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Continuing its breakneck launch pace, SpaceX is preparing to fly its 13th Falcon 9 rocket in the 2017 calendar year. The booster is scheduled to loft one of the U.S. Air Force's two reusable robotic X-37B spaceplanes. However, the fifth Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-5) mission might be facing a delay brought about by the powerful Hurricane Irma.
*Update: According to Florida Today's Emre Kelly, SpaceX confirmed the company was targeting a 5 hour, 5 minute launch window that opens at 9:50 a.m. EDT (13:50 GMT) Sept. 7, 2017.
According to the 45th Weather Squadron on Sept. 5, 2017, the weather for this attempt is anticipated to have a 50 percent chance of unacceptable conditions. The primary concerns are thick and cumulus clouds.
Should a delay of 24 hours occur, conditions are expected to worsen as Hurricane Irma approaches. This will create low-level winds that will strengthen throughout the day. As such, concerns for a Friday liftoff are thick and cumulus clouds in addition to strong winds at launch time. The probability of a weather-related scrub is 60 percent.
In preparation for liftoff, on Aug. 31, 2017, SpaceX rolled its Falcon 9 rocket – sans the payload – up the ramp at Launch Complex 39A to perform its customary pre-flight static fire test. This involved firing up the first stage's nine Merlin 1D engines at 4:30 p.m. EDT (20:30 GMT) for several seconds to throttle up to 1.7 million pounds-force (7,560 kilonewtons) of thrust to verify all was well with the rocket.
Ground teams then lowered the rocket and rolled it back into the nearby horizontal integration facility to attach the payload fairing with the X-37B inside.
SpaceX is streaming the launch on YouTube.
Previously: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=17/06/09/2236228
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @12:49PM (11 children)
What is the increased rate of launch failure due to flying through thick and cumulus clouds? Won't this need to become routine when there are 100 launches per day?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday September 07 2017, @12:56PM (9 children)
100 launches/day? Are you thinking of ICBM launches or what?
'Cause I don't see 100 space payload launches/day from the same place any time soon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 07 2017, @01:16PM (3 children)
With 100 ICBM launches per day, only a fraction of them need to be successful each day in order to keep the news media distracted.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Thursday September 07 2017, @02:08PM (2 children)
With 100 ICBM launches per day maybe there will be no media left.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 07 2017, @03:18PM
Two possible snarky replies:
1. you seem to suggest disagreement with administration thinking that nuclear war is acceptable, maybe even desirable. (based on a complete lack of understanding of what nuclear war would look like.)
2. you're pointing out that 100 ICBM launches per day might effectively and finally deal with the "fake news". (of course, that is not all that would be destroyed)
:-(
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Thursday September 07 2017, @03:19PM
I wouldn't consider them gone until it is confirmed that all the media that are crammed atop those 100 ICBMs are verifiably engulfed by the sun. Those things are like cockroaches and Twinkies. Give them nothing but dental floss, a 9V battery and a nickel and they'll somehow manage to post something on twitter.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @01:27PM (4 children)
When going to the Moon or Mars costs $1k to $10k per person.
100 Earth to LEO or beyond launches per day globally. Maybe even below LEO for short joyrides.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 07 2017, @05:56PM (2 children)
You have to consider the payload. The amount the payload is willing to pay for a ride to LEO.
Humans are not willing to pay much for a ride to LEO. (Although evidence is that they will pay for a non-orbital amusement park style joy ride to the edge of space, and believe that it is the same thing as being in orbit.)
Nuclear weapons are a payload that is willing to cough up more money for a ride to LEO or even a suborbital ride, as long as the arc is long enough to reach the target.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday September 07 2017, @07:04PM
> Humans are not willing to pay much for a ride to LEO.
Really?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_tourism [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday September 08 2017, @01:23PM
As launch prices continue to fall, suborbital "joyrides" are likely to cease being notably cheaper than getting to LEO. At which point, why settle for a brief joyride when you can take a trip to an orbital "amusement park"?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday September 07 2017, @09:43PM
As I said, it's not gonna happen soon. As such, clouds impeding the launch is not like this is the major bottleneck today - dealing with it now is premature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 07 2017, @01:22PM
They'll probably do it like airports do. Don't fly when there's a major storm overhead or similar adverse weather condition. Further, they'll probably have a lot more launch pads at a variety of locations when they near this launch rate.
And they're over three orders of magnitude shy of achieving that launch frequency with a long ways between now and then. I think it'll be one of those problems that will be figured out when it becomes a problem.