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posted by takyon on Wednesday April 10 2019, @09:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the moah-powah! dept.

[Update #2] (2019-04-10 7:30pm EDT (23:30 UTC))

This launch has been scrubbed until tomorrow. :

"Standing down from today’s Falcon Heavy launch attempt; next opportunity is tomorrow, April 11."

New launch window is: "Thursday, April 11 at 6:35 p.m. EDT, or 22:35 UTC, and closes at 8:31 p.m. EDT, or 00:31 UTC on Friday, April 12"

[Update #1] (2019-04-10 8:40pm EDT (22:40 UTC)):

It appears the launch has been delayed 85 minutes from 6:35pm EDT (22:35 UTC) until 8:00pm EDT (00:00 UTC on 2019-04-11); see the tweet:

Falcon Heavy and Arabsat-6A are vertical on Launch Complex 39A. Currently targeting liftoff at 8:00 p.m. EDT; monitoring upper-level winds that could push us to the end of the window (8:32 p.m. EDT)

Also noted on SpaceX's webcast page:

SpaceX is targeting Wednesday, April 10 for a Falcon Heavy launch of the Arabsat-6A satellite from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Liftoff is targeted for 8:00 p.m. EDT, or 00:00 UTC on April 11, and the launch window closes at 8:32 p.m. EDT, or 00:32 UTC on April 11. A backup launch window opens on Thursday, April 11 at 6:35 p.m. EDT, or 22:35 UTC, and closes at 8:31 p.m. EDT, or 00:31 UTC on Friday, April 12. The satellite will be deployed approximately 34 minutes after liftoff.

Following booster separation, Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters will attempt to land at SpaceX’s Landing Zones 1 and 2 (LZ-1 and LZ-2) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Falcon Heavy’s center core will attempt to land on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

You can watch a webcast of the launch below, which will start about 20 minutes before liftoff, and find out more about the mission in our press kit (pdf).

Original story follows.

For only the second time ever, and the first time with a commercial payload (Arabsat-6A), SpaceX is planning to launch its Falcon Heavy (FH) rocket today. The launch was rescheduled from April 7th and April 9th. The FH is currently the most powerful rocket in the world. According to Wikipedia, the:

Falcon Heavy is a partially reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured by SpaceX. It is derived from the Falcon 9 vehicle and consists of a strengthened Falcon 9 first stage as a central core with two additional first stages as strap-on boosters. Falcon Heavy has the highest payload capacity of any currently operational launch vehicle, and the fourth-highest capacity of any rocket ever built, trailing the American Saturn V and the Soviet Energia and N1.

SpaceX conducted Falcon Heavy's maiden launch on February 6, 2018, at 3:45 p.m. EST (20:45 UTC). The rocket carried a Tesla Roadster belonging to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, as a dummy payload.

From an article at Teslarati, SpaceX to Livestream Falcon Heavy Block 5 Launch Debut Today:

SpaceX is half a day away from the planned launch debut of Falcon Heavy Block 5, a milestone that will also be the rocket's second launch ever and first mission with a commercial payload.

First and foremost, Falcon Heavy's job is to safely place the Saudi Arabian communications satellite Arabsat 6A into a high-energy geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) more than 35,000 km (~22,000 mi) above Earth's surface. Despite the satellite weighing no less than 6000 kg (13,200 lb), Falcon Heavy will still have enough latent performance to attempt the recovery of all three of its new Block 5 boosters. With any luck, this will hopefully return SpaceX's East Coast landing zones (LZ-1 and LZ-2) to successful operations after an anomaly in December 2018 caused Falcon 9 B1051 to landing a mile or so offshore.

[...] This time around, Falcon Heavy will be made entirely out of Block 5 hardware, including three new boosters (likely B1052, B1053, and B1055), a Block 5 upper stage with a Merlin Vacuum engine, and a recovery-optimized "Version 2" payload fairing. Altogether, Falcon Heavy likely weighs upwards of 80,000 kg (175,000 lb) empty and more than 1,420 metric tons (3,125,000 lb) when fully fueled. At liftoff, the Falcon Heavy Block 5 rocket's 27 Merlin 1D engines are expected to produce no less than 5.1 million pounds (~2300 mT/23,000 kN) of thrust at full throttle, but that figure could rise as high as 5.6 million pounds (2550 mT/25,500 kN) of thrust depending on how one interprets rather vague official numbers from CEO Elon Musk.

SpaceX has a live-stream page up on YouTube for the launch. From the description on that page:

SpaceX is targeting Wednesday, April 10 for a Falcon Heavy launch of the Arabsat-6A satellite from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The primary launch window opens at 6:35 p.m. EDT, or 22:35 UTC, and closes at 8:32 p.m. EDT, or 00:32 p.m. UTC on Thursday, April 11. A backup launch window opens on Thursday, April 11 at 6:35 p.m. EDT, or 22:35 UTC, and closes at 8:31 p.m. EDT, or 00:31 UTC on Friday, April 12. The satellite will be deployed approximately 34 minutes after liftoff.

Following booster separation, Falcon Heavy's two side boosters will attempt to land at SpaceX's Landing Zones 1 and 2 (LZ-1 and LZ-2) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Falcon Heavy's center core will attempt to land on the "Of Course I Still Love You" droneship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

I'm hoping it is able to launch on time. Watching the near simultaneous landing of the side boosters from the inaugural FH launch was breathtaking. I'll be following along in our #Soylent channel on IRC (Internet Relay Chat).

The launch is scheduled at one hour from the time this story goes live. The live stream is due to start 20 minutes before the launch.

See also: Falcon Heavy making only second flight, but it's already changing the game

Previously: NASA Chief Says a Falcon Heavy Rocket Could Fly Humans to the Moon
Two Soyuz Launches and a Falcon Heavy Launch Coming Right Up
SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch with Arabsat Reset for Tuesday


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @12:11AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @12:11AM (#827693)

    That was the most interesting countdown I've seen in a long time. Gripping.... and the conclusion was unexpected. Who would have thought that Ole Muskie wouldn't deliver something on time?

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday April 11 2019, @02:58AM (1 child)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday April 11 2019, @02:58AM (#827740) Journal

    That's par for the course when rocket launches are as rare as they are.

    There is no pressure to launch 10 rockets every single day, so if weather conditions are bad, you'll get a delay instead of possibly losing the rocket.

    Even commercial airliners get delayed by weather and we have many flights every day with customers wanting to get to their destination ASAP.

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    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday April 11 2019, @03:00PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 11 2019, @03:00PM (#827986) Journal

      Should we blame Musk for not coming up with a way to control the weather?

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.