SpaceX ZUMA Launch Thread - 0100-0300 GMT on 16th (8:00-10:00 p.m. EST on 15th)

lol, you ate Bezos's fake news right up didn't you? The WAPO article about the test stand failure is FUD.

The failure occurred during a LOX drop with GSE. NOT during an actual firing.

some info on what ZUMA might be. Eagle-3 based sat?

spaceflight101.com/falcon-9-zuma/zuma/

>It also didn't explode on a test stand few days ago.
yeah it exploded a few weeks ago

so what the hell is this zuma thing?
spaceflight101.com/falcon-9-zuma/zuma/

rsdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/catalog/Eagle.pdf

Does this thread attract redditors?

What is going to be the biggest launch disaster that day? This one or the Tesla truck?

>live in 26 hours
youtu.be/OPHbqY9LHCs

Damn it, guess I had the date wrong.

>It also didn't explode on a test stand few days ago.

I'd rather have it explode during a test. That is why you test things after all. There are no failed tests, just data results regardless of what happens.

it was delayed 24 hours.

press kit spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/zumapresskit.pdf

>24 hours to go

who owns this thing? wouldnt a $60+ million launch contract + manufacturing costs show up on someone's budget?

go home pete

No

Hah. Hahah.

It’s very easy to hide secret projects in the budget. For instance, the NR-1. Also, for orgs like the NRO, they just don’t release the breakdown of the budget.

But this isn’t operated by the NRO...

MECO is at 2:16. Holy shit

>10 hours to go

Lol try harder Bezos...

universetoday.com/137802/despite-merlin-engine-testing-anomaly-spacex-forges-ahead-with-ambitious-year-end-launch-schedule-commencing-nov-15/

So how's that big mars rocket thing going? I heard it lost a lot of weight.

Just under 7 hours to go!

scrubbed again according to some guy at ksc

we need gender equality in space

Space is hard therefore women who can't handle the slightest hardship need to be hired in large numbers, also unattractive men should be killed for hitting on an attractive woman.

The launch has been delayed 24 hours, likely because of bad weather.

mobile.twitter.com/45thSpaceWing/status/931235561087610880

this could probably fit on an Antares vehicle

think that would be cheaper than a Falcon 9 flight?

No, because it's not reusable. If it was Orbital ATK wouldn't be charging 100 million dollars more than SpaceX to launch satellites; that's why SpaceX is such a big deal in the space industry, their undercutting the competition massively.

they're
fucking idiot

Her/his post is very reasonable and I don't see how anyone could disagree.
It is extremely important to understand that we are standing right before probably the biggest opportunity in humanity's existence.
This is because we will not have another chance to establish a human society free from millennia of history and conflict - at least until we really do leave for the stars, if ever.
Letting such a once in a species' lifetime chance go is utterly irresponsible in light of how difficult social progress has been and how it all can seemingly disappear over night reverting to some morbid past.
Eventually, and probably sooner than anyone expect, all this will have to be seriously taken into consideration all across the world and I'm sure there will be much arguing and emotion involved.
Responsible thinking should prevail, and I certainly hope it will, so that even if Earth's problems are never solved, then at least the children of the future living beyond it can enjoy a better and brighter societies unburdened by humanity's dark side.

You don't have the slightest idea what "responsible thinking" even is
At the end of the day, all you are is a fool and a coward.
You think you can just run away from problems to space, as if human nature will magically change up there
But you will destroy that society too with your cowardice & marxist thinking.

this is mainly to test SpaceX's ability to launch on short notice, though.

Northrop signed the contract with spaceX for this launch in 2015, but without a date. In October Northrop said "this must launch in November".

It's a big FU to ULA's whole quick-launch thing

Greetings from Puławy, Poland.
It's 00:28 in here.
Getting sleepy but waiting.

So space lazors or what?

