SpaceX does it again!!! + Rolling out Starlink

[Von Due]

I am not going to touch the frothingly insane theories that pop up now concerning the incident but one thing really depresses:

A search on Youtube for Facebook Satellite gave me 1120 hits (filtered for past 24 hours) and various media are hot onto it, parroting the same nonsense.
Spacecom isn't even spelled the same way as Facebook, let alone pronounced the same way but still, good luck trying to tell the nutters it wasn't Facebook's sat.

[mako88sb]

Here's a quote and image from FB SpaceX group user Ross Sackett;

"I used a trick we sometimes use to fix the position of a star in an astrophoto(graphy.) While the fireball is burned into the image making it hard to locate the center, the lens flares (probably diffraction spikes) are centered on the brightest part. Make of this what you will.

This centers near an S bend in a large strongback (electrical?) conduit near the level of the common bulkhead in S2. There are other connections to S2 near there.

L2 SpXers sound like they're focussing on something, but will wait for Musk to pull the trigger publicly."

[Oberon]

Scott Manley takes a look at the video:

[Von Due]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Scott Manley takes a look at the video:

I enjoy Manleys videos a great deal. He has his feet on the ground and knows his physics and what critical thinking means. A breath of fresh air in the madhouse on the internet this weekend over this incident.

[mapuc]

I for one are going to wait for the investigations report.

Markus

[Von Due]

Originally Posted by mapuc

I for one are going to wait for the investigations report.

Markus

That is wisdom right there.

[mako88sb]

Missed this somehow. First re-use of one of their flight-proven Falcon 9's:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ses-10...072200113.html

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...nap-story.html

[Von Due]

A bit unrelated to the main theme but related to rocketry, here's a bit of trivia:

Here is a picture of one of the nuts that held the strap-on booster attached the core of the Shuttle launch vehiecle.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jetforme/5028220753
The Shuttle had big ones for sure. And to think every gram counts when calculating the launch.

[mako88sb]

Originally Posted by Von Due

A bit unrelated to the main theme but related to rocketry, here's a bit of trivia:

Here is a picture of one of the nuts that held the strap-on booster attached the core of the Shuttle launch vehiecle.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jetforme/5028220753
The Shuttle had big ones for sure. And to think every gram counts when calculating the launch.

I'm not sure if you're reading the description right. It says it's one of the frangible nuts for a hold-down bolt. Not for how the booster was attached to the rest of the launch system.

[Von Due]

Originally Posted by mako88sb

I'm not sure if you're reading the description right. It says it's one of the frangible nuts for a hold-down bolt. Not for how the booster was attached to the rest of the launch system.

Could quite possibly be my bad for reading wrong a post where the image was linked up.

[Eichhörnchen]

[Von Due]

Originally Posted by Eichhörnchen

Your pyrotechnic nuts, that it. Goodness gracious!

[razark]

Originally Posted by Von Due

Here is a picture of one of the nuts that held the strap-on booster attached the core of the Shuttle launch vehiecle.

When my father retired from NASA, some of the folks he worked with at KSC gave him a plaque with half of one of those nuts mounted on it. It's quite impressive to hold even half of one.

[mako88sb]

Elon Musk's presentation for his plans to colonize Mars. I was skeptical that landing the Falcon 9's first stage booster back on Earth would be doable, especially on a barge so was very impressed when SpaceX pulled it off enough times to show it can be done. However, I must admit to finding a whole lot of what I saw in his presentation to be more of a sales pitch that needs so much to happen on a scale never seen before that I guess I'm skeptical again. For one thing, having 42 engines in the booster stage has me thinking about how well the Russian N1 worked out and it only had 30 engines in the first stage. There are many other issues but that one point really stands out for me. How many of those 42 engines are going to be mission ready for the next launch after having the fuel module loaded? Anyway, here's the video:



It will be interesting to see how the next few years go and hopefully, my skepticism is doused again.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by mapuc

I for one are going to wait for the investigations report.

Markus

Here we go:

http://www.spacex.com/news/2016/09/01/anomaly-updates