Launch Stuff

The Starlinks that scrubbed last night went today. Good news and bad news.

Good news is that the new batch of 60 Starlinks are in what looks like a good orbit, awaiting deployment. They just conducted a short second stage burn to adjust the orbit and the SpaceX feed just called out "nominal orbit insertion".

Bad news is that B1059 failed to land and was lost. I didn't see it, but many people said that the entry burn didn't look right. The SpaceX feed stopped showing telemetry right after that. Then they switched to showing video from OCISLY. That was interesting since several seagulls were on the deck. Then there was a glow of light off-camera and the seagulls hardly moved. Believed that B1059 came down in the water some distance from OCISLY. Don't know how fast it was going when it hit or whether the glow was the landing burn or an explosion when it hit the water.

As we mourn its loss, we need to remember that B1059 successfully put six payloads into orbit, which is good service for any rocket.

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/stat...7427751941

Edit: Here's a video clip of the entry burn shutdown. There seems to have been a plume of bright flame to the right continuing after the three reentry engines were supposed to have shut down. Did one of the three engines fail to shut down and was still running? Did one engine explode and was spraying burning propellant? I don't know, but the SpaceX telemetry should make that clear to their engineers.

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/stat...2023565313

Edit: Michael Baylor (the guy behind nextspaceflight.com) is always looking on the bright side and writes, "That booster saved SpaceX from a seagull barbeque public relations nightmare. B1059.6 was an honorable sacrifice."

https://twitter.com/nextspaceflight/stat...1490435072

Several seagulls were standing on OCISLY's landing deck immediately before B1059 was due to land. The camera aimed at the deck showed a sudden bright glow from off camera to the right, and the birds were obviously aware of it but barely flinched. Then a few moments later they leaped into the air simultaneously (but quickly returned). That suggests to me that a loud sound had arrived. Which suggests to me that B1059 might have hit hard and exploded. Which in turn suggests to me that it hitting some distance from OCISLY was intentional, if the software was aware that it had no chance of completing the landing and might damage OCISLY if it tried. B1059's last selfless act was to divert.

The ongoing storm has forced NASA to scuttle their plans to show the Russian Progress capsule's Space Station arrival live on NASA TV.

But never fear - Roscosmos will be streaming it and will be providing English language commentary here --

Arrival scheduled for 1:20 AM Wed Feb 17 EST, 10:20 PM Feb 16 PST, 06:20 Feb 17 UTC .

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/pKiIfEpdDZE

The Progress capsule has successfully docked to the Pirs module. But not without some drama. As it approached it was off target, overcorrected and was off target the other way and overcorrected again. So they commanded it to back away from the station and shut off the computer control, and Moscow mission control handed things over to Cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov on the station, who flew it in manually by remote control with his mark1 eyeballs, even though one range readout seemed to be displaying bad data. (Which may or may not have been what confused the computer.) All in a day's work for Sergey, whose voice remained calm and laconic throughout. Cosmonauts are still made of the 'right stuff'. Impressive in its way.

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/stat...2552753156

Space launches from India are interesting and a little exotic. There's one on for tonight, 04:54 UTC (Sunday morning), 11:54 pm EST, 8:54 pm PST (Saturday evening). Main payload is Amazonia-1, a Brazilian land resources satellite carrying a camera from the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in England. Sharing the ride will be some 20 little cubesat sized satellites, mostly from various organizations like universities in India. The rocket will be an expendible medium lift Indian rocket called PSLV, for Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.

https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/5651

ISRO, the Indian Space Research Organization, should be livestreaming it here.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/lr91aM3nbW0

A Soyuz is set to go in about two hours from Baikanur in Kazakhstan. Payload is a South Korean earth observation satellite plus a bunch of smaller satellites, cubesats and similar things. This is a launch by Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, part of a program where they sell launches to commercial customers. Vehicle will be an old (the basic design dates back to the first 1950's Soviet ICBMs, earlier models launched Sputnik, Yuri Gagarin and vastly updated versions are still flying today) Soyuz booster. CC always remarks about the retro railroad locomotives that roll these things out, but the whole thing is retro when you think about it, more than 60 years old in one form or another. Russia has newer rockets but these old Soyuzes are cheap, proven and reliable workhorses.

Watch the Russian livestream here

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/cPYAD0a5FjM

Edit Launch scrubbed for unknown reason. Rescheduled launch time to be announced. The Russian stream was entertaining. I didn't understand a word of it, but the visuals were good.

https://twitter.com/gk_launch/status/137...0687147008

GK Launch photo

A Soyuz is due to launch from Vostochny (in far eastern Russia where it can shoot out over the Pacific) in about an hour. Its payload will be satellites for the OneWeb constellation, competitors of Starlink I guess. (OneWeb is 42% owned by the British government and headquartered in London. Its satellites are manufactured in the US I believe.)

(It's hard to compete with SpaceX who get almost free Starlink launches since they typically use multiple-used boosters that have already paid for themselves flying other customers. I guess Russian boosters may be the next least expensive alternative.)

Roscosmos should have a stream here 

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/pcILqq01Za4

The Russian language stream is on. If it's too exotic (I kind of like it though I can't understand a word they are saying), I think that OneWeb will have an English language stream here

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/cAMqCWsPODQ

ULA is scheduled to launch one of their Delta IV Heavies from Vandenberg in California at 1:46 PM PDT 4:46 EDT, 20:46 UTC today. Payload will be a US government spy satellite. The rocket will travel due south from Vandenberg which is near Santa Barbara and its contrail may be visible from LA.

The Delta IV Heavy is one of those huge liquid hydrogen fueled rockets that flows liquid hydrogen through its turbopumps and engines prior to ignition to thermally condition them for the extreme cold. That produces a cloud of hydrogen gas around the rocket which turns into a spectacular fireball at engine ignition. The rocket is famous for rising out of a fireball which can be disconcerting for those not expecting it.

(Liquid hydrogen fueled rockets are eco-friendly. The combustion product of hydrogen and LOX is H2O, water. So it will likely produce a bright white contrail which will consist of steam.)

I believe that this is the largest rocket that the US currently has, until the arrival of SpaceX's Starship, Blue's New Glenn and Nasa's SLS.

(ULA photo)  

ULA's livestream will be here --

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/gVoo0Q4hNpw

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Tory Bruno calls the wind "iffy"

https://twitter.com/torybruno/status/138...8197472259

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Live ULA updates

https://www.ulalaunch.com/missions/next-...vy-nrol-82

The Delta IV Heavy with its classified spy satellite payload did indeed produce a ball of flame that it rose out of. It proceeded to orbit and by all accounts was successful.

Moment of engine ignition:

Photo by Michael Baylor

This Thursday, June 3, SpaceX is slated to launch CRS 22, the latest supply capsule to the ISS. 17:29 UTC, 10:29 AM PDT, 1:29 PM EDT

Booster will be B1067, a raw rookie booster on its first spaceflight.

Livestreams in the usual places

https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/109