Friday, May 6, 2016

SpaceX: recovery after a mission GTO – Air & Cosmos

“Woohoo! “Elon Musk simply wrote on his Twitter account after the feat of May 6, before joking:” May need pour augmenter size of rocket storage shed “(We will perhaps need to expand our storage shed). Surely he was the first surprise, who, as at the launch of SES-9 March 4, not yet imagined able to recover the first stage of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle at the end of this mission for geostationary transfer orbit a satellite of 4.7 tonnes “Rocket reentry is a lot faster and hotter than last time, so odds of making it are maybe even, we aim shoulds learn a lot either way” (the back the rocket will be much faster and hotter than the last time, so the chances of getting there may be less, but we should learn a lot anyway, “he wrote just before launch.

Everything went perfectly (after a weather report of the day) at night: 1:21 local time start (5:21 UTC) from the complex LC-40 of the Air Force base of Cape Canaveral, Florida, separation two floors after three minutes of flight, turning maneuvers on the first floor (without rétropoussée to reduce or cancel the speed of the floor), first braking and crossing dense layers of the atmosphere, and then rest gently on barge of Course I Still Love You (located about 600 km east of Cape Canaveral), nine minutes after takeoff. Meanwhile, the second floor went on his way to 25 000 km / h and 165 km altitude. He will end his mission 23 minutes later, placing the JCSat-14 satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) of 189 km x 35,957 km, inclined 23.7 degrees.

JCSat-14 (or JCSat 2B) belongs to the Japanese operator SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation, the Asia-Pacific region’s largest, with a fleet of six geostationary satellites (two in common with Intelsat). It will replace JCSat-8 (JCSat-2A), positioned at 154 ° East since March 2002, to cover Japan, East Asia, Russia, Oceania, Hawaii and other Pacific islands. Its launch was delayed several months after the failure of the Falcon 9 of 28 June 2015. Built by Space Systems Loral (SSL) following an agreement signed in June 2012, JCSat-14 is mounted on an SSL-1300 platform and is equipped with 44 transponders 26 C-band and 18 Ku-band. C-band will be used for data transfer, television and mobile communications, while the K band to provide high speed connectivity for maritime transport, aviation and resource exploration. Designed to operate at least 15 years, the satellite will have a power of approximately 10 kW at end of life.

The next SpaceX flight is scheduled for May 26 with the payload of the satellite Thaicom telecommunications 8 (3.1 tons) of Thai operator Thaicom Public Company Ltd. The satellite, built by Orbital ATK, was delivered to Cape Canaveral on 27 April.

Falcon 9 flight Chronology No. 24 (4 th flight FT type)

T0: takeoff at 5:21 UTC since no SLC-40 shooting from the base CCAFS

T + 1:37: Max Q (point of maximum dynamic pressure), 20 km altitude

T + 02: 52: extinguishing the main engine of the first stage (MECO), 77 km

T + 03: 09: separation of the first stage confirmed

T + 03: 13: Merlin Vacuum engine ignition of the upper stage

T + 03: 57 : fairing separation

T + 06: 55: beginning of braking initiating the return of the first floor with three engines

T + 07: 24: end of braking

T + 07: 58: the first stage reaches a speed transonic

T + 08: 37 “brake on” final

T + 09: 04: soft landing of the first floor on the barge OCISLY

T + 10: 01: off the engine of the second stage (SECO), 165 km

T + 20: 57 : the second floor is about to fly over the western coast of Africa

T + 27: 10: reignition of the second floor

T + 32: 26: separation JCSat of-14.

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