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1 minute ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

This is west coat, bruh. Cali/Vandenberg.

I knew that, but it was poorly worded.

1 minute ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

got the name from the launch site it replaces. 

Ah, okay, so it was built on pad 4 then. Still, it's a bit odd that we have 1, 2, and 4...

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4 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:
 

And boom... :cool:

er... bing... boom bad...

You had me having flashbacks for a second before that tweet loaded.

43 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

"Man, landing those rockets must be a piece of cake."

"No you fool! It's like a piece of pie."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"The pad is circular, it makes perfect sense."

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30 minutes ago, tater said:

Maybe they plan on adding a third at the Cape for a possible FH core RTLS?

I think most FH core recoveries will be drone ship recoveries.   I doubt that RTLS recovery of the core would be possible often enough to justify the cost of building and maintaining a third LZ.  

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8 minutes ago, AVaughan said:

I think most FH core recoveries will be drone ship recoveries.   I doubt that RTLS recovery of the core would be possible often enough to justify the cost of building and maintaining a third LZ.  

This. Given how much the F9 performance has increased, there's already a pretty negligible need for the FH, I can't see any scenario where they'd RTLS the core. If they could, it would probably be within the realm of a droneship F9 launch.

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U.S. pad numbering already made no sense. SpaceX is just following the fine American tradition of strange pad numbers. Just look at the pad numbers used at the Cape and at Vandenberg. The Cape's scheme has several gaps and inconsistencies, and I don't even know what Vandenberg is using. Plus, it's not like SpaceX were ever committed to consistent naming in the first place. I mean, seriously - 1.0 to 1.1 to Full Thrust to Block 5. Like with the Falcon 9 naming scheme, there's probably a rationale somewhere in there; it's just not immediately apparent.

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On 10/1/2018 at 8:32 PM, insert_name said:

What's the planned t-0?

Quote

Liftoff is scheduled for 7:21 p.m. PDT Saturday (10:21 p.m. EDT; 0221 GMT Sunday) from Space Launch Complex 4-West at Vandenberg with Argentina’s SAOCOM 1A radar Earth-imaging satellite, according to a statement from the Air Force.

 

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10 hours ago, IncongruousGoat said:

U.S. pad numbering already made no sense. SpaceX is just following the fine American tradition of strange pad numbers. Just look at the pad numbers used at the Cape and at Vandenberg. The Cape's scheme has several gaps and inconsistencies, and I don't even know what Vandenberg is using. Plus, it's not like SpaceX were ever committed to consistent naming in the first place. I mean, seriously - 1.0 to 1.1 to Full Thrust to Block 5. Like with the Falcon 9 naming scheme, there's probably a rationale somewhere in there; it's just not immediately apparent.

Most likely landing pads one through four were planned before the decision was made to cancel landing pad three. Renaming pad four after cancelling pad three would be a waste of time and manpower, plus a possible source of confusion and inefficiency given that landing pad three meant something entirely different in the recent past. It's easier to build landing pad four to completion and then rename it than it would be while it is still an active project, but even then it would serve little purpose. If they were sequential, such as train stations along a single line, then it would make more sense to rename them, but that's not the case. All three pads are independent and the number is just a title for them. 

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Hans Koenigsmann posted this image in his talk:

tw3JqjZ.png

It's actually not accurate, as they flew over 6500kg to GTO and also landed the booster.

 

BTW, in the same video, Koenigsmann said that he has no idea what happened to landing zone 3 (cause he talks about 1-2, and 4, then says he has no idea about 3).

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Some answers to questions, etc at the end:

 

Most important thing SpaceX has done was to get people interested again.

 

Block 5 performing well, and still iterating on minor issues to improve ability to turn around.

 

Regarding complexity of engine interactions of BFR... they'll build it, test, then tweak. That's what they do.

Early BFS heatshield will be overkill thick, and they'll shave it down as they get data.

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Let's figure this LZ-4 problem out with a map.

LZ-4 is at Vandenberg AFB (MAP). SpaceX operates out of Space Launch Complex 4 (SLC-4). SLC-4 consisted of 2 pads, 4E and 4W. 4E is the active launch site for West Coast launches, 4W has been redesignated LZ-4.

SLC-3, right next door, is the home of the Atlas V. If the RTLS pad was called LZ-3 then the descending stage might accidentally land at SLC-3. Its just like when your lands over the neighbors fence, except the neighbor is ULA and the frisbee weighs 22 tonnes.

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