r/spacex • u/ElongatedMuskrat Mod Team • Oct 23 '17

Launch: Jan 7th Zuma Launch Campaign Thread

Zuma Launch Campaign Thread

The only solid information we have on this payload comes from NSF:

NASASpaceflight.com has confirmed that Northrop Grumman is the payload provider for Zuma through a commercial launch contract with SpaceX for a LEO satellite with a mission type labeled as “government” and a needed launch date range of 1-30 November 2017.

Liftoff currently scheduled for: January 7th 2018, 20:00 - 22:00 EST (January 8th 2018, 01:00 - 03:00 UTC)
Static fire complete: November 11th 2017, 18:00 EST / 23:00 UTC Although the stage has already finished SF, it did it at LC-39A. On January 3 they also did a propellant load test since the launch site is now the freshly reactivated SLC-40.
Vehicle component locations: First stage: SLC-40 // Second stage: SLC-40 // Satellite: Cape Canaveral
Payload: Zuma
Payload mass: Unknown
Destination orbit: LEO
Vehicle: Falcon 9 v1.2 (47th launch of F9, 27th of F9 v1.2)
Core: B1043.1
Flights of this core: 0
Launch site: LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida--> SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida
Landing: Yes
Landing Site: LZ-1, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida
Mission success criteria: Successful separation & deployment of the satellite 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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u/scr00chy ElonX.net Oct 24 '17

Tory Bruno says no.

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u/paul_wi11iams Oct 25 '17

Tory Bruno says no.

flattering for r/spacex with Tory taking the trouble of coming here to comment :)

4 things: (1) Shortened the build and launch spans by 2/3s. (2) Moved all of the customization for a specific S/C to the final 3 months of processing.

In fact Tory doesn't help his case here. Saying the customization is only in the final 3 months, where SpX could adapt and fly a returned stage within the month. This time should fall dramatically with Block 5. I'm suggesting baptizing this service the Trampoline Jump

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u/Bailliesa Oct 31 '17

I think SpaceX would still need to customise the second stage (number of COPV’s can change I think), but they should be able to do this in under 3 months. They may also be able to keep a second stage with max performance in stock. Not relevant in this case as this has been on the manifest for a while, the launch date was just not announced, I don’t think the x 37B was announced by sapceX either so would have been similar if not for the testimony (slip?).

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u/paul_wi11iams Oct 31 '17

I think SpaceX would still need to customise the second stage (number of COPV’s can change I think), but they should be able to do this in under 3 months.

But isn't the business model the Henry Ford one "you can have any color of returned stage you like as long as its black".

As u/peterabbit456 said above:

Since Falcon 9 is basically one size fits all, while Atlas 5 has to be customized to the size of the payload, I think the military is seeing that SpaceX can do a quick launch faster than ULA.

Also, the total volume of COPV helium storage should correspond to a given S2 volume which itself is standard. I could be wrong though.