SpaceX Is Back!

Our American political future may seem bleak these days, but that did not stop the ingenuity of American rocket science from prevailing, showcasing a jaw-dropping return-to-flight launch this past Saturday, January 14, 2017. Following a week of launch delays due to major rain storms that may just have solved California's drought problem, Falcon 9 carrying the first of its Iridium satellite payloads received the all clear, performing flawlessly against a bright, blue sky.

Mind-blowing beauty during dark times ~ #ThisIsOurHumanFuture

Thank you, Elon.

RT @elonmusk: Liftoff pic.twitter.com/sBwNlsZObs

— Claudia (@ct_la) January 15, 2017

Not only did Falcon 9 deliver the first 10 of at least 70 next-gen Iridium satellites into orbit, the rocket's first stage returned to Earth, sticking the landing right on top of the X painted on SpaceX's ocean-going barge in the Pacific, downrange from Vandenberg Air Force Base. SpaceX has launch pads both at Vandenberg in Southern California and at Cape Canaveral on Florida's Space Coast.

You can learn more about Iridium Corporation and its fleet of satellites here.

Below is SpaceX's live webcast from countdown to satellite deployment to landing. Enjoy!

What Do We Know About The Falcon 9 Explosion?

[Update, September 28, 2016: SpaceX has provided additional details on its website. The company's preliminary findings revolve around the possibility that there was a large breach in the cryogenic helium system of the second stage liquid oxygen. While its cause is still unknown, the malfunction appears unrelated to the Falcon 9 mishap during the CRS-7 mission in June 2015. SpaceX expects to return to flight in November. In addition, Elon Musk announced this week that SpaceX is targeting early 2017 for the maiden flight of the company's Falcon Heavy rocket.]
 

Five days later, what do we know about the events surrounding an explosion during a pre-launch test that destroyed a Falcon 9 rocket along with its satellite payload and damaged SpaceX's launch pad SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral? 

The short answer: Very little at this point.

SpaceX still refers to the event as an "anomaly" in updates posted to its website. As of this writing, the most recent update was published on September 2. Not that this is unusual less than a week after the loss of a rocket. It's safe to assume that it will take time to determine what happened. I don't think anyone at SpaceX - or elsewhere - was expecting this or had planned for a catastrophic outcome during a static fire test. Even Elon Musk isn't on twitter joking about RUDs (rapid unscheduled disassembly), like he did on occasions when experimental attempts to land Falcon 9 rockets on an ocean-going barge failed. The difference is those failures were semi-expected and necessary to refine SpaceX's path towards re-usability.

Below are the most commonly asked questions since the explosion, with up-to-date answers:


What is a static fire test?

Static fire tests are typically conducted a few days prior to the scheduled launch date as a "rehearsal run" for the actual launch and to assess a rocket's launch readiness. Such "rehearsals" are not unheard of in the space launch industry, even though other launch providers do not use them as often and typically only to test new rocket designs. SpaceX, on the other hand, conducts static fires prior to every launch. A few years ago, I would make a point of watching static fire tests, but they turned out to be so anti-climactic compared to actual launches that I soon stopped. Which goes to show that when we view a detail of the launch preparation process as "routine" or "unremarkable", reality has a way of dramatically, sometimes tragically, reminding as otherwise. After all, the rocket is partially or fully fueled during static fire tests. The explosion apparently occurred five minutes prior to the static fire sequence that briefly ignites the rocket, so it is still unclear which role the test itself played in the progression of events that led to the explosion.


Is SLC-40 SpaceX's only launch pad? 

No. While we do not yet have information on how badly SpaceX's launch pad at the Cape was damaged or how much it will cost to repair, the private space company has another pad on the space coast: SLC-39A, the former space shuttle launch pad. SpaceX has not yet launched from 39A, but plans to start doing so were already underway and could theoretically be accelerated. Moreover, SpaceX can and has launched from facilities at Vandenberg AFB north of Los Angeles. Even so, not all launch pads are the same. Some altitudes or orbits are harder or easier to reach from some locations than others, depending on rocket specifications and mission requirements. There is no word yet on whether scheduled launches from launch pads other than SLC-40 will proceed as planned, such as the maiden flight of SpaceX's largest rocket yet, the Falcon Heavy, from Vandenberg in November. In my opinion, it is not likely, unless the cause of last week's loss is discovered and mitigated very quickly.


