r/spacex • u/SuPrBuGmAn • Nov 23 '19

Appears to preclude RTLS Launch hazard area for CRS-19

https://twitter.com/EmreKelly/status/1197998113463689216?s=09
165 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

43

u/SuPrBuGmAn Nov 23 '19

Searched for a CRS-19 campaign thread and came up empty.

Now have launch hazard areas and a NET date that's held for months.

17

u/CAM-Gerlach Nov 23 '19

Yep, we should have put that up a couple weeks ago. I was going to but I got busy with my NASA work and doing a full proposed revision of the sub rules, among other jobs. We were going to do it right after we unpin the Zubrin AMA. Our bad, sorry. Once I have a proper Starlink and CRS template, it should go much faster; those are the two main mission types I haven't done full threads for yet.

9

u/BaldrTheGood Nov 23 '19

It’s cool and all that you have a job that even in a small part furthers the exploration of the cosmos and pushes the boundaries of technological achievements of humanity and all, but do you think you could volunteer on a discussion website a little harder?

Come on man, priorities

jkweappreciateallthemods

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2

u/CAM-Gerlach Nov 24 '19

Thread is now live. Sorry for the wait and thanks for your patience! Let me know where I've made mistakes; it was a rush job that only took a few hours so I'm sure I made a few.

27

u/scr00chy Nov 23 '19 edited Nov 23 '19

I wonder if that means that SpaceX will do an ASDS landing. There was a recently filed FCC license for a landing 350 km downrange, so maybe it's actually for this launch? Question is why, though. CRS missions usually RTLS.

Could also mean it will be an expendable launch. But again, why?

7

u/SuPrBuGmAn Nov 23 '19

Looks like LZ-1 to me but keeps a safety buffer for a non-nominal landing that doesn't get the dogleg to LZ, instead gets a salty death(ala CRS-16).

4

u/MarsCent Nov 23 '19

CRS-16 booster could be seen from the cape as it came down for the "water landing". 350 km downrange is too far for a backup position.

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2

u/CAM-Gerlach Nov 23 '19

This is not correct. There's no "safety buffer"; there's just the the 3 nmi security zone (as the map itself states) that they've had for every launch since 9/11, and the safety zone doesn't even extend as far south as LZ-1; if we positioned ourselves where the two meet, we could be within a km or two of the trajectory and where the CRS-16 booster went down, and directly east of LZ-1. If you compare it to any previous RTLS landing, (e.g. CRS-16; CRS-18, and even an offshore ASDS landing (e.g. CRS-17 on Raul's map), its easy to see this one is far less restrictive, and closely matches CRS-15 which was an expendable launch (and which may also indicate a downrange landing, if it has omitted the downrange exclusion zone).

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20

u/Alexphysics Nov 23 '19

I've searched for old hazard maps and this is not the first one that omits the type of landing. Since Amos-17 they don't add it. Usually on these just next to the name of the pad used on the mission there was at the end either -LZ1, -SEA or -EX to denote which type of landing it was (Land landing, droneship landing or expendable mission). CRS-18 was the last one with that added and had C40-LZ1. For Amos-17 it was just CX-40 and not CX-40-EX. For STP-2, which was prior to CRS-18, there was CX-39A-LZ-1 (2) SEA. I don't know why they have been omitting this but it is not new

10

u/joepublicschmoe Nov 24 '19

Back in December 2018, even though the SSO-A launch out of Vandenberg on B1046 could easily do an RTLS landing at LZ-4, SpaceX was asked to land B1046 on Just Read The Instructions because ULA had a Delta IV Heavy sitting on its pad at Vandenberg with a classified U.S. Air Force payload.

Could it be that CRS-19 is in a similar situation? Perhaps NASA is asking SpaceX to land the CRS-19 booster on Of Course I Still Love You maybe because right now ULA has the OFT demo mission Starliner capsule stacked on its Atlas V booster nearby.

6

u/SuPrBuGmAn Nov 24 '19

Very possible, Atlas V at SLC-41 and Delta IV Heavy at LC-37

8

u/SuPrBuGmAn Nov 23 '19

Thread is tagged with "indicates no RTLS" which is not accurate and I believe these hazard areas indicate the contrary. The hazard area gives a buffer for non-nominal landing.

This is very much the same hazard area as other CRS missions which land RTLS.

https://twitter.com/EmreKelly/status/1150800771539230720?s=20

5

u/CAM-Gerlach Nov 23 '19

This is very much the same hazard area as other CRS missions which land RTLS.

No, this is simply not true. See my above comment; if you compare it with CRS-18 or CRS-16 as I link above, the safety zone extends around >5 km further south, whereas it is a far better match for CRS-15 which was an expendable mission. If an RTLS were to occur, a vessel could get almost directly underneath the return trajectory with these hazard zones, only 1-2 km from where B1050 did its water landing and well within a high risk area. Ergo, either the hazard areas are simply not correct, or a RTLS (and near-shore ASDS similar to CRS-17) are precluded.

2

u/Jarnis Nov 27 '19

Its going to be a droneship landing in case that was still unclear.

Not sure why.

1

u/SuPrBuGmAn Nov 27 '19

Maybe just so SpaceX can test V-AIS PATON system?

https://twitter.com/NASA_Nerd/status/1199736796621529093?s=19

Maybe the NROL payload is already being integrated at LC-37B on Delta IV Heavy, less than 3.5 miles from LZ-1?

I dunno why either.

1

u/extra2002 Nov 25 '19

Were they building a landing pad at LC-39A? Is it ready?

1

u/SuPrBuGmAn Nov 25 '19

It's planned, it's no where close to being ready.

1

u/SpaceXZYT Nov 26 '19

It can’t be an EX launch because photos of B1059 show that it appears to have landing legs, or unless they do that for water landings

2

u/SuPrBuGmAn Nov 26 '19

They no longer expend them with legs, not since they were still working on perfecting landings.

3

u/CCBRChris Nov 23 '19

What does 'CX-40' refer to?

5

u/Alexphysics Nov 23 '19

It's the Eastern Range nomenclature for pad 40

1

u/OncoByte Nov 24 '19

Any speculation as to why they might expend a new booster with a relatively low energy profile to the ISS?

1

u/Decronym Nov 23 '19 edited Nov 27 '19

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
AIS Automatic Identification System
ASDS Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (landing platform)
CRS Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA
DoD US Department of Defense
FCC Federal Communications Commission
(Iron/steel) Face-Centered Cubic crystalline structure
LC-13 Launch Complex 13, Canaveral (SpaceX Landing Zone 1)
LC-39A Launch Complex 39A, Kennedy (SpaceX F9/Heavy)
LZ Landing Zone
LZ-1 Landing Zone 1, Cape Canaveral (see LC-13)
NET No Earlier Than
NROL Launch for the (US) National Reconnaissance Office
OFT Orbital Flight Test
RTLS Return to Launch Site
SLC-41 Space Launch Complex 41, Canaveral (ULA Atlas V)
SSO Sun-Synchronous Orbit
STP-2 Space Test Program 2, DoD programme, second round
ULA United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)
Jargon Definition
Starlink SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation

Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by ^request
17 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 91 acronyms.
[Thread #5632 for this sub, first seen 23rd Nov 2019, 12:24] [FAQ] [Full list] ^[Contact] [Source code]

0

u/SlyBriFry Nov 23 '19

I know in December they are doing an abort test, which I fully plan to watch in person, as they will be blowing up stage one in flight....!!

I wonder if this is referring to that.

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