Sometimes SpaceX just kind of amazes me.
The story this time is that two rather unusual things happened last night and in talking about it, they mentioned a third.
The main story is that last night's scheduled launch of the Starlink 12-15 mission was scrubbed by the automated countdown systems that run everything continuously. While Falcon 9 launch scrubs happen from time to time, they're still kind of unusual. What's doubly unusual is that this was the first launch of new Falcon 9 booster.
The new booster, with the serial number B1095, was lowered into the horizontal position Tuesday so engineers could work on the issue that caused the countdown clock to stop at T minus two minutes and 28 seconds on Monday. After the launch scrub, SpaceX acknowledged in a social media post that an “auto abort” had occurred but did not disclose why. It said: “Vehicle and payload are in good health, and teams are resetting for a launch attempt no earlier than Tuesday, May 20.”
Spaceflight Now says this will be the fourth new Falcon 9 to be added to the fleet this year, out
of which I pretty much remembered one. The company has 18 other boosters
in active duty, though B1072 has only flown once as a Falcon Heavy side
booster during the June 2024 launch of the GOES-U weather satellite.
Last Friday (May 16) I counted
a total of 19 boosters shown as actively flying
on that document. SpaceFlight Now adds the clarification that the 19th
is that B1072, a Falcon Heavy booster.
The part they threw out that made me shake my head was this:
The rocket was back in the vertical position at Space Launch Complex 40 late Tuesday afternoon. U.S. Space Force meteorologists forecast a 95 percent chance of favorable weather during Tuesday’s short launch window. The only weather concern is the slight chance of a violation of the cumulus cloud rule. In addition to the primary launch opportunity at 11:19:10 p.m. EDT (0319:10 UTC), there is a backup opportunity 20 seconds later. [Bold added - 0902 pm EDT 5/20 - SiG]
20 seconds later? 20 seconds?? I don't think they can do
that. I think if something causes the computer to put the count into a
hold, I've never seen one that could resume that quickly.
Seen here at Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) on the Cape Canaveral Space Force station, new booster B1095 will make its debut on this mission. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now
20 seconds is a little short for a fault clear and re-go.
ReplyDeleteBut it's SpaceX, so... well, they do unusual things.
Exactly. If it's possible, they'll get it done.
DeleteI'm waiting for the day they're ready to launch, find out the rocket's a no go, whip out a backup, transfer cargo or payload or whatever, and then, what, 30 minutes later launch.
DeleteBecause I'm sure that fantasy is what their little pin heads are contemplating. If not something far more fantastic.
The "Git Er Done" Rocket Company.
DeleteMusk time; every second is about an hour in human time.
ReplyDeleteI've seen several people wearing Blue Origin shirts while out around town while I've seen maybe one person in a SpaceX shirt. An easy way to think of that is the SpaceX people are working while the Blue folks are off. Maybe it's sloppy thinking, but they sure accomplish more than anybody else in the industry. They launch something like 90% of the tonnage put in orbit by the entire world.
DeletePart of that no-see SpaceX shirts could be due to SpaceX using a boatload of contractors while keeping the core SpaceX personnel low in number.
DeleteMaybe.
POG, "Plane On Ground," very expensive, hundreds of thousands a day in costs and losses. Can not imagine what a SpaceX or any rocket costs, in that light its purely good economic practice and cost saving procedures to turn around their launch vehicles soon as they can, and that, is due to management style, somebody got lots of common sense. Maybe it should be SpaceX - The Common Sense BF Rocket People.
ReplyDeleteSX-TCSBFRP Company.
This post made me think about something. Its fairly obvious, now that Superheavy, (Falcon's also), has some decent flight times, they are seeing things there is no way they can predict, you just got to fly your vehicles and modify whats needed. Obvious, right?
ReplyDeleteHere's the deal though, BO, (the legacy AS corps too), now that the heat is on, competition and practical flight hours/events wise, SpaceX exactly cause they iterate and all so rapidly, like nothing seen, are running into serious things happening to their hardware, all good, iterative is exactly that, the point in this is stark, BO et all, they are possibly falling behind by orders of magnitude. Just take the whole POGO problem. SpaceX, i think will, come to solve it, at the least solve it in the same way say cracks form on jet aircraft. It is impossible to stop cracks, wings, engine mounts, high press bleed air tubes, turbine components, landing gear, etc, what AMS and FAA, along with in house companies who build whole aircraft and complete engines, have historically and regulatory wise, they figure out how far cracks can grow, (surprisingly, and horrifyingly so), if you ever got a good eyeball on the cracks say on a 747, you would never ever fly on a jet liner again in your life, I know, got years in weld crack repair, the FAA and corps test to destruction, document real flight hours, and incredibly so know to the hour how long they can let cracks go till the part needs replaced or repaired. Iys a real science, also as a certified FAA O&R welder, i seen parts as they are when its time to overhaul and repair.