Was the payload insured?

Yes. Insurance-related questions immediately began to swirl after the on-pad explosion, as the video clearly shows the payload fairing plummeting to Earth. Speculation centered around the question if the satellite was insured at all, since it was not destroyed as part of an actual launch. That question, at least, has been answered: the manufacturer of the AMOS-6 satellite, Israeli company spacecom, was insured for pre-launch activities and will receive $200 million in payouts. Nonetheless, the company is poised to ask SpaceX for additional compensation of up to $50 million or a free launch in the future. spacecom's shares dropped by almost one-third in the days since the explosion and its pending sale to a Chinese company is now in question. spacecom says it wants to continue to work with SpaceX and complete the launch contract with amended agreements. This means the company may well recover most of its losses, even as SpaceX faces significant costs, including loss of the rocket, launch pad facility and a possible decline in customer confidence.


Why was the payload integrated in the rocket during the static fire test?

Good question. The payload does not need to be atop the rocket to complete a static fire test successfully and SpaceX did not do this until about two years ago. Since then, the private launch provider has moved increasingly towards conducting static fire tests with the payload secured to the rocket. Conducting the test without it adds a day to the launch preparation time frame. Since static fire tests are conducted so close to the actual scheduled launch date, it's not surprising to see that SpaceX would try to streamline the process, especially considering the company's busy launch schedule.

 
Will this affect SpaceX's launch manifest?

Almost certainly. The private space company had assembled its most ambitious launch manifest yet for the remainder of 2016, with 9-10 launches scheduled through December. With that in mind, it makes sense SpaceX would move toward efficiency during pre-launch preparations. Still, it's also possible to frame such a move as an indication that SpaceX did not anticipate a failure during a static fire test, or did not perceive the risk as serious. It very well may not have been; we know nothing yet about what happened and why, or how likely it was to happen in the first place.

 
As jarring as it is to see a rocket explode when you least expect it, this is not a time to give up on SpaceX. I fully expect the company to rebound as strongly as it did following a launch failure in June 2015: By the end of that year, not only did SpaceX return to flight, it did so while simultaneously demonstrating the successful evolution of its landing and re-usability technology. 

"Of Course We Still Love you, SpaceX!" - Space geeks everywhere 


Update, September 7, 2016: An article published in The Atlantic confirms that Elon Musk plans to provide additional information this month about the Mars Colonization Project, an ambitious plan to colonize Mars by the mid-2020s. While many are understandably skeptical of this timeline, getting to Mars has always been SpaceX's goal. Ten years ago, Elon Musk got mocked for saying this out loud. Today, SpaceX is the only commercial or government launch provider in the world that can land its rockets on land and on water.

Last Monday's Perfect SpaceX CRS-9 Launch And Landing In Pictures

Last Monday's commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station was a perfect night launch from Cape Canaveral, topped off by a successful return to launch site, which means SpaceX landed a Falcon 9 first stage back at the launch site, while the Dragon capsule it sent to orbit continued on to dock with the ISS. This landing marks the second time SpaceX has returned a rocket intact to a launch site on land. Rocketry doesn't get more picture perfect than this:
 

Image credit: SpaceX

Falcon 9 and its ISS-bound Dragon payload launch into the night sky in Florida...

Image credit: SpaceX

Image credit: SpaceX

...and then Falcon 9 returns to its launch site a few minutes after lift-off.
This picture shows the landing burn just before touchdown.

Image credit: SpaceX

The above long exposure image shows a familiar night sight on the Cape: a launch into orbit on the left. Not so familiar are the landing burn on the right and the re-entry burn visible at the center top of the image. Falcon 9 performs three burns to land: the boostback burn right after payload separation, which reorients the rocket in orbit in preparation for landing. This is followed by the re-entry burn. Spent rockets used to burn up in the atmosphere at this point. SpaceX's technological advances guide them back to Earth for re-use. The third and final burn occurs just before landing.
 

