What are /r/spacex's favorite Products & Services?

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Oh man. The poor lil RCS worked so hard, so hard, but just couldn't do it. :(

PS; And the final RCS puff is pretty great, like it is saying "sigh :c"

PS2; Downloaded the video before they set it to private! Available here!

PS3; Bunch of mirrors down below just in case.

MechE w/ structural analysis background here. I've done my fair share of research on this topic and can shed some light on how tricky/cool/daunting the mfg. process is for some COPV's.

What you really want out of your COPV mfg process is to yield the metallic liner into the overwrap (imagine i put on a corset and then get really fat). This is typically done through what's called an autofrettage process - good link here. Once the linear and the overwrap have made sound contact, your load transfer to the strong overwrap should be quite efficient.

Problem is, there are all sorts of issues that can come up when you're trying to get good liner contact. These can range from non-uniform yielding/displacement throughout the liner to unexpected "sticking" points near the hemispherical end caps. The latter example can lead to a very insidious failure: liner buckling; here's a nice paper on the topic.

Even laying down your overwrap is not necessarily straightforward when you're dealing w/ a new COPV design. Small errors in your filament winder settings can lead to drastically different mechanical properties than expected; and getting your machine settings down to pat is also usually an iterative process which requires quite experienced technician oversight.

Edit: Links

If we really want to start plugging apps, let me do so with rocket.watch :)

It not only covers SpaceX but all space launches in the world.

There is a WIP android app too!

>it's extraordinarily expensive.

One thing that gets lost in the discussion is that SpaceX privately funded a lot of the development itself. Meanwhile, ULA sat back on the their fat overhead collecting a billion dollar subsidy for basically doing nothing but producing expensive rockets.

As soon as the Air Force cuts off the EELV gravy train, ULA will start laying people off and complaining about the budget. Instead of using that money to innovate more cost effective rockets, they basically did nothing and complained about SpaceX the entire time.

ULA can rot.

Note this is unofficial. Complete radiosilence from SpaceX still, so take this with some salt and be careful with making plans around it...

As of now the weather sadly looks bad. :( I just want a repeat of CASSIOPE weather dammit...

> Easy job for her.

Just finished https://www.amazon.com/Liftoff-Desperate-Early-Launched-SpaceX/dp/0062979973

Holy shit, NOT an easy job for the first decade+!

Strongly recommend that book by the way. It reads almost like a techno thriller.

Since this does not warrant a self-post, I'll talk about it here.

Jeff Bezos finally (sort-of) responded to the barge landing. Here's what he had to say:

> Q: Jeff, you’re not the only one who is looking at that aspect of re-usability and practice. There’s Elon Musk, for example. You had your reusable rocket landing. The latest one was just this month. And just in the last few days, Elon had a rocket land on an at-sea platform. Richard Branson is involved, too, [with Virgin Galactic]. There’s been a lot of talk about who has the best approach. How is that space ecosystem coming together? Is this a dog-eat-dog world, or is this a rising tide that lifts all boats?

> A: That’s what I think. Oftentimes, it’s very natural to think of business competition like a sporting event. In a sporting event, there actually is a winner and a loser. Somebody leaves the arena a winner, and somebody leaves the arena a loser. In business, it’s usually a little different from that. Great industries are usually built by not just one, or two or three companies, but usually by dozens of companies. There can be many winners, even hundreds and thousands of companies in a truly great industry. I think that’s what we are headed toward here. From my point of view, the more, the merrier. I want Virgin Galactic to succeed, I want SpaceX to succeed, I want United Launch Alliance to succeed, I want Arianespace to succeed, and of course I want Blue Origin to succeed. And I think they all can.

Source.

I saw this game on here and figured I could modify my version of Lunar Lander to make this.

^(Check out /r/Scratch by the way, there's not a lot of us)

EDIT: A lot of people have been asking about the global time records in Lunar Lander. Since something like 99.99% of you don't have a Scratch account, they won't work for you since they rely on Cloud variables, which can only be used when you're logged in to Scratch.

Although he is making this sound exciting - "It's a beast" - these values are pretty standard for rocketry.

Atlas V, for example, has 61 km/h ground wind requirements

As for high altitudes, the speed is not as important as the change in speed (known as wind shear).

An actual UTC date would have been even better: Sun, 22 March, 23:00 UTC.

And here it is in everybody's local time.

Those appear to be First Alert PR710 smoke alarms, available for $19.97 on Amazon.

In the iconic book Ignition! every test fire where the test stand doesn't blow up, is considered a success ;-)

There are apps which will notify you, or you can subscribe to SpaceX on YouTube and turn on notifications for their uploads/broadcasts, or follow NextLaunch on Twitter and enable mobile notifications for their tweets.

It was Gene Kranz. He also released an amazing memoir called Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the early history of NASA spaceflight. It's incredible.

edit - I meant to reply to /u/VoxVirilis a couple of comments below this one. There was confusion over who coined the term "Failure is not an Option". It was Gene Kranz. My comment showed up here for some damn reason after I typed it and hit Reply.

> can’t remember where I read it, (some Astronaut’s Autobiography) but the Astronauts we’re not too happy (though they obviously couldn’t complain at the time) about the private citizens joining them in space.

