Re: Space Space Baby
 

Just to say, our sheep shagging cousins from across the Tasman now have an orbital class launch capacity ...

Re: Space Space Baby
 

Finally the static test fire of the Falcon Heavy overnight, which apparently went well. Actually launch currently planned for next week (although my bet is slightly longer given there's a Falcon 9 launch at the end of the month).

Re: Space Space Baby
 

Launch/RUD of Falcon Heavy has been set for

7th Feb 05:30 - 08:30 AEDT

obviously things can be delayed, and FH is the most delayed rocket of the lot, but might be worth putting in your alarm. Either you get a massive rocket launch and two first stages returning to land at KSC :fingerscrossed:, or you get some of the biggest fireworks ever :whistle:.

BTW the third core is also planned to land on the barge, they are sacrificing the first stage from a 'normal' launch so they can have it on station for this.

No telling how long they will have images of the Tesla Roadster or audio of Space Oddity playing.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DRzE7omWAAAgCQd.jpg

Re: Space Space Baby
 

A boring old normal Falcon 9 launch was due for today, but because they want the barge to be available to capture the centre core of the Falcon Heavy, they were prepared to expend the stage 1 for this launch (it's already second hand, and an old design).

So no smooth landing, so they decided to throw it around a bit, test out some extremes, and in particular go for a real 'suicide' burn, of three engines at the very last minute, rather than the usual one. They are called suicide burns because it's positive thrust (normal it would go upwards) and thus for a landing you have to fire them at just the right point to slow from supersonic to zero, at exactly the time the altitude is zero. Get it wrong and ...

In any case, since no barge, it means it would hit the sea, and because it's pressurized, it was expected to explode into little bits.

Only it didn't .....

it landed ......

on the sea surface ......

and stayed in once piece .....

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DU6DAbgUMAAWbNZ.jpg

they are going to try and tow it back to land, because when you have done a J-turn from supersonic speeds to reverse into a parking space, next to a wall, and not ended up in a fireball, you deserve some applause.

Re: Space Space Baby
 

Some additions ahead of the launch

https://i.imgur.com/dreZfZQ.jpg


Launch is scheduled for 5:30am Melbourne time on the 7th Feb, so you'll need to get up early to see it live.

Re: Space Space Baby
 

Re: Space Space Baby
 

As most will have noticed from the news, the Falcon Heavy took off this morning, with the Tesla roadster and 'starman' currently on their way past Mars orbit and reaching to the asteroid belt. They didn't recover the central core (they ran out of lighter fuel to relight the outboard engines on the last burn and hit the sea at 300mph) but it was a mission success - there was a lot more that could have gone wrong.

Here's Starman, out for a ride in the roadster, with Australia in the background. And yes, even though it looks fake, it's real.

https://i.redd.it/kt8lkj1szne01.jpg

Here's the launch :

Re: Space Space Baby
 

Oh, and they gave it the beans on the TMI, so it's actually going further than Mars in reality

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DVZ0h3YW4AIc-9w.jpg

Re: Space Space Baby
 

And for their next trick, they are going to try and catch the fairings, in a net. A big, ship sized net.

https://i.imgur.com/1frohCT.jpg

Next launch is Wednesday currently.

Re: Space Space Baby
 

Elon was at SXSW this weekend, and bought along video of the Falcon Heavy launch that included for the first time the video of the central core failing to land (middle of the video). It didn't miss by much, but it's a good thing that it did miss because otherwise it would have gone straight through the barge.

Re: Space Space Baby
 

Tiangong-1 is due to crash to earth sometime around the 1-2 April. Nobody is quite certain yet, but since the orbit stretches down to Tasmania, there is a chance it will hit you on the head. It can be tracked at SATVIEW - TIANGONG 1 - Norad 37820U - Tracking satellites and Spacejunk in Real time although since it will be being unstably affected by the atmosphere it's precise track will be uncertain till about 4 hours before it comes down.

SpaceX will be sending another Falcon 9 up in about 7 hours from now. No attempt to land this time (they are just dumping the old ones in the ocean at the moment) but they will be trying to catch the fairings again in a big net.

Re: Space Space Baby
 

If anyone wants to track the last hour of Tiangong 1, refresh this dashboard image for the latest data.

http://www.aerospace.org/CORDSupload...Storyboard.png

Re: Space Space Baby
 

Tesla say they are going to be test hopping the BFS next year - which many say "yeah right".

Here a pic just posted of the forma for wrapping the carbon fibre to form the BFR body, in LA. Tesla car for scale (diameter is 9m). The Falcon 9 in comparison is 3.7m diameter - so you could almost fit entire Falcon 9 rockets into each of the chambers of that 'gun'.

https://i.imgur.com/DxFu6ht.jpg

That should be fun to watch ....

Re: Space Space Baby
 

Another SpaceX launch due in 20 mins at 2:29 if everything goes right. No landing on this one, but still ....

Re: Space Space Baby
 

Another SpaceX launch in ~20mins. No landing this time, it's the last Block 4 to launch something to orbit and they are trying to litter the seabed of the Atlantic with them (cheaper than storing them).


In the meantime, here is a video to show how big the rockets are, I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but :