Image credit: SpaceX

Long exposure image of the launch and landing burn:
Falcon 9 returns to land next to the launch location.

Image credit: SpaceX

Launch, re-entry and landing burns with SpaceX signage at Cape Canaveral

Image Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX marks the spot: Falcon 9 just after it returned to the launch pad location

Image Credit: SpaceX

Dragon cargo capsule CRS-9, solar wings extended, approaches the ISS

After Dragon docked to the International Space Station on Thursday, NASA shared the following two tweets:

.@SpaceX #Dragon now berthed to the @Space_Station as of 10:03am ET. Hatches to be opened on Thursday. pic.twitter.com/qUNmJxTq12

— NASA (@NASA) July 20, 2016

The hatches between #Dragon and station are open and the crew will begin unloading cargo: https://t.co/19JfOxqJXt pic.twitter.com/bJMCAxE3iZ

— Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) July 20, 2016

SpaceX's CRS-9 Mission Launches Tonight

It's launch day for a Dragon commercial resupply capsule to the International Space Station. More precisely, it is launch day in the U.S. in every time zone EXCEPT the one (Eastern Daylight Time) where the launch actually happens: Cape Canaveral on Florida's Space Coast.

Launch times that switch days depending on which U.S. time zone you are in can be confusing, so if you plan to watch live, here are the launch times by time zone and day for the continental U.S., as well as Central Europe and UTC:

12:45 a.m. Monday, July 18 EDT
11:45 p.m. Sunday, July 17 CDT
10:45 p.m. Sunday, July 17 MDT
9:45 p.m. Sunday, July 17 PDT

06:45, Monday, July 18 CEST
4:45 a.m., Monday, July 18 UTC 

This launch window is instantaneous. 

If the launch does not occur tonight at 12:45 a.m. EDT, July 18, there is another instantaneous backup window at 12:00 a.m. (midnight) EDT on July 20. That is mid-to-late evening this Tuesday, July 19, for most viewers in the continental U.S. in time zones other than Eastern (e.g., 9 p.m. PDT, July 19). This means 06:00 CEST on July 19 in Central Europe and 4:00 a.m., July 19 UTC.

SpaceX will host a live webcast at http://www.spacex.com/webcast.

The company will almost certainly also stream a technical webcast for those who are more interested in engineering details and telemetry than the webcast from SpaceX HQ. The link to the technical broadcast usually appears once the webcast goes live at the above link.

As with every SpaceX mission since last December, the private rocket company will attempt a landing tonight to recover the spent first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket. 

Earlier this year, SpaceX successfully landed spent rockets used in missions on land near Cape Canaveral (one time) and on an autonomous ocean-going barge three consecutive times, most recently on May 27, 2016, when the Thaicom-8 mission delivered a payload into geostationary transfer orbit. However, last month's barge landing attempt as part of the successful Eutelsat/ABS mission ended in a RUD - a rapid unscheduled disassembly at sea, in the words of Elon Musk. The spent rocket stage reached the barge, but disintegrated on touchdown.

SpaceX will attempt another land-based landing near Cape Canaveral tonight. The third of three burns, the landing burn, is scheduled to begin at 7 minutes, 38 seconds after liftoff. It is this landing burn that occurs closest to the ground, just before the rocket attempts to land.

The two prior burns, the boost back burn starts at 2 minutes, 42 seconds after liftoff, followed by the entry burn at 6 minutes and 31 seconds after liftoff.

Image credit: Space X

Graphic illustrating the stages of launch, landing and mission completion. Graphic is for barge landing, but stages are the same for a ground-based landing
(click to enlarge)

When the webcast begins, pay attention to the legend below the video that shows when to expect the different launch and landing milestones. Some of them are included in the graphic above. SpaceX has been very good about providing live footage not just of its mission launches, but its landing attempts as well. Night landings, though, pose visibility challenges. In case of a successful landing - or even an unsuccessful one - expect a brief camera whiteout as the brightness of the landing burn overloads the cameras for a few seconds before we will know if the rocket has landed upright.

