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SpaceX pulled off quite the feat today when it launched the Falcon Heavy rocket. What's more, it landed the two flanking boosters in perfect synchronized formation. But the fate of the core booster was unclear; now it appears that the center booster, which was supposed to land on a drone ship, was lost.
Elon Musk said on a conference call with reporters that the launch "seems to have gone as well as one could have hoped with the exception of center core. The center core obviously didn't land on the drone ship" and he said that "we're looking at the issue."
Source: Engadget
Elon has stated during the post launch Press Conference (aired live by ABC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cygUnhAGdWc ) that the center core ran out of TEA-TEB ignition fluids. These are used to restart the Merlin 1D engines in flight. The central engine relit, but the outer two failed to reignite. The resultant loss of thrust cause the center core to hit the water at 300mph/500kph and explode. Elon reports two drone ship thrusters on OCISLY were damaged or destroyed.
Source: Reddit.
TEA-TEB is a reference to triethylaluminium-triethylborane.
takyon: Instead of becoming an Earth-Mars cycler, it appears that the car has overshot its intended orbit and will reach far into the asteroid belt:
Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster, which launched on top of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy earlier today, is going farther out into the Solar System than originally planned. The car was supposed to be put on a path around the Sun that would take the vehicle out to the distance of Mars' orbit. But the rocket carrying the car seems to have overshot that trajectory and has put the Tesla in an orbit that extends out into the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. [...] SpaceX CEO Musk tweeted out a map of the Roadster's final orbit after the burn, showing just how far out the car will travel. And it looks like it's going so far into the asteroid belt that it will get relatively close to the orbit of the dwarf planet Ceres.
Previously: Falcon Heavy Maiden Launch Successful (Mostly)
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 07 2018, @08:51PM (8 children)
So can we look forward to the Tesla Roadster getting another
worldplanetary-system record first? The first car to hit an asteroid!(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday February 07 2018, @08:54PM (1 child)
They would be extremely lucky to hit an asteroid with the car. Asteroid fields are not densely packed like in the movies.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Thursday February 08 2018, @12:56AM
If you end up crashing and totaling a roadster by collision with an asteroid in the asteroid belt, (1) could you file an insurance claim and (2) will your rates go up because of the statistical improbability of it occurring again?
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 4, Funny) by bob_super on Thursday February 08 2018, @12:53AM (5 children)
Elon decided to really piss off his insurance company.
"Asteroid does not count as 'Act of God', you gotta pay"
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Thursday February 08 2018, @04:09PM
"Alright, sir, get your car over here for damage assessment."
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Thursday February 08 2018, @04:22PM (3 children)
Asteroid hits you, you can make a claim. You hit asteroid on the other hand...
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday February 09 2018, @01:42AM (2 children)
Elon can afford Full Coverage, and a spacesuit is not proven to count as Driving While Impaired.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Friday February 09 2018, @08:53AM (1 child)
True, but the insurance company might argue that he was travelling at an unsafe speed, in excess of 30,000 km/h at the time of the accident.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday February 09 2018, @05:18PM
Not his fault that the speed limit was written in black on a black sign posted in the shade of a black asteroid which was subsequently hurled into the Sun.
It's known to happen when music and space are combined.