Two things. If it was not this way nothing would fly, seriously, second, its forces of nature and they are immutable forces, all's good.
My point is multi fold, SpaceX now has mature, flight data, stuff thats pure solid gold, you can not by it, (well maybe you can if your doing something you ain't supposed to be doing, well maybe, debatable), so take BO, set aside everything, look at purely as a tech/engineer thing, them guys are seriously falling behind SpaceX, what, they had one rather good looking successful launch so far, its a beautiful appearing rocket, they lost the booster though, and in this game of at least reusability, not talking rapidly, they lost a lot of things, most critical, is time. Flight time. Vehicle hours time. Data time. Test flight time. Manufacturing time. Time they should have gotten, to look at the booster with their timely mark one eyeballs.
This could go on a long time because so many timely variables.
Time can not be made up basically.
So in retrospect, is it at least understandable BO tries pulling legal Hail Mary's to stop time with SpaceX? Do you see just how incredibly important this all is? What is at stake all things taken together? Its not just monumental, its the future of everything, and how much real power sits and operates along the fringes of the shadows, as SpaceX literally turns the world of everything space on its head.
(last tiny thought; in certain ways, {just ask Ann Ran why}, its a total wonder they are still in business)
There's a ton of good experience, common sense and hands-on knowledge in there.
DeleteThe POGO issue is one that every rocket faces and either copes with or self-destructs. It will be there forever and I'll take odds the reason the designers didn't completely account for it was due to some small nonlinearity in one of the ways the factors cause the POGO to get worse. Nobody knew about it because nobody in human history has ever worked on a rocket as powerful as Starship/SuperHeavy. That happens when you work on things nobody has ever done before.
BO's and ULA's alternative to lawfare to slowing down SpaceX is losing all of their "best and brightest" staff to them because what they could do at SpaceX could change history forever. Who else could seriously have the chance to get a self-sustaining colony on Mars?
I've often wondered if there's a 'limit' to size of chemical rockets due to all the different frequencies of shaking, pulsing and flexing caused by each engine. Do they have to tune them together? Do they tune the engines opposite-frequencies so they cancel each other out?
DeleteAnd early Starships had thicker skins and different alloys than the 'modern' Starships and Boosters.
SpaceX's Starship Program is, basically, a giant materials science project. And they're testing to the edge. Though they've seem to have settled on 'make it stronger, (slightly) heavier and not at the edge of performance as a way to do things.
Like the Falcon/Merlin. Neither the rocket or the engines on that program are pushing the 99% performance line. Especially the Merlins. They're 'good enough.' SpaceX and Musk have come out and said the Merlins, though improved, aren't wringing every possible last dribble of thrust. They're literally 'good enough.' The philosophy of 'Best is the enemy of Good Enough' in action.
Other companies seem to be working on maxing out performance rather than making their product good enough.
Kind of like taking an auto engine that's bog standard and just works and tweaking it to peak performance. Which one will last longer, a bog standard engine or a tweaked-out race engine? Survey says... bog standard, good enough.
For sure, the labor aspect, thats huge cause skilled employees in almost every position is such a perishable resource.
DeleteNow you mention it, went on SpaceX job listings see what experienced aerospace welder openings they had, pretty darn good packages, upwards of $40 an hour, and bennies are extremely generous. Thats not union rates either. No lack of engineering positions. Gads of openings. Some are really fascinating jobs too. You could write your own ticket at some from the descriptions. SpaceX has to be sucking up the talent pool with what they offer for paychecks.
My once-not-an-idiot-but-became-an-idiot-but-got-better nephew works for the FLNATGUARD and was assigned as a construction liaison between SpaceX and the Cape and the military. He did such a good job that SpaceX was sniffing around and potentially was going to poach him (thus the 'became an idiot' part) until he went career NatGuard.
DeleteSpaceX works hard on finding great people. We saw that on one Tim Dodd interview with Elon at Boca Chica. While touring OLT1, Elon stops Tim, turns to one of his people, says "That guy (a contractor, names him and points at him) does good work. See about bringing him onto the Team." (or something like that...)
SpaceX is sucking up the talent pool. On the other hand, they'll ruthlessly cut people who under- or don't perform. Which is why the tenure of an average NASA career employee is so short at SpaceX, they aren't used to performing at 100% all the time for results right now.