Image Credit: SpaceX

Official Mission Patch for SpaceX's 9th Commercial Resupply (CRS) Mission to the International Space Station under contract with NASA

Image credit: SpaceX 

Dragon capsule atop SpaceX's flagship Falcon 9 rocket on the pad at Cape Canaveral awaiting launch to the ISS on July 18

Dual Success For SpaceX

It's been a weekend of amazing successes for SpaceX. The private space company delivered its eighth Dragon resupply capsule to the International Space Station and stuck an experimental landing of the spent Falcon 9 booster rocket on a drone ship in the Atlantic. SpaceX has previously tried landing the first stage of a Falcon 9 used in missions. Both times, the rocket made it to its target on the drone ship, but failed to land upright, resulting in RUD events (rapid unscheduled disassembly).

This tweet from early Sunday morning, April 10, shows Dragon safely docked to the ISS Harmony module, next to an Orbital Sciences' Cygnus cargo craft and a Soyuz crew capsule on the lower right. In total, six spacecraft are currently docked to the International Space Station.

SpaceX Dragon cargo ship, Orbital ATK’s Cygnus, and Soyuz crew capsule in this view from ISS https://t.co/uuY7qzZ0Ls pic.twitter.com/9qzTOiATDG

— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) April 10, 2016

But let's go back to launch day, Friday, April 8, and take a look at all that SpaceX accomplished this weekend:

Image credit: SpaceX

Falcon 9 with its Dragon payload on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral

Image credit: SpaceX

Mission patch for SpaceX's eighth commercial resupply mission (CRS-8) to the International Space Station

If you look closely, you'll find the patch full of interesting details. For example, the eight stars in the design represent the eight missions to the ISS that SpaceX has flown so far, with one star dimmed out to symbolize last June's failed launch.

Image credit: SpaceX

Close-up of Dragon capsule atop Falcon 9, which stands over 200 feet (60 m) tall

Image credit: Space X

Graphic illustrating the stages of launch, landing and mission completion (click to enlarge)

The drone ship name in the above graphic is Just Read The Instructions. The ship on which Falcon 9 stuck its historic landing is Of Course I Still Love You.

The following trio of still pictures captured by SpaceX's chaser plane near the drone ship shows the landing's most breath-taking moments. This is the first time that SpaceX has successfully landed a rocket used in a mission on a drone ship at sea. The private space company previously succeeded at landing a Falcon 9 first stage on-shore.

Image credit: SpaceX

Image credit: SpaceX

Image credit: SpaceX

Whether Falcon 9's first stage lands on a drone ship or on shore after delivering a payload depends on several factors. Elon Musk explained some of them on Twitter.

@arstechnica Reasons for ocean landing are technical, not economic. Orbit requires extreme horizontal velocity. Getting to space needs none.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 8, 2016

Following are two tweets from SpaceX with landing video clips that were posted to the company's twitter account within hours of the landing.

Onboard view of landing in high winds pic.twitter.com/FedRzjYYyQ

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 9, 2016

Landing from the chase plane pic.twitter.com/2Q5qCaPq9P

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 8, 2016

Here is SpaceX's 36-minute launch and landing live webcast. About 30 seconds in, a legend appears at the bottom that lists the consecutive events being covered. It is well worth the time to review the launch and what SpaceX labeled "experimental landing". While the landing is one of the most jaw-dropping and certainly the most historic aspect of the CRS-8 mission, a successful landing was not the primary mission objective. That was getting a Dragon resupply capsule, including its important science cargo, safely to the International Space Station. SpaceX succeeded on both counts, with several cherries on top.

The reactions from employees at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, CA after the successful launch and landing on Friday say it all. Elon Musk and the team at SpaceX have mastered another crucial step towards routine usage of reusable rockets, drastically lowering the cost of reaching targets in orbit and beyond and making space more accessible than ever before. SpaceX plans to re-fly a used rocket within a few months.

