine missions (there's a much higher attention to triple-checking everything).

If the launch provider says they think it makes sense to postpone one day, then the customer says "yes please" because it'll make the launch safer and the customer wants a safer launch. (Nevermind Elon's tweets about "landing chances". Mr Musk is good at many things, but PR is not one of them ;))

Actually no Kryten is right in this one.  This mission is at or below the profit line for SpaceX. Also Orbcomm has little say in when they get to launch.  They chose to move their payloads from F1 to F9 and as long as SpaceX places them in the right orbit they dont really care when it gets launched.  And also if they expeceted these sats to be launched years ago why didnt they have the sats built?  They were just finished like 3 months ago.

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8 hours ago, B787_300 said:

Actually no Kryten is right in this one.  This mission is at or below the profit line for SpaceX. Also Orbcomm has little say in when they get to launch.  They chose to move their payloads from F1 to F9 and as long as SpaceX places them in the right orbit they dont really care when it gets launched.  And also if they expeceted these sats to be launched years ago why didnt they have the sats built?  They were just finished like 3 months ago.

Then we partially agree ;) Orbcomm is indeed more concerned about their satellites arriving safely than they are about launching on a particular weekday. What I was calling 'nonsense' is the notion that just because the launch was secured at cheap early adopter pricing*, Orbcomm somehow needs to act all cowed and deferential towards SpaceX. That's not how provider/customer relationships work - not in aerospace, not anywhere else. Rather, these are two equal partners working together to find the most optimal solution for both parties involved.

(* You would be surprised how many Falcon 9's SpaceX sold below 60m. Orbcomm wasn't the only one, and certainly not just because they were transferred over from cancelled F1's. A lot of the early v1.0/v1.1 launches were discounted to attract customers that weren't fully convinced of the F9's viability.)

Also, Orbcomm's constellation is late because, as you said, the satellites weren't ready in time. The OG2-2 launch was originally supposed to happen at the end of 2014, then got pushed back to vaguely summer 2015 due to manufacturing delays. Then CRS-7 happened and SpaceX had to stand down from launching for another half year. And now here we are.

 

Edited by Streetwind
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Launch window has been adjusted. The window now opens at 8:29pm ET and lasts 5 minutes. 5 minutes won't be enough if they need to scrub a first launch attempt less than 8 minutes away from launch.

Source: https://twitter.com/ORBCOMM_Inc/status/678986636508688384

Edited by Kartoffelkuchen
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SpaceX just released the presskit for this mission: http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/spacex_orbcomm_press_kit_final.pdf

00:01 Max Q (moment of peak mechanical stress on the rocket)

00:02:20 1st stage engine shutdown/main engine cutoff (MECO)

00:02:24 1st and 2nd stages separate

00:02:35 2nd stage engine starts

00:04 1st stage boostback burn

00:08 1st stage re-entry burn

00:10 2nd stage engine cutoff (SECO)

00:10 1st stage landing

00:12 Fairing deployment

00:15 ORBCOMM satellites begin deployment

00:20 ORBCOMM satellites end deployment

00:26 1st satellite completes antenna & solar array deployment & starts transmitting

00:31 All satellites complete antenna & solar array deployment & start transmitting

Which is very interesting to point out is that the second stage will shut down first and *then* deploy the payload fairings. There's no practical reason for doing that on the first guess, since it decreases second stage delta-v. Maybe they have a camera in the fairing or something to capture some on-orbit images of the satellite deployment or something? Or they have installed a Attitude control system in the fairing and now want to test it out? I mean, it's already proven that the fairings can survive the re-entry in one piece (mostly), at last when they are deployed on a suborbital trajectory. Really no idea why they are doing this, but I am sure we'll find out! :)

 

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