Probably 'Riding Rockets', by Mike Mullane. An excellent read on being an astronaut in the Shuttle program :

https://www.amazon.com/Riding-Rockets-Outrageous-Shuttle-Astronaut-ebook/dp/B000GCFD2W

I think I found one of the passages in 'Riding Rockets'. Astronaut Mullane was describing how the astronauts hated non-professional astronauts playing astronaut :

"So, it didn’t surprise any TFNG (The Fucking New Guys) when disturbing stories about the behavior of some of these part-timers began to make their way to the Monday meetings.

One shuttle commander told of being very concerned about his part-timer’s interest in the side hatch opening mechanism. The shuttle side hatch is very easy to open, intentionally designed so because of the Apollo I tragedy. The initial Apollo capsules had a complex opening mechanism that is believed to have hindered that crew’s escape from their burning cockpit. Determined not to repeat that mistake with the shuttle, engineers designed its hatch to open with just one turn of a handle. And the hatch opensoutward. Since the shuttle flies in the vacuum of space with the cockpit pressurized at 14.7 pounds per square inch, there are thousands of pounds of force acting to push the hatch open. If the handle was ever turned to the open position in space, the hatch would explode outward, immediately decompressing the cockpit and killing everybody aboard. Knowing this, how would you feel if a person you really didn’t know took an unusual interest in the hatch opening system? I daresay you would feel as that commander had…very concerned. It was after this mission that a padlock arrangement was placed on the hatch handle and only commanders were given the key."

This "competition" of spacex vs blue origin going to be so much more entertaining than vs Boeing or ULA..

Check this Q&A of Jeff today lol

http://www.geekwire.com/2015/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-space-trips-cant-wait-amazon-213986/

Your modern browser can render a 3D city on Google Earth or reflective pasta using WebGL. Honestly, there is no reason why Chromium and JavaScript can't handle the UI functions shown. The most excusable reason I can think of is that they didn't put their best hardware on the practice Dragon but how good does it really have to be?

This just strikes me as funny considering that I'm currently reading a book on the Apollo 8 flight called "Rocket Men". The prior flight of the Saturn V had encountered pogo oscillation issues with the first stage that nearly shook the rocket apart. Two of five motors failed on the second stage and they were unable to restart the engine on the third stage. So eight months later, after major revisions almost every system, they not only put men on top of it, but sent it to the moon. To say that NASA was less risk adverse during the space race is a bit of an understatement.

Some serious detective work reveals the app to be called SpaceHub.

I think it looks pretty good. The "People" page with info on the Astronauts at the ISS linked to their twitter feeds was cool.

Deepl translation of abstract:

The Bundeswehr plans to launch three new Sarah espionage satellites into space in the coming years. It will be transported by the space company Space-X.

Meanwhile, the manufacturer of the European Ariane rocket is complaining about underutilization.

The opposition considers it a waste of tax money if satellites are transported by a US company. The German government wants to examine whether this can be ruled out in the future.

​

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

Bad news for the Cape though:

FL Space Coast (including Melbourne and the Kennedy Space Center)

This is the most likely area to experience the highest winds from Matthew (see Figure 3 above) with Daytona Beach at high risk. The wind threat is especially serious at Cape Canaveral, which juts out into the Atlantic about 10-15 miles. If Matthew does make landfall along the Florida coast, this would be the most likely spot for it. Billions of dollars of facilities and equipment are at risk at Kennedy Space Center and nearby bases, which have never before experienced a major hurricane. Some of KSC’s older facilities were designed only to withstand Category 2 or 3 winds, while facilities built after Hurricane Andrew (1992) are designed to withstand Category 4 or 5 storms. Storm surge could reach 7 to 11 feet over the barrier islands of Volusia and Brevard counties. Matthew is likely to traverse the Space Coast during the overnight hours Thursday. (Ironically, the GOES-R satellite—originally scheduled to be airborne by now, where it would be gathering data on Matthew—is instead at the space center, awaiting its rescheduled launch in November.)

Edit: article published at 6:27 PM GMT on October 06, 2016

Edit2: formatting

> They won't need to [trim back fuel margins] here,

I'm not sure about that:

• According to the launch hazard maps OCISLY is placed just as far out as it was in the case of SES-9, so the first stage trajectory is going just as flat and just as far downrange as it did with SES-9.

• To get an idea about how payload mass and target orbit impacts the launch trajectory, have a look at real telemetry data of past launches: in general a less energetic launch with a bigger fuel margin goes up steeper and comes down sooner. GTO launches go flat and fast, and the first stage moves far away downrange.

• If JCSAT-14 had an earlier MECO than SES-9 (to preserve fuel) then the F9 first stage would necessarily have to come down earlier, compared to SES-9 - but the OCISLY position is just as far out.

• JCSAT-14 payload mass is unknown but estimated to be somewhere between 4.0 and 5.3 tons, while SES-9 was 5.3 tons. If JCSAT-14 is lighter then 4 times the payload difference at MECO can be added as extra fuel available to the first stage, as a rough estimation. (We can do this estimation because the lighter payload is not a very big part of the much larger 100 tons second stage). So if JCSAT-14 is 4.3 tons then the first stage will have roughly 4 tons of extra fuel. If JSAT-14 is 5.3 tons then there's no extra fuel - all other things (like atmospheric conditions) being equal.

