Flight 4 of Falcon 1

[tblaxland]

What kind of cooling is on that exhaust cone?

Ablative cooling.

 

[Eagle]

Did anyone else start to get concerned about the exhaust cone glowing red...it looked like it was going to disintegrate at one point! The commentator did say that was normal, though. What kind of cooling is on that exhaust cone?

Ablative throat, radiatively cooled nozzle.
http://spacex.com/falcon1.php

 

[tblaxland]

Ablative throat, radiatively cooled nozzle.
http://spacex.com/falcon1.php

Thanks for the correction.

 

[Arrowstar]

Fantastic! I must be part of the jinx, too, I missed it earlier today too. Great job, SpaceX!
EDIT: Agree with Greg: Yeeeeeeehaaaaaw!

 

[MajorTom]

Shouldn't have picked today to put up my crown moulding in my office...missed S7 return to earth and then (ARGH) the fantastic flight of Falcon 1.


YAHOOOOOOO!!!!!

(Or, the opposite of FAIL)

Edit: Holy smokes, so many of us missed this. What's up with that?

 

[tblaxland]

According to spaceflightnow.com, the Kestrel also successfully deomonstrated its restart capability.

 

[Linguofreak]

So? Would still be cool to see it in free fall.

From what they were saying on the webcast before launch, I do not believe there was any payload sep. It was a dummy payload, apparently without any means of separation. They were saying a sep command would be sent as part of procedure, but the command would do nothing.


-----Posted Added-----

Did anyone else start to get concerned about the exhaust cone glowing red...it looked like it was going to disintegrate at one point! The commentator did say that was normal, though. What kind of cooling is on that exhaust cone?

I was getting a bit nervous too. It seemed to come and go in waves. I'd noticed it on the video of launch #2 as well.

 

[Belisarius]

If anyone finds a youtube of this, please post.

Your wish is my command Mr B. This one is 43 minutes long and has the whole launch sequence.

Apart from at YT, it's also available at a site called spacevidcast.com

 

[Artlav]

Um. Velocity relative to what?
At the moment of orbit, they have 5500 m/s, how is that?

All in all - great job!
What's the price of the launch in $e6 per kg of payload?

 

[Linguofreak]

Um. Velocity relative to what?
At the moment of orbit, they have 5500 m/s, how is that?

Yeah, I noticed that and found it a bit strange.

 

[Belisarius]

What's the price of the launch in per kg of payload?

According to

http://spacex.com/falcon1.php

We have the following figures: Launch price $7.9 million, payload mass max for due-East launch for 185km circular orbit: 420 kg. That's $18,809 per kilo.

"SpaceX offers milestone-based financing at 5% APR"

 

[astrosammy]

My new desktop background:

 

[Moonwalker]

Strange. 5200 m/s is too slow for a 315km orbit. But it's too slow after cut off anyway.

 

[Lunar_Lander]

YES!!! I just saw the E-Mail about the launch and I couldn't believe my eyes at first. But I'm really happy right now!

At least is the launch failure quote of the Falcon 1 better than the one of the Vanguard :lol:! But no joke here, SpaceX did really well this time!

 

[simonpro]

Well, they got there. Looks like they have a lot of work to do on the guidance still but that's all an aside for now, congratulations to them for getting it into orbit. Some good news for them right when they need it most

(edit)

Strange. 5200 m/s is too slow for a 315km orbit.

I thought it was in a 600km orbit?
Not that 5200m/s is good for that either.

 

[Urwumpe]

Strange. 5200 m/s is too slow for a 315km orbit. But it's too slow after cut off anyway.

It is even too slow when you add the 469 m/s ground rotation speed of Earth.


maybe they aimed for a suborbital flight, but then, still 5200 m/s in 315 km altitude is extremely low.

 

[simonpro]

No aborts, or unexpected holds or anything

There was an unplanned hold at T-95:00

SECO! What a great moment! The first private rocket in Orbit!

First all-liquid private rocket.
The Orbital Sciences Pegasus vehicle was the first private orbital launch vehicle, it launched for the first time about 16 years ago.
Not that Elon cares about that today though.

 

[Moonwalker]

I thought it was in a 600km orbit?
Not that 5200m/s is good for that either.

Hm, 315 km at 16:22 EDT. I'm not sure about 16:26 EDT.

But talking about an orbital velocity of 5200 m/s is strange anyway. Must be a mistake or even not an earth orbit but just a success they call reaching orbit ...

 

[Urwumpe]

If they placed a dummy payload into Orbit, the payload is space debris and should appear in the TLE files soon.

 

[DaveS]

If they placed a dummy payload into Orbit, the payload is space debris and should appear in the TLE files soon.

The JSR has the Falcon 1 second stage with "RatSat" in a 621x643 kmx9.3° orbit: http://planet4589.org/space/jsr/latest.html