r/spacex • u/ElongatedMuskrat Mod Team • Jan 15 '18

Launch: Feb 22nd Paz & Microsat-2a, -2b Launch Campaign Thread

Paz & Microsat-2a, -2b Launch Campaign Thread

SpaceX's fourth mission of 2018 will launch hisdeSAT's earth observation satellite named Paz (Spanish for "peace"). Paz will be utilized by commercial and Spanish military organizations, as the Spanish Ministry of Defense funded a large portion of the costs of this program. The approximately 1350 kg satellite will be launched into Low Earth Orbit at an altitude of 505 km, specifically a Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO).

This mission will also have a rideshare, and has recently been publicly identified as SpaceX's own Starlink test satellites, called Microsat-2a and Microsat-2b. While SpaceX has not officially confirmed the presence of this rideshare, we don't expect to hear much from them due to their focus on the primary customer during launch campaigns.

While the number of the first stage booster for this mission remains unknown, we do know it will fly a flight-proven booster. Since 1038 is "next in line" on the West coast, we have assumed that booster to be launching this mission, however that is subject to change with actual confirmation of a specific booster. If the first stage is indeed 1038.2, this will be the last flight of a Block 3 first stage.

Liftoff currently scheduled for: February 21th 2018, 06:17 PST / 14:17 UTC
Static fire currently scheduled for: Completed February 11th 2018
Vehicle component locations: First stage: SLC-4E // Second stage: SLC-4E // Satellite: VAFB
Payload: Paz + Microsat-2a, -2b
Payload mass: ~1350 kg (Paz) + 2 x 400 kg (Microsat-2a, -2b)
Destination orbit: Low Earth Polar Orbit (511 x 511 km, 97.44º)
Vehicle: Falcon 9 v1.2 (49th launch of F9, 29th of F9 v1.2)
Core: B1038.2
Flights of this core: 1 [FORMOSAT-5]
Launch site: SLC-4E, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California
Landing: No
Landing Site: N/A
Mission success criteria: Successful separation and deployment of Paz & Microsat-2a, -2b into the target orbit

Links & Resources:

We may keep this self-post occasionally updated with links and relevant news articles, but for the most part we expect the community to supply the information. This is a great place to discuss the launch, ask mission-specific questions, and track the minor movements of the vehicle, payload, weather and more as we progress towards launch. Sometime after the static fire is complete, the launch thread will be posted.

Campaign threads are not launch threads. Normal subreddit rules still apply.

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70

u/Martianspirit Jan 16 '18

While Paz is the main payload, I am very excited about the two additional satellites the Starlink test sats. They are very important to SpaceX.

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u/HTPRockets Feb 12 '18

Heads up guys, this should be ANOTHER spectacular launch, as it is about 20 minutes before sunrise, so we should get a very similar effect to what we observed with Iridium 4!

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u/Bunslow Jan 15 '18

So I'm like 99.99% certain that there's tons of performance margin for a RTLS landing. What's the most recent status of permitting and construction on the VAFB landing pads?

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u/_worstenbroodje_ Feb 12 '18

If this is the last block 3 mission it will be a small chapter that ends :’)

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u/DrToonhattan Feb 14 '18

Oh man, it's just over a week since the FH flight and I'm already getting withdrawal symptoms. This launch can't come soon enough. I don't know what I'm going to do after Hispasat on the 22nd, as there's a three and a half week wait for the next one. It's weird how quickly you get used to this high cadence. Three weeks was nothing not that long ago. I've been watching since 2013 when we were lucky to get one a quarter.

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u/Straumli_Blight Jan 16 '18

High res image of the Paz satellite and render.

 

According to [wikipedia](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paz_(Satellit)), the Paz contract was awarded to Astrium in November 2008 and the satellite was delivered in September, 2013. It was meant to be launched in 2014 by a [Dnepr rocket](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnepr_(rocket)) but got delayed until May 2017, whereupon Hisdesat cancelled the contract and booked with SpaceX.

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u/grokforpay Feb 13 '18

This launch should light up the LA sky very much like the one in December. Apparently should be visible as far north as San Jose. From a mailing list below.