So considering that the max extra fuel available to the JSAT-14 launch is at most 4 tons at MECO (assuming my calculations are correct!), JCSAT-14 looks like to be just as energetic and risky as the SES-9 launch and landing.

The landing might still succeed: hopefully SpaceX managed to learn something new about the 3-engine hoverslam they attempted with SES-9.

edit: 1 tons -> 4 tons

> There is an excessive number of duplicate posts before, during & after launches

Also, it seems like everyone is constantly posting Elon's/SpaceX's/PBdS's latest tweet. Is there a tweet-posting bot that we can get for this purpose, and just have the mods approve whichever tweet posts are SpaceX-related?

 

> Average quality KSP posts

Yeah, I think we've all already seen the 100 videos of someone "recreating" a landing attempt. KSP posts should be limited to one-off, unique, and high-quality stuff, like if a really accurate SpaceX mod was released, or someone accurately creates/recreates something (ie, in RSS, and with good parts).

 

And on that note, can we talk about the TMRO posts? As much as I love the show, and I get that Ben wants to advertise it here because this is the target demographic, sometimes its relevance to /r/SpaceX is questionable. The last episode, for example, had a brief, 3 minute recap of the pad abort plans and the recent SuperDraco test. The 2014 recap episode had literally 24 seconds of SpaceX-related stuff, and all it was was a shot of Dragon v2 and "we all remember that, don't we?"

You can get a banner ad on this subreddit for $1/1000 impressions. For $100, you can get 100k views on launch day. How many extra Patrons will that turn into? Is it cost effective?

Spectroid. I think I saw it on a Smarter Every Day video. It's pretty accurate, I typed 3100 into a tone generator and it almost matched the sound in the video.

I don't know what it's actually called but yes, it lights up when that frequency has higher dB and changes with time.

This. I can even picture a giant-scale "sneakernet" -- ship the entire library of Steam, iTunes, Pandora, Spotify, Amazon, Wikipedia, Archive.org, etc. You can view the local copy (as of <last synod departure date>), and optionally request that an updated copy be downloaded on the next comm opportunity. Baselined from microSD cards at 256 GB in 0.4 grams that's 640 terabytes per kilogram.

I can see a separate "Mars Amazon Store" with products stripped down for extreme mass reduction. Biodegradable powdered soap, bulk spools of floss, ultra-light camping gear, long-lived "Buy it for life" products, bulk Soylent by the person-synod, etc. It could be a whole new trend in consumer goods. :)

Speaking of fun and silly, this launch (and its payload) led me to make a quick little android game flying the roadster through the asteroid belt. Nothing big, but certainly inspiring me to create space-related stuff!

May I recommend Space Launch Now

You can select types of launches, launch organizations, and configure various types of updates at various intervals. :)

Camera: Sony a6000 Telescope: Sky Watcher Pro 100ED Refractor Telescope Focal Length: 900mm (1350mm effective focal length due to crop sensor factor) Aperture: f/9.0 (f/13.5 effective aperture due to crop sensor factor) Shutter Speed: 1/1000 ISO: 250

No eyepiece with this setup. I connected the camera using a T-mount adapter and a 2 inch coupler to connect it directly to the focuser, in place of the telescope's diagonal.

Scope: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Q75864/ref=twister_B00YE0KATS?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1

T-adapter/coupler for Sony e-mount cameras: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01JFPC38M/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1

• And here it is in your local time.
• Countdown Because we love countdowns

> [Static fire] is currently expected to take place on January 6, although – as always – these dates can move around due to numerous factors such as readiness, range authority and weather.

Weather forecast looks excellent for Jan 6 all day. Jan 15 promises to be stormy

They didn’t know how much it was going to cost to reuse. They were hoping SpaceX was going to have to take the engines off and refurbish them (like the space shuttle). That turned out to be incorrect.

> LES MUREAUX, France – Europe’s next-generation Ariane 6 rocket remains on track for a 2020 first launch with a cost structure allowing the heavier Ariane 64 version to advertise per-kilogram prices below today’s Space X Falcon 9, European government and industry officials said April 6.

http://spacenews.com/ariane-6-rocket-designers-say-theyll-match-or-beat-todays-spacex-prices-on-per-kilogram-basis/

Here’s one that has actual cost estimates:

https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/01/could-europes-ariane-6-rocket-beat-spacexs.aspx

Upper atmospheric wind forecast gets much better after 24 hours

31 May

Strong >30mph crosswinds at Max-Q altitude throughout launch window

vs 1June

Seems to be nice weather early in the 1st June launch window.

Disruptive Technology is a term I encountered a while ago that seems applicable. A more complicated, lower performance technology arrives and is dismissed by existing industry who subsequently can't survive the following transition.

Cable-operated earth mover companies ignored hydraulics when they first showed up because they weren't as strong as the existing steam shovels and had weird hydraulic problems to debug. In the end, hydraulics ended up having other advantages (like no whipping cables killing people when they fail, simpler metal loading and plumbing than the intricate arrangements needed for the cables, etc). Not a single one of those companies survived the transition to hydraulics but they all hand-waved away the new tech the entire time it was happening as "something that hasn't proved itself viable yet".

I'm reminded of stuff like this anytime I read a post talking about how the payload-to-orbit is 30% lower for a re-use launch than an expendable one, or anytime someone sagely advises caution at any excitement because "we don't know how much it will cost to refurbish for another flight yet". Yeah ok, I get the point they're making but I think any existing aerospace companies that ignore this development face a real risk of being those cable-operated earth movers all over again.

