SpaceX And/Or Rocketry In General

Anonymous

From the back yard.  sonic

From the back yard.  sonic booms were quite noticeable.  only heard two though.

I should have resized the pic more.  

spacex.png

Mike Hewson
Mike Hewson
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Having watched this 'ballet

Having watched this 'ballet of rockets' gives me a thrill. I'm an Aussie but I want to chant "USA .... USA .... USA ........."

Cheers, Mike.

I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...

... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal

Gary Charpentier
Gary Charpentier
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oops https://www.engadget.co

oops

https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/16/spacex-loses-falcon-heavy-center-booster/

Quote:

SpaceX loses Falcon Heavy's center booster to the sea

It wasn't able to make its way back to the port.

Mike Hewson
Mike Hewson
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On the upside Go Navigator

On the upside Go Navigator and Go Searcher have recovered a half-fairing each.

Cheers, Mike.

I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...

... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal

archae86
archae86
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There were varying stories on

There were varying stories on the fate of the center booster core for days, some of which had it entirely lost, some being towed in the water, and some fallen down but on deck.

The fallen down on deck one turned out to be half right.  The bottom half came home, on the side, and moderately mangled, but with landing legs, engines, and most of the structure up to about the top of the RP-1 tank.  Not visible, and quite possibly sitting at the bottom of the sea, are the bulkhead between RP-1 and LOX tanks, LOX tank, interstage, grid fins (Oh, the Titanium!), and such.

Elon said they might use the engines again if inspection seemed favorable.  I doubt they will get much recovered value from re-use of parts.  

Here are a couple of pictures an NSF member Photoshopped from snaps taken shortly after the barge got home.

Gary Charpentier
Gary Charpentier
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Anonymous

Local news is carrying the

Local news is carrying the story now too.  This is why  they test!!

archae86
archae86
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Some folks with chemistry

Some folks with chemistry backgrounds assert that the color of the nasty looking cloud suggests a large unburned nitrogen tetroxide release.  I suspect that is aftermath, rather than causal.  Something like this:

1. something goes boom
2. boom breaks the nitrogen tetroxide tank, but not the other main tank
3. So the nitrogen tetroxide that is in excess of available mop-up drifts away.

Which says about nothing about what went wrong in the first place.  It could quite possibly have been in the test stand ground support equipment, which, while serious, might have different consequences than a direct fault in the vehicle.

Anonymous

SpaceX mission scrubbed due

SpaceX mission scrubbed due to landing craft being unable to maintain power.  New launch time:  2:48:58 a.m. EDT (0648:58 GMT) Saturday 

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