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Not as many Woo Hoo than the last year, but still a lot of people attending all around the cape :D 

It was a hot and sunny day, with a lot of conversation to pass the time, until the final five minutes. Everybody went silent, just waiting for it to happen.

Here is my personal catch of it: 

 

We were spotting pretty far away from the 39A, so it's better not to hope much about the result. However, it was the closest location available for the landing.

 

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8 minutes ago, XB-70A said:

Not as many Woo Hoo than the last year, but still a lot of people attending all around the cape :D

Kinda makes sense, according to Tim Dodd, there weren't many people there because of all the delays.

 

That's some pretty nice footage, except for not being able to actually see the landing.

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6 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

For those wondering...

Tonight's mission sent the payload into an orbit much higher than a normal GTO. Rather than a Hohmann transfer, the payload is now in a more efficient bi-elliptic transfer. Once at apogee, high above GEO altitude, the satellite will correct its inclination and raise its perigee to GEO altitude. It will then coast back down to GEO altitude and then lower its apogee to circularize. Even though this is two burns rather than one, it ends up being more efficient because more energy is provided by the launch vehicle with the advantage of the Oberth effect.

Congratulations to SpaceX for a triple-booster recovery!!

Going full Kerbal here, going higher for less fuel spent for inclination change... And Nasa says KSP is bad for learning...  Did they know that mods can make the game more accurate to reality?

Edited by Quoniam Kerman
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2 hours ago, Quoniam Kerman said:

Going full Kerbal here, going higher for less fuel spent for inclination change... And Nasa says KSP is bad for learning...  Did they know that mods can make the game more accurate to reality?

KSP isnt bad for beginners learning new stuff.

Bit if you want to build a rocket, KSP is bad.

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Oh man, I don’t think dual booster landings are going to get old any time soon. 

Test flight - two boosters recovered.

First commercial flight - all three boosters recovered and the fairing too just for an encore. 

Heck of a way to mark Falcon Heavy’s transition to an operational system.

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Had a thought reference the white interstage.

 

we all assume it’s made from the composite material that the F9 uses because they’re just F9 boosters after all. However, looking at pictures of the FH on the pad, the interstage is where two tie rods from each booster attach to the core. 

 

It isn’t a stretch to think that some of the changes to the F9 to become a FH core are a stronger interstage made from different materials to handle the loss from 2 boosters either side is it? 

 

So stronger materials than the composite are likely to be steel/Alu which are not black when unpainted so would ruin the look of the rocket and potentially its ability to deal with the heat on re-entry. So the same special paint is used to fix this issue.

 

thoughts? 

 

I think im onto something 

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7 hours ago, tater said:

Next SpaceX launch is CRS-17 2 weeks from today.

How many more flights of Dragon 1 will there be? I believe Dragon 1 isn't reflown more than once (2 flights/vehicle). Have they stopped producing them? Will subsequent missions use Dragon 2?

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3 minutes ago, Nightside said:

How many more flights of Dragon 1 will there be? I believe Dragon 1 isn't reflown more than once (2 flights/vehicle). Have they stopped producing them? Will subsequent missions use Dragon 2?

I'm not sure about that. PLan was to reuse Crew Dragon, but that clearly has to wait for after DM-2, as the DM-1 spacecraft is being used for the Max Q abort test.

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9 minutes ago, Nightside said:

How many more flights of Dragon 1 will there be? I believe Dragon 1 isn't reflown more than once (2 flights/vehicle). Have they stopped producing them? Will subsequent missions use Dragon 2?

I think they have stopped producing them.

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5 minutes ago, ThatGuyWithALongUsername said:

I think they have stopped producing them.

Interesting. I saw something to that effect also. 

Well, there are 3 more cargo flights scheduled before the end of the current contract (early 2020), but only a single D1 with fewer than 2 flights, so either some will get a third trip to space, or they will start to mix in D2 early. Interesting either way I guess.

The next cargo contract (also starting next year) is supposed to use a cargo variant of Dragon2.

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3 hours ago, AVaughan said:

For people wondering about that hexagonal "box" with what looks like a robot arm, I think it is part of the telescope support and pointing systems.  Scott Manley has a nice animation of it towards the end of one of his videos.  https://youtu.be/uH9aX5evxqU?t=967 

 

There’s a tapering payload adapter shown, and everything on top is. The telescope.

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