Somebody needs to clean the camera lenses.

nailed'em

Wow

One more to go!

core is not "landing"

Watched from my office from St. Aug. It went straight into the sun, but still had a good show. Saw the booster entry burns, too.

It is rare but we may have two more in the coming months.  Subject to change...December 2022 and January 2023.

I turn the webcasts and news radio off for launches because of the 1-2 minute delays. It's annoying as fuck !

The fog never really cleared out, caught the stack going up for maybe 30 seconds after it cleared the fog and another layer obscured the rest.
Could not see the boosters returning, but 2 sets of double sonic booms was very cool.

They're going to recover the fairing halves.  Will they try to get the center core too?  Seems like I remember they towed one in before.

they had a problem with a booster that was supposed to RTLS but some failure caused it to to splashdown just off the coast, then they towed it back in.

from CRS-16 in 2018

Grid fin hydraulic pump stalled, so Falcon landed just out to sea. Appears to be undamaged & is transmitting data. Recovery ship dispatched.

Elon Musk  (@elonmusk) December 5, 2018

video

Engines stabilized rocket spin just in time, enabling an intact landing in water! Ships en route to rescue Falcon. pic.twitter.com/O3h8eCgGJ7

Elon Musk  (@elonmusk) December 5, 2018

The center core is on the ocean floor now.

For decades we couldn't get into space quickly or cheaply. Missions had to be designed around the limitations of the rockets that existed.

Falcon 9 has blown the doors off of that and correct me if I'm wrong, the reason why it's been so long between Falcon Heavy flights is because there wasn't a customer that needed its capabilities. If that is so then we finally have room to grow. We can put whatever we like into space that fits into a F9 fairing whenever we want.

I couldn't be happier with this. All I can ask at this point is that Rocket Lab's Neutron proves to be half as good as F9.

Well... That and we don't have a nuclear war or some other disaster that effectively ends orbital class rocket launches for a good long time.

Nice!  Are you guys...  ahem, hiring?

Wow, the video from the higher booster, showing the other one landing is crazy.  Really shows how fast they come in and absolutely slam on the brakes with the retro landing burn.

I'm curious about details of how the boosters return to ground. They use three engines to do it. They don't have any conventional wing structure but it looks like they have to reverse course and travel westward a significant distance to return. Do they fly nose first on the return then do a 180 to land on their tails right-side up? How do they maintain correct position? It's very impressive!

If this was easy someone would have done it in the early 80s.

As is often said though, they sure do make it look easy.

Main engines, cold gas thrusters, and grid fins for control.

Attached File

Mission:  Hotbird 13G

1) Background info: Source

"A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Hotbird 13G television broadcasting satellite for Eutelsat. Hotbird 13G is the second satellite to be built on Airbus’s new Eurostar Neo all-electric spacecraft design, and will provide television broadcast services to Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. The Falcon 9’s first stage booster will land on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. "

2) Launch window:    11:26 PM EDT  (2 November 2022) - 1:22 AM EDT (3 November 2022)

3) Launch Site:   SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida

4) Launch direction:  East

5) Webcast viewing options:

a. SpaceX webcast (Starts about 15 minutes before liftoff)

b.  You Tube



6)  Observation comments:    Cape Canaveral sunset is at 6:37 PM EDT.   The launch time is such that the ascent is not sunlit...so no jellyfish effect.  However the launch should be easier to see at night for locations further away.

For some close enough locations, I would also look for the re-entry and landing burns.  Both might require binoculars...although some have reported seeing the re-entry burn from near the launch site, presumably without binoculars.

7) Launch preparations:

a.  Boats heading out.

Video at this link
Gav Cornwell@SpaceOffshore.    Departure! Just Read the Instructions droneship is outbound to support the Hotbird-13G mission.   Tug Crosby Skipper is towing JRTI ~670 km downrange, due east of SLC-40.