Edit: Anyone interested in learning more about disruptive technologies (we're surrounded by examples of things that were relatively crummy when they first appeared but then surpassed the existing one handily), check out 'The Innovator's Dilemma', it's a great read.

sigh

PS4: 18.8 x 13.4 x 4.2 inches (0.61231ft³ ) http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/691087-playstation-4/67825658

Truck: 3800 cubic feet http://www.shipnorthamerica.com/htmfiles/equipment.html

So 6206 PS4s at 399 (amazon.com) is 2,476,194.

And you can get more ps4s on short notice, I doubt the same is true of rockets.

as he said, you CAN order on amazon.... https://www.amazon.co.uk/Report-Space-Reminiscence-Orbcomm-2-NASASocial/dp/1615470433/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1463155485&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=we+report+space no shame to be had, just order it!

Just putting it up here for everyone to see why it might probably be delayed -upper atmosphere wind speed weather system forecast, push forecast date slider to the right for 4th and 5th May. Both long term models agree with regards to wind speed conditions at MECO-ish altitude.

Cygnus resupply ship delayed, due to mold on some bags.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/feb/11/moldy-luggage-delays-nasa-launch-of-space-station-cargo

>The Cygnus’s liftoff aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket is now scheduled for late March... Nasa is still assessing what, if any, impact delaying the Cygnus launch will have on the next cargo run planned by SpaceX.

So this is a morning photo on an Eastern road segment (shadows to the left) going from Hawthorne to McGreggor.

Trying to apply the 24 hour rule is likely to prove wishful thinking because most redditors who kindly post photos of stages (going on a horizontal low-level trajectory) won't know they're supposed to await the next day before publishing.

There is a great "business as usual" feel to this photo, as fabrication and testing move forwards during a temporary pause to launching.

>During reentry, less than 1 cm (1/2 inch) chars away from the surface of the PICA-X tiles, providing plenty of safety margin.

source

Remember PICA was designed for re-entry from interplanetary speeds. It's a carbon ablator, which reduces the total heat flux incident on the heatshield

You can get the epub of the recent reprint for free here

Or buy it on Amazon

Fantastic book.

> I know you're always advised to visit the petrol station first thing in the morning to maximise your value (more "fuel" per litre, as it's colder)

Just in case you aren't aware, that is not true for the standard petrol/diesel you'd put in your car, it's an urban myth. Your corner fuel station has underground tanks where the temperature variation is very small throughout the day. The amount of time it takes to get from the underground tank to your car tank to warm up is very small.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2008/08/save-on-gas-with-morning-fill-ups-don-t-bet-on-it/index.htm

> indeed, I got confused between my french and my english.

As a matter of fact, you were using perfectly correct English. <em>Résumé</em> has the same meaning in English as it does in French. It's not as common with this meaning as words like summary, so some English speakers may be ignorant of it, but I say let them broaden their vocabulary!

Ok, on video you can see "very soft snow" and the practical absence of wind (by "naked eye" I'm determine wind speed as "no more 3-4 m/s").

Now I check the actual weather by public weather archive to launch day 14-Nov- 2011 (morning) and find wind speed ~ 3.9 m/s

PS may be I'm not know English well but in Russian exist many words for describing "snow with the wind" depending on the harshness of environment ... ;-)

Do we know what time and date the accident occurred? The outer engines being damaged implies physical force being applied to all sides of the octaweb assembly. If the core was being craned into the test stand at the time and a sizable wind gust caught it, then it could pendulum against the edges of the support stand opening.

I looked at wind speeds at McGregor and on Tuesday at 1pm the wind direction changed direction from a southerly to a northerly and gusted up to 53.7km/h which was double the average at the time.

The stage is a big sail and if not tethered properly whilst suspended, or if done so improperly, then the engine bells could have been impacted.

Its an app called time until. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brunoschalch.timeuntil It also provides transparend widgets which i use. The Falcon 9 Photo is just my phone background.

I mean... I think SpaceX has enough disposable income to afford purchasing and maintaining a crane. Fun fact, you can buy giant tower cranes on Alibaba:

http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/tower-crane-price.html

For industrial items in mass quantities you need to check alibaba.com

How may you need (close enough - says space)

This might push the launch and recovery attempt into the daylight or at the very least sunset depending on how many days the slip is.

Edit: Launch moves forward approximately 23 minutes every day delay and sunset at the cape gets 1m later every 3 days.

• June 12 Window 2107-2200L Sunset 2020 Recovery Zone Sunset 2000L
• June 13 Window 2045-2138L Sunset 2020 Recovery Zone Sunset 2000L
• June 14 Window 2022-2115L Sunset 2021 Recovery Zone Sunset 2000L
• June 15 Window 1959-2052L Sunset 2021 Recovery Zone Sunset 2001L
• June 16 Window 1936-2029L Sunset 2021 Recovery Zone Sunset 2001L
• June 17 Window 1913-2006L Sunset 2022 Recovery Zone Sunset 2001L

For the recovery zone I used Nassau Bahamas which is pretty close.

Used this for sunset calcs and just a note that these are at ground level.

Here's a video of a DIV launch at 2003L sunset at 2006L just for an idea of the lighting conditions.