>It's a big FU to ULA's whole quick-launch thing
i wonder if northrop grumman could do it on this kind of notice and as cheaply as spacex in the future with orbital atk fully integrated

or will they just shitcan orbitals' liquid rockets

obligatory pasta

His engines are ready, clamps weak, fuel is heavy
There's icing on his panels already, Elon's spaghetti
He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready to lift off
But he keeps on forgetting, when he'll touch down
The launch pad goes so loud
He opens his valves, but the thrust won't come out
He's choking how, ULA's joking now
The clock's run out, time's up, over, blaow!
Snap back to reality. Oh, there pulls gravity
Oh, there goes Falcon, he choked
He's so bad, but he won't give up that
Easy, no
He won't orbit, he knows his whole back's to these loads
It don't matter, he'll cope
He knows that but he's broke
He's so sad that he knows
When he goes back to his mobile pad, that's when it's
Back to the VAB again

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Delayed

What happened this time? I'm here damn it!!!

SpaceX has issued a statement on the launch delay:

“We have decided to stand down and take a closer look at data from recent fairing testing for another customer. Though we have preserved the range opportunity for tomorrow, we will take the time we need to complete the data review and will then confirm a new launch date.”

must suck being a fairing engineer. Sure, if a mission fails because of an engine kaboom or a structural failure it's like 'eh, yeah that's a possibility' but if the fairing fails to open everyone's like YOU HAD ONE FUCKING JOB GGAAAAAHHHHH

any good theories on what the Zuma spacecraft will be used for. it's noted that the satellite bus it is using is high end, capable of high maneuverability.

i saw this theory on ars and it seemed plausible:
>My wild speculation, based on the LEO flight profile and the launch azimuth revealed by the Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) filed, in addition to the highly responsive scheduling of the launch, is that ZUMA is to operate in conjunction with the X-37B OTV-5 spaceplane launched in September.

>I'll further speculate, based on US military space priorities and the involvement of Northrop Grumman (known for advanced radar technology), that ZUMA will play the role of an adversary military satellite to be engaged by experimental satellite surveillance sensors which could be carried by X-37B. In other words, ZUMA may be a toy for the baby shuttle to play with on orbit.
arstechnica.com/science/2017/11/spacex-to-launch-a-secret-but-significant-payload-thursday/?comments=1&post=34343139

if anyone is interested in military/national security space then Zuma is a really interesting development. everyone thought it would be an NRO spacecraft but after they denied it then it was highly likely that it would be a USAF spacecraft. there's been a ton things happening in the space areas of the USAF.

150 tons to LEO in fully reusable mode. It's a lot smaller than the old idea, but it's still going to be way bigger than anything else ever built by a large margin.

tons to orbit will be irrelevant anyways once the price to launch again goes down. Who cares if your 600t station takes 30 launches to assemble if the launches are 30,000x cheaper?

just a thought.

Because if it takes 30 launches to assemble, you need to break it up into little bits, meaning your station is full of dead weight and weak points. It's not just weight, it's volume, a bigger rocket can carry up bigger modules with more space to float around.

true, that's all legitimate. If bigelow gets off his ass that size issue might not matter as much. Still, even if we can launch bigger things, we're just then going to make the sections of a station as big as can fit, and assemble it from there. The size of the assembled pieces is just going to he dependent on the LV

...

>MECO is at 2:16. Holy shit
so? whats the meanign of this

>launch delayed again, this time indefinitely
*inhales*

means it's a super light payload

why arent space launches more robust? icbm's can launch at any time in any weather but space launches will get rekt by even the slightest gust of wind.

>icbm
those are solids and can launch any time

i guess they don't care about maxq (no sensitive payload) and always have the same arc

Also they're not concerned about losing the vehicle.

If you're launching an ICBM it's already a do or die scenario. The missile has to launch NOW whether it fails or not.
For test launches of course they do take weather and such into consideration.

If you're launching a commercial or exploration rocket then losing a vehicle is a huge setback, so it's better to just wait and make sure everything is right. Most launches that get scrubbed probably could have launched without a problem, but they scrub them out of an abundance of caution.

its also that a suborbital flight is a lot less delta-v needed
robustly built solid fueled rocket too

I bet the ZUMA is actually JWST.

>launching a commercial or exploration rocket then losing a vehicle is a huge setback

Wow, those spacex millenials really know nothing.
Even with your favourite meme launcher, losing the rocket on commercial or exploration launches is still the regular case. Do you even know how many rockets launch per year from this planet compared to what SpaceX does?

