You may remember the "launch failure" last week that turned out to be a "success." Well as it turns out things went VERY bad and people are starting to find out just how bad >mission flew off course >no back check of trajectory before launch >launch azimuth was off by more than 20 degrees >mission DIRECTLY overflew spectators and bystanders (see video below) >range safety should have terminated the flight, but didn't >launch directors shown to have little to no understanding of what was happening during launch The rocket flew wayyy off course from the start and nobody did anything about it. If the rocket had exploded at any point early in the flight, hundreds or even thousands could literally have died.
Expect to see the rocket grounded for months or years and big court cases and investigations soon. Also expect to see JWST (JUST) moved to Delta IV heavy in the near future.
Spectators on the beach with the rocket flying directly overhead.
Levi Diaz
>expect to see JWST (JUST) moved to Delta IV heavy You mean Falcon Heavy. It'll have flown more than Delta IV Heavy by the time JWST is ready to fly.
Falcon 9 has already flown more than Delta IV, and like Delta IV it has had only one failure of the kind that would have meant a loss of mission for JWST. (the engine-out event wouldn't, and the pad explosion only had the payload on the rocket for a minor cost savings over performing the test without the payload)
Jaxson Taylor
>If the rocket had exploded at any point early in the flight, hundreds or even thousands could literally have died.
BUT YOU ALSO FUCKING WANT THEM TO MANUALLY "TERMINATE" THE ROCKET
not going to happen unless someone pays $1 billion+ for boeing to restart delta iv core lines
David Powell
>not going to happen unless someone pays $1 billion+ for boeing to restart delta iv core lines They haven't discontinued Delta IV Heavy, just single-stick Delta IV.
ULA knew that they wouldn't be able to conform to requirements to stop importing Russian engines for Atlas V any time soon, so they hurried to sabotage their own Delta IV capability before they could be told to simply discontinue Atlas V and fly payloads on Delta IV.
Gavin Brooks
The funny thing is that it can't actually be launched on any other rocket than the Ariane 5 for two reasons. 1.) The JWTS is specifically designed to fly on an A5 because no other vehicle (including the Delta 4 and Falcon Heavy) has a larger enough fairing to fit it's fat and fragile ass. 2.) ESA has made significant contributions to the JWST project, both financially and developmental so launching it on their rocket is part of the collaboration deal with NASA; which means that if NASA breaks this deal they will get into serious shit with ESA. So basically NASA are fucked if the A5 keeps having anomalies.
Joshua Morris
>fly on an A5 because no other vehicle (including the Delta 4 and Falcon Heavy) has a larger enough fairing to fit it's fat and fragile ass The Falcon 9 is the same diameter as the A5 fairing for the specific reason of accommodating the same payloads (the additional length is usually only needed for two-payload launches, though it seems JWST is an exception and uses the full fairing length), and they will soon be upgrading to one that's the same length (likely they will make the switch to reusable fairings and to larger fairings at the same time).
The EELVs also have fairing options that are the same size.
>ESA has made significant contributions to the JWST project, both financially and developmental so launching it on their rocket is part of the collaboration deal with NASA; which means that if NASA breaks this deal they will get into serious shit with ESA More like, one of the ESA's major contributions is supposed to be the launch.
Kevin Adams
What is thhis red line?
Austin Lewis
>If the rocket had exploded at any point early in the flight, hundreds or even thousands could literally have died. maybe that's why range safety didn't blow it
Isaac Smith
Aaaagh now i have one! Red line?
Daniel Perry
it shows the border before new responses since you last viewed the thread
David Evans
>Expect to see
Nothing at all.
>could literally have died.
As opposed to metaphorically dying?
Hunter Perez
Welcome to Veeky Forums.
Hunter Robinson
Lurk for 2 (two) years before posting.
Leo Walker
>mission flew off course >launch azimuth was off by more than 20 degrees
The rocket flew as planned, but was misprogrammed. No fault in the rocket, just in ground procedures, which is why current launch campaigns are continuing.
>no back check of trajectory before launch Launch procedures had just been steamlined as a cost-cutting measure, probably due to market pressure from SpaceX! Turns out omitting "cut once, measure twice" does not save money in the long run.
This fiasco will probably affect the design of Ariane 6 and current launch procedures, but won't hold up Ariane 5.
Camden Perez
Ariane Five!
When it absolutely, positively has to get... somewhere!
Christopher Scott
Every other rocket company is so far behind Spacex it's not even funny. If falcon heavy is a success all these other losers might as well close up shop because they simply will not be able to compete.
Wyatt Garcia
It should have been terminated almost immediately after launch when it was clear it was on the wrong trajectory,
Leo Cox
Tfw less than a decade ago the future looked bright for the Russian space industry
Christian Hall
Russia is getting btfo but I wouldn't take anything on that graph seriously. Practically everything on it is wrong.
Joseph Johnson
The level of delusion continually shown by SpaceX babbies will never cease to astound me.
>SpaceX awarded 7 contracts in 2017 >Arianespace awarded 19 contracts in 2017 which translates to 27 satellites because lol dual payload capacity. Really jobs my noggin. Also, literally no one other than the US government needs payload capacity of the FH's size. I'm sure the FH will be a roaring success if it doesn't (probably will) explode.
Caleb Gomez
>Also, literally no one other than the US government needs payload capacity of the FH's size. Not exactly true. Out of the four (4) listed Heavy launches after next week's test flight, only one is for the US government. But it's almost obsolete from the start because of improvements in F9 and the eventual switch to BFR, which is why it took so long to finally launch. I just want to see it go up already, and the lunar fly-by too. Just for the stupid Kerbal-ness of it.
Hunter Rivera
>Practically everything on it is wrong. how so? Do you mean using percentages instead of absolute orders?
Samuel Martinez
The FH heavy payload from the US government is likely a test payload to analyze the power and capabilities of the rocket. It has probably been sitting in storage for years since lol delays.
Also, what are the 3 other payloads for the FH? Are they actual payloads like satellites or are they people saying "we'd like to use the FH" and not announcing payloads. Recent FAA estimates peg a FH launch being $270M, so it's pretty much restricted to government payloads. Which, by pic related, are already booked pretty far ahead for the DIVH.
And finally, no, the FH was most likely delayed because of problems associated with turning 3 cores into a single rocket. ULA had the same problems making the DIVH. Many changes had to be made to the boosters to handle the stress when they originally thought that it'd be easy.