Judging from her linkedin page Emily Shanklin has been in charge of this exact position as well as Senior Director of Marketing only since December 2013. It looks like they might be splitting up those two departments because she is losing one of those titles. Given the recent hars critisism of SpaceX communication with media, maybe that isn't so strange after all.

> A big thing a country has to consider with hitting satellites is Kessler Syndrome.

That was precisely why the Chinese government was condemned when they merely tested an anti-satellite weapon on their own equipment. Sure, both the USAF and the USSR tested anti-satellite weapons of their own in space (which is why China didn't care and the justification for their own test), but the debris from that test proved to be a major tracking hazard that ultimately included even the International Space Station.

The other thing to consider is that high altitude nukes also produce an incredible amount of ionizing radiation and radioactive debris that remains trapped in the Van Allen Belts. Basically a few nukes can supercharge those already hazardous radiation regions around the Earth and make any sort of crewed spaceflight impossible for decades. Buzz Aldrin even wrote about that potential in a fictional book he co-authored. Perhaps that may be an exaggeration, but even the potential to stop crewed spaceflight sounds like a problem, and was enough of a concern even with Starfish Prime that the Partial Test Ban Treaty was negotiated to ensure it wouldn't happen again.

> They run a <1% profit margin,

Sorry that hasn't been my experience printing my book with Amazon. Commercial print costs are around $1 a copy for paperbacks but for some reason I pay $14+ out of my royalties. Found I needed to charge ~$30 to cover print charges, and to be honest the print quality isn't brilliant. However, little choice atm, it was originally intended as an ebook but people demanded paper...

Go read Rand Simberg's book on this topic; the ebook is cheap.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L3PI102/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1

The summary is that we accept the risk of death in a lot of human activities, including jobs such as being a commercial fisherman or serving in the military, not to mention a ton of leisure activities.

Why should we treat spaceflight as something different?

I sometimes forget not everyone here is an engineer.

/u/strcrssd has the acronyms correct. In order to build a constellation of 4000 satellites, they need to be able to talk with one another, and with ground stations, using radio waves of a particular frequency. That's where the RFIC engineer comes in. To route all of the packets to appropriate destinations at high speed, you'll need a few custom processors known as ASICs. They work faster at very specific tasks than a general purpose CPU found in your computer.

SpaceX contacted Broadcom for an estimate on creating these integrated circuits, and the quoted price was too high, so SpaceX decided to do yet another thing in-house to save money.

There have been a few stories recently about the spectrum of radio frequencies available to SpaceX:

http://www.geekwire.com/2016/spacex-seattle-satellite-5g-battle/

http://spacenews.com/dish-network-battles-oneweb-and-spacex-for-ku-band-spectrum-rights/

They have already changed the license on flickr!. Not exactly public domain, but cc-by. But that is what I was rooting for. It doesn't have any restriction now other than attribution. That is only fair.

To expand on /u/SoulWager's comment:

Kerbal Space Program (KSP) is a great game to learn orbital physics a fun way (although they are slightly different then IRL ofc) and it is very easy to see how transfers to other planets, rendezvous and docking work.

There is also a wonderful community surrounding the game. The KSP forums for a start and /r/KerbalSpaceProgram. It runs good on most computers even older ones at reduced graphics.

The only thing that might be of concern to you as a parent is the uh...cartoon violence lets say. Space travel is dangerous as we all know. This is also true ingame, your rockets will blow up if you screw up and your Kerbals (little green alien dudes) will die. Fortunately you can often revert back to a previous quicksave. No blood of such just fireballs and lots of rocket parts disassembling.

Give the demo a shot at least: https://www.kerbalspaceprogram.com/demo.php

The game is 20 bucks on steam. Totally worth it. Feel free to message me with any questions you or your son may have :)

For anyone wanting to follow the launch and get the correct time just get my app called LaunchPal from the Play Store or Windows store (free). It keeps track of all upcoming launches and reminders can be set in advance so you never miss a launch again.

It now also includes information about the astronauts on ISS and I'm also collecting space news from several sites to display it in the app for easy access.

LaunchPal Plus users also get access to live feeds directly in the app, satellite view of the launch pad and weather data during the launch. And finally also the ability to track a launch organizations planed launches like SpaceX, ULA and more.

The Windows app support Windows 10 (Desktop, mobile and Xbox One) and also Windows 8.x

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/launchpal/9nblggh1xvhk

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.digitalzoolutions.launchpal

I'm not sure what in particular you're referring to, but you can read a summary of the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license which we're recommending. Basically, if anyone used your work elsewhere, they would have to release any derived work work under the same license as yours (i.e. they couldn't take it and use it on a proprietary article, book, etc, only in a libre-licensed one, and would be required to appropriately credit you and link back to your site). You would still be free to license it under other terms, including charging for such.

Musk said it really depends on your problem solving ability. If you can prove that you can solve difficult engineering problems then you got a shot. Be warned that working for SpaceX is not really what it is perceived to be. I suggest reading some reviews from employees who are currently working there or have worked there in the past:

http://www.indeed.com/cmp/Spacex/reviews?fcountry=US

Not trying to discourage you but maybe it isn't the best place to start out at or maybe it is depending on your point of view and what job you are applying for.