Gav Cornwell@SpaceOffshore.     Bob departed Port Canaveral earlier today to support the Hotbird-13G mission on Wednesday night. JRTI left a few days ago.   Clip via http://nsf.live/spacecoast

b.   Satellite:


The hotbird 13F satellite after ground testing (Credit: ESA).  Reportedly 13G is identical.

c.  Ready for launch:  


Source

d.  Navigation warning:

8) First stage return/ocean recovery/disposal:  Drone ship JRTI recovery

9) Launch to deployment events/timeline:      

Hours:Minutes:Seconds after lift-off.  Times approximate.  

00:02:32 1st stage main engine cutoff (MECO)
00:02:35 1st and 2nd stages separate
00:02:43 2nd stage engine starts (SES-1)
00:03:23 Fairing deployment
00:06:30 1st stage entry burn begins
00:06:55 1st stage entry burn completes
00:08:08 2nd stage engine cutoff (SECO)
00:08:22 1st stage landing burn begins
00:08:44 1st stage landing
00:29:11 2nd stage engine restarts (SES-2)
00:30:10 2nd stage engine cutoff (SECO-2)
00:36:11 Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13G deploys

10)  Orbit destination:  Geosynchronous transfer orbit with satellite performing maneuvers to reach geosynchronous orbit.

How about a SpaceX throwback.

Vid  of Heavy's boosters landing:

Wow that was amazing, @SpaceX #FalconHeavy pic.twitter.com/Y0ozNxUtun

Forger Stucky  (@Stuck4ger) November 1, 2022

it's the Cape Canaveral Lighthouse, about 1.75 miles from the LZ.

28°27'37.23"N  80°32'36.51"W

Cape Canaveral Lighthouse:

I think this is the location: 28.459475579431665, -80.5434968247574https://t.co/01V8vDTXh6

David Duman  (@dvdnhm) November 1, 2022

This is sort of true, but also not really true.  Falcon 9 Heavy has more payload capacity than the Falcon 9, so it can take heavier payloads, but it has the same payload fairing, so it can't take BIGGER payloads.  There aren't a lot of payloads that are too heavy for Falcon 9, but still fit.  Hence, the heavy version has few customers.

I can't wait to see the ones on Starship Heavy in action.



SH Heavys' on the left.

NASA's Mark Kirasich said he expects that the first flight test of Starship and Super Heavy will take place "in the next month or so."

Eric Berger  (@SciGuySpace) October 31, 2022

I hope he's right but I think more like Jan.

Anyone know why the center center booster was not recovered?  They said during the launch they will not be recovering it but did not say why.

The fuel required to get the payload into its orbit was too much.  As a result the central core didn't have enough to make a controlled reentry and landing.

New T-0 of 1:22 a.m. ET for Falcon 9's launch of Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13G in order to complete pre-flight checkouts

SpaceX  (@SpaceX) November 3, 2022

Webcast is beginning.

Jessie Anderson!

T- 2 minutes

Good video of the first stage landing.

First time i saw that, i tried really hard to come up with a single word to describe it. All i could think up was "elegant".

I wonder if anyone was able to see the re-entry and landing burns from land.

Excellent view of payload separation with Earth in the background.

Well, it's not so much a matter that customers using FH have heavier payload, it's really more a matter of needing the payload somewhere other than LEO. All that extra delta-V is damn important if you're going GEO or interplanetary.

Supposedly sometime in Dec now (according to the boss).

FWIW.

It also didn't have landing legs installed.

It didn't have gridfins either as they aren't going to install landing hardware on a booster that isn't going to be recovered for both mass for coat savings. The NASA spaceflight webcast said the next two FH launches are also going to expend the center core. They also mentioned another consideration was the fact that space x only has two drone ships on the east coast so it was not possible to recover all three boosters at sea. The FH launch profile has to be conducive for a side booster RTLS for the center booster to even have a possibility of recovery.

Attached File

Hotbird 13G deployment

1)   Landing zone wide angle video of both Falcon Heavy side boosters landing

Credit may be to Stephen Marr

2)   Jenny Hautmann needed better camera securing to the ground

B1064 and B1065 landing at LZ-1 and LZ-2 in real time!

\uD83D\uDCF7: Me for @SuperclusterHQ @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/i9wC35tBc9

Jenny Hautmann  (@JennyHPhoto) November 1, 2022

Holy shit!
That was a cool clip!!!

I knew they came in fast, but holy shit..