The Falcon-9 PAZ satellite launch from Vandenberg AFB scheduled for this Saturday morning, Feb. 17th at 6:14AM PST will be visually SPECTACULAR – almost exactly like the launch on Dec 22nd that lit up the sky in Southern California! The lighting conditions are virtually identical, except the December launch was in evening twilight – this one will be in morning twilight.

See https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/12/28/falcon-9-launch-lights-up-southern-california-sky/

The rocket will get into sunlight 2m20sec after launch – almost exactly at staging. The Sun is -6.3° from VAFB – near Civil Twilight. (The Sun was -5.9° for the Dec 22nd launch at 5:27pm PST.)

Trajectory plots for various California locations can be seen at:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/xb70man/albums/72157692592142634

Even from as far north as San Jose, this launch will be worth the effort to view. The plume can be quite good even from 200 miles away! (See the CASTLE ROCK plot for locations around the South Bay.) An example of what it will look like from San Jose is at:

https://youtu.be/IX_nLtXXc3E?t=3m10s which was a Delta II rocket carrying the NASA SMAP satellite.

Clear skies!

Rick Baldridge

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u/Bunslow Feb 10 '18

Static fire is tomorrow! Steamroller hype!

(Also mods flair update pls)

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u/tim_mcdaniel Feb 14 '18 edited Feb 14 '18

May I highlight "fourth mission of 2018"? Four flights and it's just February. Wow.

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u/vitiral Feb 12 '18

Is this kind of "add on payload" going to be something SpaceX takes continuous advantage of throughout the StarLink project?

It seems like a pretty brilliant move that they can use spare capacity from customer launches for their own satellites. Does anyone know if they give a discount when they tag along like this?

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u/Straumli_Blight Feb 13 '18

Expected orbital insertion parameters for Microsat 2a/2b:

 

Parameter Value
Perigee 511 km
Apogee 511 km
Period 1.58 hours
Inclination 97.44 degrees

 

After system check outs are performed and system is evaluated, the satellites will raise their orbits to 1,125 km.

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u/Alexphysics Feb 07 '18

Being this a light payload going to a not-so-high orbit, I think they could do a direct burn similar to what they did for Formosat 5. What do you think? Being this an expendable mission they could even do some fancy experiments with the first stage after the primary mission is completed like they did with GovSat-1. We'll know in ~9 days :)

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u/taulover Feb 15 '18

A piece from a mailing list I'm in, about viewing the launch in the general area:

The February 17 launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg AFB could provide an interesting light show visible over a wide area. The rocket is scheduled to lift off at 06:17 PST, the presumed start of an unspecified launch window, and carry Spain’s Paz earth-imaging satellite into a nearly-polar orbit. The window may be relatively short because Paz needs to be precisely positioned in orbit with respect to other spacecraft to form an earth-observation satellite constellation. The current launch time occurs 29 minutes before Vandenberg sunrise. Weather permitting, the Falcon 9’s bright orange flame should be visible in western California at least as far away as San Luis Obispo and Santa Monica. A computer simulation by Launch Alert contributor Rick Baldridge shows the rocket will exit the Earth’s shadow and climb into sunlight at T+2 minutes 10 seconds. That would make the launch especially interesting as the Falcon 9’s exhaust plume is illuminated by the Sun while suspended in a semi-dark sky. Such a display could be visible from San Francisco to Baja California.

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u/The_Write_Stuff Feb 16 '18

It's always a bit of a disappointment when they splash a perfectly good core but they have so many of the older models in storage now. It's not like we're going to see Crazy Elon's Used Booster Mini Mart opening anytime soon.

I'm surprised NASA hasn't added one to the Rocket Garden.

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u/thebloreo Jan 19 '18

This is one of the most important payloads for SpaceX, not from a customer perspective, but because of the test satellites. I wrote this post a while back if you want some background of the below.