Convexity has to do with the shape of the optimization landscape of the problem. Have a look at this slide (from here). Imagine standing somewhere of the left, convex landscape. It is rather easy to reach the global optimum (deepest valley) - just take steps that lead you downhill. This would be your perfect solution to the problem (or, landing the F9 gracefully on the pad). Now image standing somewhere on the right, nonconvex landscape. Finding the global optimum here is much harder as simply following a path downhill might trap you in a global optimum (or, crashing the F9 on the pad).

In reality, the landscape might be even more rugged with many many more local optima, and the landscape may exist in many many more dimensions than we can draw on a figure, making the global optimum extremely hard to find. You can now understand that Blackmore is quite a genius, as he managed to "Convexify a Nonconvex problem".

Disclaimer: This answer comes from a computational biologist and not an engineer.

That support seems to be exactly at the juncture of the two tanks, which is the strongest point, and it's also very close to the location of the lens flare. If it was the location of the initial explosion, it couldn't be in a more ideal place to puncture both tanks.

So why would a support be associated with an ignition trigger location? Any potential static arcing between the booster and the TE would be expected to occur at the closest points of contact. Of course that doesn't explain how there would be a flammable fuel/air mix anywhere near that location.

There is another additional faint possibility. This support presumably helps take the weight of the booster while it is horizontal. If for any reason the support setup was incorrectly aligned during erection, it's possible to imagine incorrect forces being transmitted to the exact junction of the two tanks. A hairline crack might conceivably result, which might provide a fuel source.

I can't tell for sure from looking at that part on the zoomable image but it looks as though it is set up to be adjustable since it attaches to the top unit of the TE, which is connected to the main body of the TE via struts that seem intended for position changes. (Assuming this image shows the current state of the TE)

EDIT - closer look at detailed image

EDIT 2 - There's an interesting discussion on the NSF forums about the role of that support and the top unit in general, and how adjustable it may need to be to deal with the thermal contraction of the rocket once fueled.

it's probably been mentioned before, but there's an app for that.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.calebjones.spacelaunchnow

countdown widget that is hard to miss and a notification an hour before launch.

I almost never forget and miss one now.

>...all the way down to a guy who wanted to patent an airsoft gun mount that he invented.

He can get a patent, but if a large company starts infringing on it he's not going to spend $650,000 to go after that company.

Is it true that they are intentionally coming down over the water then diverting laterally to the barge at the last second to minimise engine exhaust damage to the barge? The angle of the video may not tell the full story but it did look like it was coming down for a direct bullseye and then angled away for a moment before coming back.

How about a sunrise launch? (STS-131, 5 April 2010)

Good question! I've heard that the reason no one uses a rail gun is it would disintegrate the cargo at launch or upon first contact with the atmosphere. In order to avoid the rapid acceleration that destroys cargo, you'd need an insanely long barrel that ends above our atmosphere. The track would have to be on the order of 1,000KM. Someone did some drawings and calculations on this at: https://www.quora.com/Why-dont-we-use-a-system-similar-to-a-railgun-to-accelerate-space-ships-to-escape-velocity

I was looking for something else on this site, found out SpaceX already awarded the construction contract that I noted from last year.

Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/2emedm/if_spacex_doesnt_get_a_cctcap_award_how_damaging/ck13nmr

> They are also planning a $40 million car parking facility for their Hawthorne facility across the road in front if their HQ

I guess they scaled down the parking garage. Btw the CBRE link doesn't redirect to the correct page anymore because the listing had been taken off. Did anyone happen to save the brochure?

edit2: looks like it's older news from Feb which no one picked up.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pioneering-spacex-chooses-bomel-construction-paul-napolitano

> The seven-level parking structure replaces one surface parking lot. The goal of the new structure is to eliminate the need for SpaceX employees to be shuttled from off-site surface parking lots.

..

> The garage will include a 100-foot-long pedestrian bridge spanning Crenshaw Boulevard that connects its fourth level to the SpaceX building. The method of construction for the bridge has yet to be determined, Lessard said. Another prominent non-parking feature will be found on the top level, where Bomel will put provisions for photovoltaic panels, a process it has executed at several other garages.

>Bezos sees it as a competition

There are quite a few indicators that you are right:-

1. BO tried to patent barge landing (despite having no foreseeable need) which would have effectively crippled SpaceX efforts for stage recovery.

2. BO tried to acquire the lease for Pad 39A at the Cape despite having no plan to launch a Super Heavy Lift launch vehicle which the pad was designed to host. Again this would have set back SpaceX plans to launch Falcon 9 crew vehicles and Falcon Heavy from the Cape.

3. BO headhunted the SpaceX Raptor development team to produce a nucleus of engineers for their own BE-4 dev program. This depreciated the team at SpaceX to such an extent that they had to block all incoming emails containing the phrase Blue or Origin.

Sure there are many other examples but you can certainly appreciate that BO/Jeff Bezos are taking an aggressive stance with regards to competing with SpaceX.

No it won't. What kind of latency do you think you'll have?

The satellites would not be in Geostationary orbit, they would be in LEO, which would decrease signal travel time significantly. And also, you don't have to route through terrestrial router systems, a few hops is all that will be needed.

