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1 hour ago, tater said:

 

I assume that on the production version they will have more hardware on the top. 
The area below the payload adapter/ floor of cargo bay can not be used for payload but its an easy accessible space at the bottom of the bay. 
As an bonus on an manned mission you can access it from the cargo bay during flight. 

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I guess this shouldn't come as a surprise but the build quality on SN6 seems to be noticeably improved from SN5, at least judging from the pictures that @tater linked.

Or maybe that was just SN6 showing us her good side. :)

 

 

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8 minutes ago, Brotoro said:

That's an orbit plot I've never seen.

Because it's the first polar launch out of Florida in like.. half a century.

 

That was some of the most beautiful footage I've ever seen.  Don't think we've ever been able to see fairing deploy from the ground before.

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Unfortunately the commentator did not go into the pretty obivous differences in ascent profile: Normally SECO and Landing burn are very close together, but this time minutes apart.

Actually even at Max-Q and MECO you could see that SAOCOM-1B was on a much steeper trajectory which requires longer second engine burn. MECO this time was at T+2:25 with ~ 5940 km/h @78km altitude, last starlink for comparison MECO was at T+2:41 with ~7880 km/h @71.5 km altitude. It would be nice to know how much of this velocity difference is due to boost back to CC and which is attributed to the dog leg.

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50 minutes ago, CBase said:

Unfortunately the commentator did not go into the pretty obivous differences in ascent profile: Normally SECO and Landing burn are very close together, but this time minutes apart.

Actually even at Max-Q and MECO you could see that SAOCOM-1B was on a much steeper trajectory which requires longer second engine burn. MECO this time was at T+2:25 with ~ 5940 km/h @78km altitude, last starlink for comparison MECO was at T+2:41 with ~7880 km/h @71.5 km altitude. It would be nice to know how much of this velocity difference is due to boost back to CC and which is attributed to the dog leg.

The booster burn time (and therefore MECO velocity) isn't an entirely fair comparison with Starlink as those are ASDS landings and the booster naturally burns longer and faster on those missions because it's reserving less. A better comparison would be CRS.

Good spot on the altitude though, it does look steep. Was the dogleg before or after stage sep?

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On 8/29/2020 at 2:54 PM, StrandedonEarth said:

Those fin legs look aerodynamically unstable during engine-first descent, but I  suppose the grid fins plus the mass of engines and thrust puck could keep the CoM/CoP relationship manageable 

Not to mention the extremely draggy interstage and the mass of landing propellant (which is forced down by drag acceleration). Plus hot-gas thrusters to help the grid fins do their thing.

And having only four rather than six.

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14 hours ago, Geonovast said:

Because it's the first polar launch out of Florida in like.. half a century.

That was some of the most beautiful footage I've ever seen.  Don't think we've ever been able to see fairing deploy from the ground before.

At 20:38 in the SAOCOM 1B launch, is the white dot on the S1 view the moon, or the second stage?

Amazing to see the two fairing halves separating from the ground tracking cam, though.

And absolutely fantastic view of the vapor shock formation during transonic phase. You can really see why grid fins are so effective.

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Those single-engine-all-the-way-down burns are shockingly long.

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10 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

At 20:38 in the SAOCOM 1B launch, is the white dot on the S1 view the moon, or the second stage?

I think it's the second stage.  We'd know for sure if it'd just stayed in frame for another 2 seconds...

Also given the orientation of the stage (being a polar launch) I doubt the moon would be in view.

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