SpaceX Updates (Thread 9)

[DocM]

 

 

 

[DocM]

 

[AnotherITguy]

Nice! Any word on when will the crewed Dragon Will fly?

[DocM]

The current schedule is for Crew Dragon uncrewed to ISS in early Q1 2017, a crewed flight to ISS in late Q2 2017,  and the in-flight abort test in he middle - reusng  the uncrewed test flights vehicle.

[DocM]

59 minutes ago, DocM said:

The current schedule is for Crew Dragon uncrewed to ISS in early Q1 2017, a crewed flight to ISS in late Q2 2017,  and the in-flight abort test in he middle - reusng  the uncrewed test flights vehicle.

Dates typo: Q2 &  Q3 2018

[DocM]

Morgan Stanley says reuse and Starlink could take SpaceX's valuation to >$50bn.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/12/morgan-stanley-sees-spacex-value-growing-to-more-than-50-billion.html

[IsItPluggedIn]

I hope they dont go public, it is what Musk has always been against, if they go public the he and the company are beholden to the shareholders. It reduces the risk that he can take and increases the regulation that the business needs to abide by. They do need extra money but I hope they can find a way around this.

[DocM]

They could go public and issue mostly non voting stock, with the voting stock mostly going to Musk and major stakeholders.

[Unobscured Vision]

If it were up to me I'd say keep the company private aside from Investors like they've been doing. No reason to mess up a good thing, and it eliminates the chances of a hostile takeover from OldSpace companies who would do it if given the opportunity.

[DocM]

Via FCC STA application, CRS-13 flies from LC-40.

 

Separately, the launch NET date is November 28.

 

https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/els/reports/STA_Print.cfm?mode=current&application_seq=80640&RequestTimeout=1000

[DocM]

Flight (Twice) Proven F9 from Echostar 105/SES-11 & Bulgariasat-1 is home. Octograbber locked her down. 

 

Looks like a leg crush core crushed a bit, but they're easily replaceable.

 

 

[DocM]

Elon Musk BFR AMA (ask me anything) in r/space at 1600 EDT.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/space/

[DocM]

Live
https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/76e79c/i_am_elon_musk_ask_me_anything_about_bfr/

[DocM]

Q: Why was Raptor thrust reduced from ~300 tons-force to ~170 tons-force?

 

A: The engine thrust dropped roughly in proportion to the vehicle mass reduction from the first IAC talk. In order to be able to land the BF Ship with an engine failure at the worst possible moment, you have to have multiple engines. The difficulty of deep throttling an engine increases in a non-linear way, so 2:1 is fairly easy, but a deep 5:1 is very hard. Granularity is also a big factor. If you just have two engines that do everything, the engine complexity is much higher and, if one fails, you've lost half your power. Btw, we modified the BFS design since IAC to add a third medium area ratio Raptor engine partly for that reason (lose only 1/3 thrust in engine out) and allow landings with higher payload mass for the Earth to Earth transport function.

 

Q: Will the BFS landing propellants have to be actively cooled on the long trip to Mars?

 

A: The main tanks will be vented to vacuum, the outside of the ship is well insulated (primarily for reentry heating) and the nose of the ship will be pointed mostly towards the sun, so very little heat is expected to reach the header tanks. That said, the propellant can be cooled either with a small amount of evaporation. Down the road, we might add a cryocooler.

 

Q: (BFS testing)

 

A: Will be starting with a full-scale Ship doing short hops of a few hundred kilometers altitude and lateral distance. Those are fairly easy on the vehicle, as no heat shield is needed, we can have a large amount of reserve propellant and don't need the high area ratio, deep space Raptor engines.

 

Next step will be doing orbital velocity Ship flights, which will need all of the above. Worth noting that BFS is capable of reaching orbit by itself with low payload, but having the BF Booster increases payload by more than an order of magnitude. Earth is the wrong planet for single stage to orbit. No problemo on Mars.

 

Q: (heat shield)

A: The heat shield plates will be mounted directly to the primary tank wall. That's the most mass efficient way to go. Don't want to build a box in box.

Q: (Tanker)

A: At first, the tanker will just be a ship with no payload. Down the road, we will build a dedicated tanker that will have an extremely high full to empty mass ratio (warning: it will look kinda weird).

Q: (Raptor scaling, Point 2 Point flights)

A: Thrust scaling is the easy part. Very simple to scale the dev Raptor to 170 tons.

The flight engine design is much lighter and tighter, and is extremely focused on reliability. The objective is to meet or exceed passenger airline levels of safety. If our engine is even close to a jet engine in reliability, has a flak shield to protect against a rapid unscheduled disassembly and we have more engines than the typical two of most airliners, then exceeding airline safety should be possible.

That will be especially important for point to point journeys on Earth. The advantage of getting somewhere in 30 mins by rocket instead of 15 hours by plane will be negatively affected if "but also, you might die" is on the ticket. 

 

Edited October 14, 2017 by DocM

[DocM]

 

Q: (BFR/BFS thrusters)

 

A: The control thrusters will be closer in design to the Raptor main chamber than SuperDraco and will be pressure-fed to enable lowest possible impulse bit (no turbopump spin delay).

 

Q: (Raptor construction)

 

A: Some parts of Raptor will be printed, but most of it will be machined forgings. We developed a new metal alloy for the oxygen pump that has both high strength at temperature and won't burn. Pretty much anything will burn in high pressure, hot, almost pure oxygen.