> As you guys may know, the speed of light in a vacuum is somewhere around 40 to 50 percent faster than in fiber. So you can actually do long-distance communication faster if you route it through a vacuum than you can if you route it through fiber. You can also go through far fewer hops. Let’s say you want to communicate from Seattle to South Africa. If you look at the actual path that it takes, it’s extremely convoluted, and it will follow the outline of the contents, it will go through 200 routers and repeaters, and the latency is extremely bad. Whereas if you did it with a satellite network, you could actually do it in two or three hops. Maybe four hops. Basically, with at least an order of magnitude fewer repeaters or routers, and then going through space at 50 percent faster speed of light.

EDIT: from Elon's opening speech, he is talking about "gigabit-level access, 20-30ms latency"

Just putting it up here for everyone to see why it might probably be delayed -upper atmosphere wind speed weather system forecast, push forecast date slider to the right for 4th and 5th May. Both long term models agree with regards to wind speed conditions at MECO-ish altitude.

Edit: Makes one wonder if it was bad conditions all round or did SpaceX also manage to convince them with a bias towards booster recovery conditions?

First Alert PR710 smoke alarms, available for $19.97 on Amazon.

There is an Android WIP app but to be honest, you are better off pinning the website to your desktop via chrome. I'm not going to release an iOS app any time soon either as their store fee is simply too steep :/

For reference Garrett Reisman is Director of Crew Operations at Space Exploration Technologies.

To get the ball rolling here are some suggested questions for Garrett:-

1. Would NASA prefer Dragon 2 to land on water, or will they OK it to land propulsively?

2. What is the intended payload for Falcon Heavy Demo launch?

3. Would SpaceX consider using Dragon 2 for satellite refurbishment and repair?

4. Are Bigelow Aerospace interested in using Dragon 2 and if so when would they like to use it?

5. Will SpaceX use a Tesla model X to transport crew to launch pad 39A?

6. Will SpaceX use their sub-scale hyperloop to transport crew to the rocket or evacuate in case of emergency?

29 mph gusts in BC currently. Falcon 9 will not launch in > 35 mph winds, and Starship is still a development vehicle, and it also has to fly lopsided, wind is probably a significant consideration.

All this talk of living near the beach makes me want to relate something pertinent.

When I was stationed on my first ship in the Navy in South Carolina my buddy and I found a wonderful solution to close by high rents.

We had camped at a small campground close to the ocean and behind a barrier island (Folly Island). We had such a fun time we purchased a small pop up camper and became local residents as it was cheaper than most local rents. Sailors by day, local beachbum by night. They had a nice bathhouse and food was available close by. 35 years later its one of the fondest memories I have of being in the Navy.

While not a permanent solution for you, it could be a pleasant experience while you are waiting to get a decent permanent residence. You will also not be pushed into taking the first available room even if you don't like it.

There appear to be a plethora of close campgrounds. https://www.bing.com/mapspreview?q=hawthorne+california+campgrounds&amp;mkt=en&amp;FORM=HDRSC4

archive.org has their site archived. Here's the 2006 version.

I love their optimism back then. 3.4 tons to GTO for $27 million? Too good to be true (it turned out it literally was too good to be true).

Go to Windy. They relay the ECMWF model. There is a tab you can toggle to see wind speeds at different levels up tp FL450 at different hours.

Link provided...

https://www.windy.com/?150h,2021-05-05-12,26.523,-96.965,9,m:eowadtj

The article mentions that the lander is called Blue Moon and is based on New Shepard. New Armstrong is something else entirely:

>“When we have millions of people living and working in space, we want them to be able to go to lots of destinations,” he said. “Mars would be one of them. The moon would be another. New Armstrong is really designed for that long-term vision.”

Here's some info in rp-1 hydraulics on Saturn https://books.google.com/books?id=JnoZTbVLx0MC&amp;pg=PA200&amp;lpg=PA200&amp;dq=rp-1+as+hydraulic+fluid&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=C5s21LJZNZ&amp;sig=X3hMdrM-Hwj4b7ulIc6YsvzjHMU&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=G4mxVO5_iLWCBOivgtAM&amp;ved=0CBwQ6AEwAA

While not what you're looking for, this Quora post from their former Head of Talent Acquisition answers a lot of questions.

I'm a programmer too. Here's a few things I've found over the years about SpaceX and programming that I really liked.

They did an AMA: https://www.reddit.com/comments/1853ap They use a custom Linux kernel: http://lwn.net/Articles/540368/

My favorite part: "In his team, they have a full-size Justin Bieber cutout that gets placed facing the team member who broke the build"

Elon's former partner Peter Thiel did a lecture on this:

http://blakemasters.com/post/24578683805/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-class-18-notes

This is also in Blake and Peter's book Zero to One, which is basically a book form of these lecture notes with some additions. I recommend it. It's a quick and very thought provoking read.

Is that a joke, or did he really do that? :o

Edit: apparently he did for a while. >3. He works ridiculous hours. Musk wonders if he can spare “five to 10 hours” a week from his hectic schedule to date. When he was starting out, he slept in a beanbag next to his desk. “Maybe he showered on the weekends,” says a co-worker. “I don’t know.” Now that he’s got a private jet, it’s a little more comfortable, but he is always zooming from factory to meeting to factory. Same principle. I get exhausted just thinking about it.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-to-be-elon-musk-10-secrets-of-the-craziest-billionaire-2015-06-10

>(Intern) Opportunities may be available in other areas (lifted from the SpaceX Interns page).

