SpaceX hopes to impress the Air Force with its 'most difficult launch ever'
Source: LA Times
SpaceX is set to carry two dozen satellites into space Monday night aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket and spread them across the sky in a marathon mission that Chief Executive Elon Musk has described as the companys most difficult launch ever.
The launch, commissioned by the U.S. Air Force, is scheduled for 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time (8:30 p.m. PT) from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
If successful, it could bolster SpaceXs case to win more Air Force contracts to launch sensitive military satellites.
A new batch of the contracts is up for grabs, and Hawthorne-based SpaceX is competing against longtime rival United Launch Alliance a joint venture of Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. as well as Northrop Grumman Corp. and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, which have never launched military satellites.
Read more: https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-spacex-falcon-heavy-stp-2-launch-20190624-story.html
This launch is not only SpaceX's most difficult launch ever, but probably the most difficult satellite deployment ever attempted. The upper stage will be releasing multiple satellites at three different altitudes and inclinations.
KY_EnviroGuy
(14,480 posts)What could possibly go wrong when space is beginning to look like a junkyard and Walmart parking lot combined with a demolition derby on Saturday night?
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris
(snips)
Below 2,000 km (1,200 mi) Earth-altitude, pieces of debris are denser than meteoroids; most are dust from solid rocket motors, surface erosion debris like paint flakes, and frozen coolant from RORSAT (nuclear-powered satellites). For comparison, the International Space Station orbits in the 300400 kilometres (190250 mi) range, and the 2009 satellite collision and 2007 antisat test occurred at 800 to 900 kilometres (500 to 560 mi) altitude. The ISS has Whipple shielding; however, known debris with a collision chance over 1/10,000 are avoided by maneuvering the station.
The Kessler syndrome, a runaway chain reaction of collisions exponentially increasing the amount of debris, has been hypothesized to ensue beyond a critical density. This could affect useful polar-orbiting bands, increases the cost of protection for spacecraft missions and could destroy live satellites.
Eventually, many of these recent satellites will become just debris.
KY.........
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)Trashing the ocean wrecks the ecosystem we live in and causes death to countless creatures and plants.
Space debris only causes us near earth orbit challenges and doesnt negatively affect life on earth.
And is there an alternative? Besides to stop using satellites, which is an actual harmful idea. They have and do benefit us greatly.
KY_EnviroGuy
(14,480 posts)that unfettered capitalism, human greed and denial of reality are some of the reasons we have plastics throughout our environment and the reason sending more stuff into space is not well controlled. Global mankind just doesn't like to follow rules if it affects his profits, thirst for power, or territorialism. Mankind also refuses to be responsible for our future.
Where does the power exist on the planet that can establish and enforce (with teeth) basic global rules on things like plastics usage and disposal, fresh water usage and conservation, resource extraction, subsistence income/basic healthcare, population control, water/air pollution and space debris management? It really doesn't and probably won't until we're facing the point of near extinction.
Ultimately, humanity will hit brick-wall limits on many aspects of our existence. It appears we're hellbent on just letting laissez-faire capitalism run past those limits as it will, and to the point where millions have to die before anything is done. For example, what happens when it's no longer safe to eat any seafood and fresh water becomes too scarce to use for irrigation? What happens when border controls in a few nations are massively overwhelmed by refugees? What happens when high-value satellites are knocked out of service due to debris collisions, or power grids of practical size can no longer meet demand during extended heat waves with high population density?
And, these just barely touch on the big elephants in the room: climate change and the beginnings of biosphere collapse. Hell, currently we can't even provide a reasonable means to deal with severe malnutrition around the globe, yet millions people have time to mobilize against traditional disease vaccinations. And that's the sort of irony and short-sightedness I was trying to point out. Eventually, problem severity will far exceed the capacity of global charities and voluntary government/corporate measures.
Very few humans are currently willing to ask this very basic, logical question and be honest with (and take responsibility for) the answer: "What are the long-term consequences of my actions?" Perhaps that's in part due to our relatively short life span.
I was not trying to draw an equivalency of water pollution and the proliferation of space debris. There is no comparison other than a core moral one.
...sorry for the rant, but this is a huge long-range big-picture issue humanity is not addressing.
Gore1FL
(20,993 posts)If we are going to launch them, 14 at a time eliminates a lot of debris from the launch vehicle.
machoneman
(3,942 posts)The relatively old paperback book, "Deep Black", by William E. Burrows, offers some stunning assessments of the US spy satellite Space Program from the very beginning. Rorsat radar seekers, Corona picture takers, deep space nuclear event watchdog satellite, you name it. A worthy read for those interested as it even portrays our future efforts, like this launch, to detect enemy installations and potential attacks.
Successful launch, successful side booster landings, center core didn't make it. I believe they're in a nominal position to launch the satellites.