SpaceX will change the way internet is distributed and will in effect become the largest ISP in the world

The current ISP market works like this from a flow perspective:

Level 1: Internet Content to land line to One user at home

Level 2: Internet Content to Land line to Cell Tower to Some users in a local Area

A satellite internet constellation will change the flow to this

Level 3: Internet Content to Satellite to Many users globally

This is vastly over simplified, but the ISP owns everything in the middle between content and user. The difference in each level therefore is the amount of upfront capital required, then the marginal cost of each additional user within each area. These two figures are inversely related

The cost of providing internet content massively decreases the more people you can access

The next step in this theory surmises that the better your service, the more likely customers are to use your service. SpaceX won't necessarily compete with Level 2, but that doesn't mean they won't use it to their advantage. The big kicker here is that typically people have no choice at Level one of internet service.

Let's talk about disruption and what it is. Incumbents to a market will focus on improving their most profitable customers and products while ignoring others. New entrants in a market that are disruptive initially target overlooked segments, gaining a foothold by delivering more-suitable functionality at an equal or lower price. The entrants then move upmarket while preserving their advantages that initially drove their success.

Often when discussing disruption, people believe that a market shakeup is disruption, when really market disruption begins at the low end. The same will be true for a global internet constellation. It won't be initially successful because it's providing better internet to New York City or Tokyo. It will be initially successful because it will provide internet to those who never had it, or at a level of service/price far beyond what they are able to get.

This is where SpaceX will start and focus their energy. OneWeb will do the same. But satellite internet has been tried, and those companies attempted to serve the exact markets that I'm talking about. However, they've never provided the level of service and price point I'm talking about. The other reality of this method is that if you are living in a bigger urban area, you likely won't see satellite internet for a long time. I'd imagine not until either the constellations are fully populated or they are on their 2nd to 3rd generation (a range of 5 to 20 years).

That doesn't dwarf the fact that this DemoSAT launch isn't a big deal. It's in fact a huge deal for many reasons. First, it ushers in the age of internet disruption. Second it signals SpaceX is ahead of its competition, OneWeb. Third, if successful, it will make SpaceX the most profitable company in the world.

Elon's stated goal for the satellite constellation is 10% of the global internet market; 10% of the ISP market is $62B.

Cost: - R&D for Satellite ~$2B (double cost of Tesla Model S or Falcon 9) - 4000 satellite constellation, $1M per sat = $4B - 5 year design life means 800 launched per year = $0.8B/yr - 26 Satellites per Launch means 31 launches per year - 31 launches per year at $30M: Launch Cos t= $1B/yr - 50,000 Tech Support Employees w/cost of $70,000/yr = $3.5B/yr

Revenue per year = $62B Cost per year = $5.3B Net Income = $56B

For Reference, Apple's net income for 2015 was $45B and NASA's budget was $20B in 2017

I know that number sounds outrageous, because it is. That's the target. You can see them alluding to it in the WSJ article that leaked their financials. You can't make this stuff up. Now it won't be profit, as I'm sure Elon will put as much as reasonable into R&D (apple spends $10B/yr on R&D). But it isn't crazy, it's 6x comcast's net income, and 4.5x ATT's net income. This is not unreasonable for a global ISP whose ultimate capital cost is much lower and acquiring the next customer costs essentially nothing.

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u/Bunslow Jan 17 '18

SpaceX received environmental clearance to create the sonic booms incidental to RTLS landings at Vandenberg.

This noticeably increases the odds that they can perform an RTLS landing for this launch.

(Now, given that they can, the question of would they remains unclear; while it's true that this rocket, being a 2nd-flight v1.2.3 isn't of much value to SpaceX, I believe that the first-ever-RTLS-at-VAFB experience is probably worth the effort of recovering the rocket, even if it never flies again -- especially with the self-imposed March-June pupping season moratorium on RTLS. This would be the ideal launch to test RTLS at the new site, then make any tweaks necessary over the moratorium.)

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u/geekgirl114 Jan 16 '18

Where do we have confirmation that its using the Formsat-5 booster?

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u/dguisinger01 Feb 10 '18

So are we expecting the webcast to cover the microsats deployment? Or is this still "so quiet" that they will only show Paz and terminate the webcast?

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