You could try something bold and apply direct to Garrett Reisman Director of Crew Operations at SpaceX. If there's anywhere that might benefit from a Bachelor of Science/Medical intern Garrett Reisman would know. Astronaut safety must be pretty high on his list of priorities ATM, which might give you an exclusive in with your medical background.

Two areas he should have oversight on are: environmental control for Dragon 2 and astronaut pressure suits. Also diet could fall under his remit, particularly if Dragon 2 flight time is extended for any reason. Garrett Reisman is an ex-NASA astronaut so no doubt appreciates clinicians.

The two most common ones seem to be Windy and Ventusky. Interesting note: Ventusky is used by Chris G on NSF for monitoring winds for launches.

SpaceX will probably also revise their own schedule forward (for a couple of reasons). The magnitude of the delay cannot be really assessed right now.

The reason for the Boeing delay has to do with a couple of hot items in Starliner. Mainly, challenges related to the mass of the spacecraft and aeroacoustic issues related to integration with its United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 launch vehicle.

We have known for some time that Boeing would fly in 2018, we now know the pushback to certification too.

Folks:

Whoa Nelly! Alan Boyle wrote up my design in a article!

Speculation mounts over Elon Musk’s plan for SpaceX’s Mars Colonial Transporter

tinker

I was told to put this here instead of making a dedicated thread, I made a T-Shirt of the ITS and Saturn V. My contact at SpaceX did not think it would cause any copyright issues. From Apollo to Mars T-Shirt

It's actually a rented server in a data center with a symmetric gigabit connection and unlimited traffic (as long as I don't exceed 30 TB outgoing traffic for three months in a row), so this is now putting it to some real use ;)

They use Linux exclusively, all their microcontrollers are PowerPC, and they have no hard real-time requirements (proof). So, while they are technically working with embedded systems, they're not ATmega chips with 32kb of memory. I'd focus more on learning about Linux and the real-time scheduling abilities of the Linux kernel.

They already are building a new test stand for FH in Texas, it has been under construction for over a year now. It is partially underground to lessen the noise impact of firing 27 merlins at once. I believe it has already been announced officially. See here for an image.

Where can I responsibly fly a drone to record Sunday's launch?

Obviously I can't fly over the base itself, but I'm curious if flying in say Vandenberg Village would be fair game (under 400 feet, etc). Has anyone here done this before?

I took a look at the map below, but it doesn't seem terribly reliable. The base itself is of course marked as a no-fly zone, but I notice that the Lompoc Airport is not marked at all. I assume there will be additional temporary no-fly zones as well.

https://www.mapbox.com/drone/no-fly/

I think it would be fun to film the launch from my drone, but obviously I want to do this responsibly. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

'cause he didn't tell you "F9 FT", he wrote it, saving a total of 15 keystrokes, which on average translates to saving slightly over four seconds

What about using something like HighCharts to render a jpeg image on your spacex stats server and put the pic in the side bar (or as the background of the header) then have the server swap the image every hour or so.

That might be a good way to get 1 or 2 event countdowns up top.

NOTE: I am a network engineer not a programmer. Feel free to tell me I'm retarded.

Download the "Next Spaceflight" app. Android link iOS link

If anyone wants to be able to track all rocket launches (not just SpaceX) you should try this one. I might be slightly biased though because I made it. :P https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nextspaceflight.android.nextspaceflight

This concept is the subject of the book "The Mythical Man-Month" which explains how adding more engineers to speed up a software project can actually delay it further.

Eric Krystowiak is a U.S. Air Force Colonel, now serving as Launch Group Commander for the 45th Space Wing at Patrick Air Force Base, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. SLC-40 is located on the base's property. The 45th provides launch support for everything that flies off the Space Coast.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-krystkowiak-338a2756

Looks like the moon will be pretty high in the sky and will be at 84% illumination:

Map of moon location

Moon phase and brightness

Following this, because the idea has me imagining awesome things:

Three Merlin-1Ds have significantly more thrust than the 5 Merlin 1-Cs that were in the original proposal. So we now have a Falcon 3 which might fair a bit better with a new nozzle, because at 40,000 ft where StratoLaunch is releasing, you're above much of the atmosphere.

The StratoLaunch aircraft (Birdzilla) can carry up to a 250 ton rocket. Assuming (from this awesome post) that the second stage and the payload of a Falcon 9 FT are approximately 120 tons (110 ton second stage, 10 ton payload), this means that an air-launched Falcon 3 would have approximately equal sized first and second stages (130/120). The thrust to weight ratio of the Falcon 3 at release (assuming ~vacuum) would be a bit over 1.1. This stage could then burn for ~150 seconds (assuming 96% fuel mass fraction at 273 kg/s flow rate). And assuming an Isp of 307, would impart ~2100 m/s of delta-v.

This kind of cute paper shows that air launching at a flight speed of 340 m/s and 45,000 ft may give you a ~1000 m/s delta-v bonus. So we're left with a zeroth (Birdzilla) and first stage that impart a combined ~3 km/s delta-v. I have no idea if a standard Falcon 9 second stage can get a 10 ton payload the rest of the way to orbit from there.

>Actually, it would be a huge mistake to bring in an automotive guy the industries are fundamentally different.

SpaceX's Vice President of Production, Andrew Lambert, is from the automotive industry (BMW/Mini Cooper).