[Unobscured Vision]

Niiiiice ... An already-cheap lifter gets super cheap when running in SSTO mode. That'll bode extremely cost-efficient when toting crews to the ISS and other LEO Stations. Just add fuel and go.  

[DocM]

He says an AoM less payload to LEO in SSTO mode, which is still ~14-15 tonnes. That's a lot of Tang & Cheetos.

[Unobscured Vision]

Bwahaha ... heheh ... nobody will be able to compete with that for at least ten years. Need another? Load it up, fuel it up and send it up. Week turnaround time, max. (The way NASA does things it'd take two, but w/e)

 

No wonder Orbital sold out. They knew they had no way to win against SpaceX.

[DocM]

Methinks a weekly turn-around is way longer than they're planning. 

[Unobscured Vision]

Good. Shorter = better.

[DocM]

Q: Who will design and build the ISRU system for the propellant depot, and how far along is it?

 

[ISRU: liqiid methane & liquid oxygen production on Mars, rocket propellants]

A: SpaceX. Design is pretty far along. It's a key part of the whole system.

Q: Why was the location and shape of the BFS header/landing tanks changed?

A: The aspiration by the change was to avoid/minimize plumbing hell, but we don't super love the current header tank/plumbing design. Further refinement is likely.

Q: Second, Elon we need 4K rocket porn

A: Ask and you shall receive

[DocM]

Iridium NEXT #'s 4 and 5 to use Flight Proven™ Falcon 9 launchers, with no change in launch insurance costs.

 

Quote

Iridium Announces Date for Fourth Iridium® NEXT Launch

 

Agreement Signed with SpaceX to Use Flight-Proven First Stage of Falcon 9 Rocket

MCLEAN, Va. – October 19, 2017 - Iridium Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: IRDM) announced today that the fourth Iridium NEXT launch has been targeted by SpaceX for December 22, 2017 at 5:26 p.m. PT [1:26 a.m. UTC on Dec. 23], from Vandenberg Air Force Base. This launch signifies the mid-way point of the Iridium NEXT launch program and will deliver another 10 satellites to orbit, bringing the total number deployed to 40. Targeted for just over two months after the third Iridium NEXT launch, this December date enables Iridium to maintain its planned cadence of completing all launches by mid-2018, even with SpaceX’s busy launch manifest.

To date, 30 Iridium NEXT satellites have been deployed, many of which are already providing service to customers. The new satellites are also now undergoing on-orbit testing for Iridium CertusSM, a major milestone on the path to introducing the company’s next generation broadband service.  Iridium Certus will feature small form factor, cost-effective terminals and antennas, and ultimately offer the fastest L-band broadband solution available, supported by the world's only truly global network.

In addition to the fourth launch date, Iridium also announced it has reached agreement with SpaceX to utilize flight-proven first stages for the next two Iridium launches.  Iridium conducted extensive due diligence work and is fully confident in the SpaceX booster refurbishment program.

“I believe that reusability is the future for satellite launches, and I think SpaceX has intelligently built their Falcon 9 program around this strategy,” said Iridium CEO Matt Desch. “With three successful flight-proven Falcon 9 launches already this year, we’re excited to show leadership towards the sustainable access to space, while also making sure we maintain our cadence to complete the five remaining Iridium NEXT launches by the middle of next year.”

Iridium confirmed with its insurers that there is no increase in premium for the launch program as a result of the use of flight-proven Falcon 9 rockets, further supporting Iridium’s conclusion that the risk profile is unchanged.

Iridium NEXT is the company’s $3 billion, next-generation, mobile, global satellite network scheduled for completion in 2018. Iridium NEXT will replace the company’s existing global constellation in one of the largest technology upgrades ever completed in space.  It represents the evolution of critical communications infrastructure that governments and organizations worldwide rely upon to drive business, enable connectivity, empower disaster relief efforts and more. Iridium NEXT will enable and introduce new services like the company’s next-generation communications platform, Iridium Certus, and the AireonSM space-based ADS-B aircraft surveillance and flight tracking network. 

For more information about Iridium NEXT, please visit www.IridiumNEXT.com.

>

 

[DocM]

The SpaceX launch contract wins just keep on coming...

 

Falcon 9 gets Jason CS, aka Sentiel-6A, for NASA, NOAA, ESA and EUMETSAT. $97m.

 

Quote

NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for the Sentinel-6A mission. Launch is currently targeted for November 2020, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 Full Thrust rocket from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

 

The total cost for ASA to launch Sentinel-6A is approximately $97 million, which includes the launch service and other mission related costs.

The Sentinel-6A mission, also known as Jason Continuity of Service (Jason-CS), is a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the European Space Agency, and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). This mission provides operational ocean altimetry to provide continuity of ocean topography measurements and continues the long-term global sea surface height data record begun in 1992 by the Topography Experiment (TOPEX)/Poseidon and Jason 1, the Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason-2 and Jason-3 missions. A secondary objective of the mission is to collect high-resolution vertical profiles of temperature, using the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Radio-Occultation sounding technique, to assess temperature changes in the troposphere and stratosphere and to support numerical weather prediction.

NASA’s Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center in Florida will manage the SpaceX launch service. The Sentinel-6 Project office is located at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

For more information about NASA programs and missions, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

-end-

 

[Unobscured Vision]

Gonna be a lot more of these handed out in short order, I think.  

[flyingskippy]

Is this the reason NASA selected ULA for the Landsat 9 mission? Are they selecting different contractors to spread the wealth?