Falcon 1 Flight 5

Of all days. My daughter has a surgery consult scheduled that day. :(

Guess I'll watch it after the fact on SpaceX's website.
 
anyone know if there ever gonna launch that F9? is it like a lizard or something, needs to absorb the sun for a few months before doing anything?
 
Yea, I think there must be something wrong with F9. They were in a hell of a rush to put it up with daily updates........ and now we have 3 months of no news at all.

They have been testing the engines, throttling down at 75% or 60% or something and said they're gonna try to go lower, but I doubt that's the cause of the delay.



I hope for a good F1 launch though.
 
DaveS said:
Yes, it's because the damn thing is just a fit-check vehicle, not a flight-vehicle! It doesn't have any avionics at all and the second stage is a dummy stage with no engine.
Click to expand...

Not sure where you heard that (I'm guessing NASASpaceflight) but you're wrong.
The first stage does contain the full avionics package and is - in the words of Elon - "flight ready". Not sure if the second stage has an avionics package on board, but it does have an engine. The only difference between the second stage at the cape and the flight article is that the one at the cape has the wrong nozzle attached to it, so the expansion ratio is inefficient for vacuum use.

(edit) Source, last month's AIAA Aviation America magazine.
 
DaveS said:
Yes, it's because the damn thing is just a fit-check vehicle, not a flight-vehicle! It doesn't have any avionics at all and the second stage is a dummy stage with no engine.
Click to expand...

simonpro said:
Not sure where you heard that (I'm guessing NASASpaceflight) but you're wrong.
The first stage does contain the full avionics package and is - in the words of Elon - "flight ready". Not sure if the second stage has an avionics package on board, but it does have an engine. The only difference between the second stage at the cape and the flight article is that the one at the cape has the wrong nozzle attached to it, so the expansion ratio is inefficient for vacuum use.

(edit) Source, last month's AIAA Aviation America magazine.
Click to expand...
I'm corrected then.
 
Well, here's hoping SpaceX have finally decided to leave the "$10 million artificial coral reef off Kwajelein" industry for good. ;)
 
Ok, not much of an update right now, just some changes on the launch manifest.


Customer ................. Date .... Vehicle .... Location
ATSB (Malaysia) ........ 2009 .... Falcon1 ... Kwajalein
Falcon 9 maiden flight . 2009 .... Falcon 9 . Cape Canaveral
Click to expand...

It's true that the previous 2008 date for F9 was just the arrival date to KSC, but they have now set a launch date (at least internally) and it seems it will be after the F1 launch.

Also, there are now only 4 launches planned for 2009 and if I remember correctly, there were way more before... and if I remember correctly, NASA COTS demo 2 was to be in 2009...

Also the chest-beating blogging, emailing and news have stopped. If I had to guess... they're in deep waters and having trouble swimming.
 
RisingFury said:
Also the chest-beating blogging, emailing and news have stopped. If I had to guess... they're in deep waters and having trouble swimming.
Click to expand...

They are probably spooked by the financial crisis like everyone else. I hope and pray that they can continue to push the "financial boundaries" of space flight.
 
RisingFury said:
OAlso the chest-beating blogging, emailing and news have stopped. If I had to guess... they're in deep waters and having trouble swimming.
Click to expand...

Either that or they've finally decided to act like professionals and get on with the business of launching rockets.

I was mightily unimpressed with them to begin with, they were all talk and no action. Fancy presentations and big words, but nothing actually happening (apart from piss poor engineering) behind the scenes.


However, over the last year or so they've finally started doing things properly. The fancy stuff is gone and what is left is a quite impressive company that is looking to launch rockets as cheaply and reliably as possible. I think the shock of so many failures changed a lot of things for them, and it seems to be working much better now. Hopefully it'll continue even when the successes start accumulating.
 
Finally some updates:

The satellite and the launch vehicle have made it to the launch site at Kwajalein Atoll. Apparently, on time... Looks like Flight 5 is carrying more then just this satellite - they keep referring to it as the primary payload, though I can't find the other payloads...

http://www.spacex.com/updates.php
 
The missed step is likely because of the new engine type being used on this flight. It appears that payload was designed for the original type, but was never rerated for the new type.
To be honest it's a pretty basic error, and if this is true the blame will rest solely with SpaceX. I had really hoped they'd got past the stage of making stupid mistakes. :(
 
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