Video credit: SpaceX

Live webcast from SpaceX's headquarters during Friday's successful launch to the ISS and landing on one of the company's drone ship.

Below is the Storify of my live tweets and conversations during Friday's pre-launch, launch and landing events, with some additional remarks for this blog post.

Falcon 9 Returns to Flight and Makes Rocket Science History!

Let's start with a pleasant surprise SpaceX had in store for those of us who couldn't be there in person during an across-the-board successful mission that saw a perfect launch, followed by a nail-biting, historic landing and the flawless delivery of 11 Orbcomm satellites into orbit: SpaceX's much-improved live webcast.

If you have not yet seen it, it's worth the 20 minutes to get a feel for the anticipation and festive atmosphere at SpaceX HQ as events unfolded last night at and above Cape Canaveral:

Video credit: SpaceX

During two previous Falcon 9 missions that included failed landing attempts on an ocean-based barge, there was no live coverage of the landing. Images and details didn't emerge until the next day. 

Not so yesterday. While it didn't become obvious until after the webcast started, SpaceX planned to live stream the landing as well! The webcast also featured a time line at the bottom that let viewers know which maneuvers to expect next as Falcon 9 once again spread its wings, and then returned, scorched, steaming, still breathing fire, in one single, glorious piece! I didn't get any screenshots of the landing because I was cheering, jumping up and down, before I remembered "Wait! You're live tweeting this!"

Another unexpected treat was the live footage from orbit that showed the smooth deployment of Orbcomm's satellite payload as it happened.

Here are a couple of screen grabs from my tweet stream during the event. My full twitter coverage is at the end of this post.

Falcon 9 and its Orbcomm-2 payload at Liftoff
 Image credit: Screenshot from SpaceX webcast

Boostback burn that reorients rocket and prepares it for landing

Image credit: Screenshot from SpaceX webcast

Last June, SpaceX had a setback as the company lost a rocket and a cargo capsule bound for the International Space Station in a launch accident caused by a faulty strut. Earlier in 2015, SpaceX also tried twice to land a Falcon 9 on water atop an autonomous drone barge. Both times the rocket reached the drone ship but tipped over at landing. Both rockets were destroyed.
 
On December 21, 2015, at 8:29 pm EST, SpaceX not only returned to flight and successfully deployed its payload of 11 satellites, the private space company headquartered in Los Angeles also made rocket science history by successfully landing a Falcon 9 on land. For the first time ever, a rocket used in an actual mission - not a test landing - returned to Earth and precision-landed in one piece: Standing tall, waiting to be re-used instead of wastefully and expensively burning up in the atmosphere.

What we saw today was not just SpaceX coming back from a launch failure. We witnessed a private space company setting new industry standards that others will be hard-pressed to match. 

Long exposure shot of Falcon 9 launch and landing
within 10 minutes of each other at Cape Canaveral
Image credit: SpaceX

In the words of Elon Musk on Twitter: "Welcome back, baby!"

Image credit: SpaceX

Scorched and displaying landing legs. Don't you just want to run up and hug her?

Image credit: SpaceX

A new era in rocketry: Long exposure of launch, re-entry, and landing burns
Image credit: SpaceX

Will Falcon 9 Fly Tomorrow?

Update - December 21, 2015, 10:45 a.m. PST:

Today's Falcon 9 / Orbcomm-2 launch time has been changed to four minutes earlier than reported yesterday. This is important as the launch window is only open for about one minute.

Updated launch times for TODAY:
8:29 p.m. EST 
5:29 p.m. PST 
0229 Central Euro Time, Tues Dec 22. 

Live coverage will start at http://www.spacex.com/webcast/ about half an hour prior to launch time.

                          

Space X's official patch for the Falcon 9 Orbcomm-2 mission

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Update - December 20, 2015, 4:30 p.m. PST:

Weather is 80% favorable for tomorrow's launch time. The launch window is open for just one minute.

If there is a landing attempt tomorrow, it will occur about 10 minutes after lift-off at SpaceX's Landing Zone 1, formerly known as Launch Complex 13. This location is near the eastern tip of Cape Canaveral. 