I mean losing the entire vehicle due to a failure, including the payload.

ok whats the meaning of that? they could try to bring back the 2nd stage? satellite could go waay out?

...

tfw russia

Russia still has designs and high quality engines that are decades ahead of anything in the us or china.

muh Raptor

That's nonsense. What Russia has is old Soviet designs (reliable because they're old) and cheap labor.

Lockheed Martin bullshitted like hell (and ULA continued their line of bullshit) about the superiority of Soviet engine technology in order to justify access to that cheap labor, which is how they made Atlas V less expensive than Delta IV. The government made them prove they had the option of building the same engines in the USA before letting them depend on a foreign supplier for a rocket with national security missions. When the US government fell out with Russia and wanted ULA to stop importing engines, ULA came out and has made it clear that they prefer *absolutely anything else* to building the Russian engine design with US labor costs.

It was never a better engine than what the US could make. It was adequate and the dysfunctionality of the Russian economy made it cheap.

>I bet the ZUMA is actually JWST.
It's a load of nukes for a first strike on North Korea.

>It was adequate and the dysfunctionality of the Russian economy made it cheap.
its amazing what comes out of their industry considering the drunken corruption and drunken manufacturing

Zuma's back in the hangar. wonder if they'll swap the fairing out

what was it with the fairing?

>hitting a screw with a hammer
No wonder their rockets end up in ponds.

>ChadX on suicide watch

They call them Virgin because they can never get their rocket up.

...

>falcon heavy will launch this yea-
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA

Splitting a station into 30 pieces would make it more expensive than launching it in three pieces ten times the size. BFR is the best of both worlds, by being both the biggest and the cheapest option by far.

>new glenn

obsolete on arrival due to BFR

>BFR
>happening in the next 15 years
HA

>SpaceX
>only took 3 years to develop the F9
>Now, they've already purchased major tooling for the BFR
>doubting they can do it in 3 years, now that they have 4x the employees and 10000000x the experience

lmao

2 cents has been deposited into your Amazon wallet

Thats not true
If you had people able to live & work in space, then you would assemble it there easily
Look at how houses or buildings are built

It's not assembling 100 million dollar custom built modular habs, its building from parts.

>took six years to develop falcon 9
>took ten years to develop falcon heavy
>WE'LL BE FLYING THE LARGEST ROCKET EVER MADE IN 3 YEARS GUYS

bezos pls go

FH was NEVER a priority once F9 got it's first string of improvements. Once the FH manifest moved over to F9FT, it was put way back on the back burner.

by your logic BFR isn't a priority because they can already launch all existing missions using F9 and FH you stupid nigger

>company that was founded in 2002, currently has over 6,000 employees, has developed a capsule and two orbital rockets so far, has a third rocket in the pipeline waiting for pad readiness, has a second capsule in development that will take humans to the ISS and tourists around the Moon, has recovered and re-flown boosters multiple times, is currently perfecting stage landing and recovery, and wants to build a new and larger rocket using new engines they're already deep into developing
>"lol ur crazy if you think BFR will happen before 2140, go back to zucking musks digg XD"

>company that was founded in 2000, currently has 1000 employees, developed one suborbital rocket that has flown and landed a handful of times, is developing a capsule meant for 'muh suborbital tourism' meme, uses the worst vehicle naming scheme of all time, wants to make what is essentially a scaled up Falcon 9 that uses LNG instead of kerosene but doesn't do return-to-launch-site landings and thus will never be fast to recover
>"Blue Origin is the future guys, they are going to revolutionize space transport and will not miss even one of their development timeline goals"

Hide B.O. shill threads, ignore B.O. shill posts, do not reply to B.O. shillposters

>the point of SpaceX is to go to Mars
>BFR lets you go to Mars
>isn't a priority

ok Bezos I know it's you, shoo shoo

BFR is the whole purpose of the company and their money flow problems are more or less gone, they are in no danger of going bankrupt anymore.