If you are on the ground near the landing site, you will hear a sonic boom as the rocket returns to Earth. From nearby locations, you may also see the rocket's engines firing in the dark in preparation for landing.

News media won't be allowed to cover the launch and landing, so I'm counting on landing updates from spacetweeps who will be at the space coast tomorrow.

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Update - December 20, 2015, 1 p.m. PST:

Elon Musk just tweeted that launch will be delayed by 24 hours to December 21, 2015. Tomorrow's launch time is 8:33 p.m. EST (5:33 p.m. PST). That is 0233 Central European Time on Tuesday, December 22.

Just reviewed mission params w SpaceX team. Monte Carlo runs show tmrw night has a 10% higher chance of a good landing. Punting 24 hrs.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 20, 2015

He also RT'd this image of Falcon 9 on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral at sunset today:

New photo of @SpaceX #Falcon9 in advance of tonight's ORBCOMM #OG2 launch. She's a beauty. #SpaceX pic.twitter.com/cUhCgGieiP

— ORBCOMM (@ORBCOMM_Inc) December 20, 2015

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Update - December 20, 2015, 11 a.m. PST: 

Everything still looks good for a launch attempt today at 5:29 p.m. PST. SpaceX's coverage will start at 5:05 p.m. PST at spacex.com/webcast. The site is already displaying a countdown clock, which is a good sign. I'm not sure if NASA TV will live stream the launch. The launch window is 1 minute long and there are no other windows available today, should the launch not occur at 5:29 p.m. 

For those of you at Cape Canveral: Keep looking up after the launch. SpaceX may attempt to land the redesigned Falcon 9's upper stage on land near the launch site.
 
 =================================================
 
I hope so. It would be fitting for Falcon 9 to return to actual, real-life flight the same weekend a movie soars to box office dominance that features the fictional ship - the Millennium Falcon - after which Falcon 9 was named.

Falcon 9 has been grounded since June, due to a failed launch attempt that was intended to deliver a Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station as part of NASA's commercial crew program. Tomorrow's flight will carry 11 second-generation Orbcomm satellites to orbit and will mark the second time SpaceX will deliver New Jersey-based Orbcomm's satellites into space.

The launch has been delayed since August and several times during December. The past week has seen problems with pre-flight static firing tests. The test was completed successfully last night and tomorrow's launch is contingent upon a review of the static fire data.

Elon Musk said on Twitter that all looks good for a Sunday launch from Cape Canaveral:

Currently looking good for a Sunday night (~8pm local) attempted orbital launch and rocket landing at Cape Canaveral

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 19, 2015

 

 Falcon 9 and its Orbcomm payload on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral
Image credit: SpaceX

The exact launch time is Sunday, December 20 at 8:29 p.m. EST (5:29 p.m. PST).

Falcon 9 has received some upgrades: more powerful Merlin 1D engines arranged in their trademark "octaweb" configuration - eight Merlins arranged around one in the center. Together, the engines can generate 1.5 million pounds of thrust. The older generation Merlins generated a maximum of 1.3 million pounds.

The redesigned Falcon is also a little taller, 229 feet (69.9 m) instead of 224 feet (68.3 m), to accommodate longer nozzles and extended tanks on the upper stage engines.

In addition, the improved Falcon 9 will use super-cooled, compressed fuel, which allows the rocket to carry more fuel that can be used in a landing attempt.

Jeff Bezos's company Blue Origin successfully launched a rocket to space and then landed it on a pad in West Texas just last month, and made rocket science history in the process.

SpaceX is also developing re-usability technology. A landing attempt may occur tomorrow on land near Cape Canaveral. At the moment, I can find no information on the likelihood of a landing attempt or the likely landing location near KSC. If you're on the space coast tomorrow, you just may find yourself in the right place at the right time to see a rocket stage *land* at Cape Canaveral for the first time ever.

I will update this post if new information comes in. I will also live tweet the launch tomorrow, starting around 5 p.m. PDT. The launch window is very brief, with no others available tomorrow.

Go Falcon 9!!