Nor is the BFR waiting on the Falcon program to move forward

FH was never waiting for the Falcon program to move forward
2/3 of the first FH cores were built in 2015
TWO THOUSAND AND FIFTEEN

SpaceX is even slower than fucking SLS

>money pits are a priority

>spacex launch thread
>"Hide B.O. shill threads"
ok

We won't be actually building in space for a long time. It's incredibly difficult to do so. Assembly is what is feasible for now, and assembly with the biggest possible modules means the simplest possible vehicles and stations.

Once building things in space is feasible then raw material transport will start, but we're still going to be using light materials because you get the most structure per dollar spent on launch costs.

The only time building really big things in space out of really heavy stuff like steel will start to happen is if we can get chunks of NEOs maneuvered into Earth orbit somewhere.

I'm not even going to try and have a argument with you, just fuck off

every single spacex thread has you fucking BO shills in it. See you on mars, tough guy

Wrong, because while Falcon heavy doesn't cost SpaceX considerably less to launch and operate, BFR actually does.

Specifically, the fellows down at SpaceX are targeting a price point on BFR that would make it cost SpaceX 10x less to launch than a Falcon 9. That means they can cut their launch price in half and still make more money than they do now launching Falcon 9 if they switched everything over to BFR.

BFR is 10 times larger than F9 there is NO WAY that it will ever be as cheap as F9 to launch
>b-but muh full reuse!
Falcon 9 costs 40 million to build and 20 million to fly operationally. BFR will never beat that 20 million per flight operational cost. F9 S2 is only 13 million so it will always have a price advantage

>2/3 of the first FH cores were built in 2015
>TWO THOUSAND AND FIFTEEN
ya and they were torn down and rebuilt until early/mid 2017, because those cores required massive modifications in order to be able to fly in the Heavy configuration. Now that they know how to build them, they can dedicate actual production to making cores from scratch that are meant for heavy.

>SpaceX is even slower than fucking SLS

lol nothing is slower than SLS, except maybe JWST

>money pits are a priority
>calling a vehicle 10x cheaper to fly compared to their current fleet a money pit

Even if BFR costs the same to launch as a Falcon 9 it would still make sense to build as it would be able to launch ANY payload the industry would reasonably produce in the next 15-20 years. The fact that it should cost LESS than F9 makes it a no-brainer. The whole going to Mars thing is just something you can use BFR for, just like launching big telescopes, going to the Moon, and building a constellation of several thousand internet satellites are.

they'll probably cut it more than half. The amount of crap that people want to launch for 50 bucks per kg is wayyy more than for 500. Economics, yo

>lol nothing is slower than SLS, except maybe JWST
first flight was 2016, now it's 2020

first FH flight was 2010, now it's 2018

>calling a vehicle 10x cheaper to fly compared to their current fleet a money pit
prove that it will be 10x cheaper to fly

>20 million to fly operationally

Nah, that's so that SpaceX makes money on the launch. Otherwise they're at zero net positive cash flow, which doesn't make good business. Most of that money goes to R&D anyway.

>BFR is 10 times larger than F9

A 747 is larger than a Cessna. Flying a reusable 747 is cheaper than flying an expendable Cessna. Size is irrelevant unless both vehicles are totally reusable. Obviously if Falcon 9 was fully reusable it would cost less to launch than fully reusable BFR, but it isn't. Also, if it were, it wouldn't be able to carry the majority of commercial payloads and wouldn't make any money, so it won't ever be fully reusable. That's one reason why BFR needs to be big.

soyuz is cheaper than falcon 9 and fully expendable

>what are Russian salaries
>what are government subsidies
>also, you know, 22,800 kg to LEO vs 8,200 kg

Eventually yeah but just like Falcon 9 they want to make some money back before the rest of the market catches up. When a reused Falcon 9 goes up there's a discount of more than $10 million, but Gwynn says those flights are actually more profitable than the more expensive brand new booster flights. SpaceX is passing some, but not all of the savings on to the customer.

I wouldn't be surprised if the first BFR flights cost the customer $40 million while costing SpaceX $6 million. After all they'll want to pay off BFR R&D cost plus make enough money to build a bunch more BFRs. It's not like anybody will sneeze at $50 million for 150 tons to LEO.