SpaceX Successfully Launches Its First Spy Satellite (arstechnica.com) 65
SpaceX successfully launched NROL-76, a classified U.S. intelligence mission, from NASA's Kennedy Space Center Monday. Sunday's launch attempt was scrubbed due to a sensor issue. From a report: Not much is known about the National Reconnaissance Office's NROL-76 satellite, a classified payload, which will liftoff into low Earth orbit from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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'new'.
Care to retry that with a more accurate adjective?
Re: The Next SpaceX Launch ( Score: +5, Good) (Score:2)
That's funny.
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Yes, there is no cause for alarm when the spy agencies and billionaires get together with the military industrial complex to do things that must be kept absolutely secret from the American people. I feel so much calmer now. Move along, nothing to see here.
tucked away at some undisclosed location in Nevada (Score:2)
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...and sterilizing Campbell's soup cans before opening them and watching old movies over and over, and... yes.
Blur (Score:2)
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yes
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Good luck to ula (Score:1)
Re:Good luck to ula (Score:4, Insightful)
You mightn't be aware, but ULA has been aggressively driving down the launch costs on the Atlas V. It's still not as cheap as Falcon 9, but it is a lot cheaper than it was a few years ago. Atlas V also has a much better reliability track record than F9 does and has fewer launch delays, which is worth something to the people with very expensive satellites.
They are also working on a new rocket named Vulcan to reduce costs even further. There is only so much they can do however because their profits are fed back into the 2 companies that own ULA, instead of being purely spent on R&D for their own improvement. They are making profit for the companies that own them, effectively trying to swim with an anchor around their neck.
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As with anything else, launch costs are driven down by free application of technology in a competitive market, not by whoever happens to be ahead at the moment.
Re: Good luck to ula (Score:4, Interesting)
Atlas has a great record, but then it's the result of decades of experience and government contracts. SpaceX have under a decade of launch experience.
And Boeing and Lockheed are really struggling due to the military being so careful about defence spending. Yeah, that business must be a real millstone...
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Bruno cut the old upper management and now has brought in his cronies and pays them MORE. So, to pay for that, he is cutting engineers at a frightening rate.
Those engineers are needed for ACE and other launch vehicles. In particular, capturing the engines from vulcan and then rebuilding a new rocket is just looney tunes.
As to the safety record of Atlas V vs F9, that is true. The Atlas V has had 1 partial failure. The F9 has 1 partial and 1 failed launch, which is 1 more than Atl
Another nailed landing (Score:5, Interesting)
The 1st stage landed at LZ1 again. I believe this was a new booster on this launch (as opposed to a "flight proven" stage).
These landing are becoming so routine that it's almost boring. Almost.
Also,the live feed this time around showed a ground based view of the first stage from launch, to separation, to boost back burn, to landing. Some very long stretches of single shots. Clear weather made for a very interesting perspective!
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Re: Another nailed landing (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, watching the stage separate and seeing the RCS yaw it around for boostback was pretty cool.
It's was interesting to see the vibration caused by the stage in the distance. You can understand why the cameras on the barge cut out on landing.
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I hope they continue the live views after they get all the bugs worked out.
Back when all the networks dropped NASA because they had made it so boring streaming services didn't exist. Today anyone with a decent net connection can watch instead of just whatever the networks deem worthy to show us.
So i'd think they will be able to maintain the same viewership numbers.
Re:Another nailed landing (Score:5, Informative)
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Thanks for the link! The SpaceX webcasts are so much better when they're low-key like that. Half they time they feature a bunch of millennials trying to turn the launch into an iCarly episode. This one was how they should all be done.
SpaceX has been publishing two versions of its video launch coverage for a while now. The primary coverage has the talking heads, but there's also what they call the "technical" stream, which is just the launch net chatter.
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Elon Musk then can have has stuff taken when we go (Score:2)
Elon Musk then can have has stuff taken when we go to work and government takes his stuff over.
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Weaponized? Why do you say that?
This was a classified mission, but no payload details. Do you have access to some classified information that we don't?
Don't spread rumors if all you have is FUD.
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yeah, they will. Because the government pays good money and once you get into the circle of trust it's a nice flow of cash to build the business
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The launch was for NRO, National Reconaissance Office, they,
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So anything less than perfection is a failure. Gotcha.
Dude, come on. They have the BEST reuse of rocket parts of any flying rocket on the planet. That's sad?
Plus, at least with the previous launch, they are recovering that fairings. And there are plans for 2nd stage recovery, but that's a ways off.
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Wow, way to go with the total lack of sense of humour!!
Re:Failing SpaceX (Score:4, Interesting)
They only recovered the first stage. All the rest wasted. SAD!
Funny, but the truth is that everybody at SpaceX agrees with this!
A spy satellite...that you tell people about? (Score:3)
well, aside for SIGINT... (Score:3)
Re: well, aside for SIGINT... (Score:2)
"All we can ascertain from satellite reconnaissance is that he was doesn't keep it on the roof" - FBI agent regarding the trillion dollar bill.
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WRONG. This was a radio satellite designed to spy on you even if you stay indoors.
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You can't hide a space launch of a full sized satellite, and trying would just make people more curious about what's going on. On top of that satellites aren't exactly the most stealthy things either, your average backyard astronomer can spot/track them.
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1. Since the booster landed back at LZ-1 and not out at sea you can infer its final orbit, it's likely at or plus a couple of miles of the ISS. Otherwise the stage 1 would have given it a much bigger push and would have needed to land out at sea.
2. Since this was a F9 full thrust it's max to LEO is ~22T. Also we know what the max f
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You mean for that entire 30 seconds it's over the part of the ground you are targeting? Airplanes and helicopters are more suitable and cheaper for this.
NRO tends to do things a bit more..quietly. Geospatial intelligence is what they do, not stingray crap. You leave that stuff to the local yokels on the ground.
This satellite is likely used for either optical/radar observation or SIGINT. Given the weight, I'd say radar or SIGINT.
Sonic booms (Score:2)
If SpaceX gets up to the launch cadence they want, I suspect the locals will start to get mad the sonic booms of landings... (listen here: https://youtu.be/ApH_mRXwpT0?t... [youtu.be] or here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com])
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I believe that KSC had an average of 2.5 shuttle landings per year from 1981-2011. So indeed, the locals know a bit about sonic booms, but if SpaceX is going to launch once per month, that is quite an increase.
I also suspect the sonic boom of the Falcon 9 first stage is worse because it is basically coming right at KSC, whereas the boom of the Shuttle is spread out over its flight across Florida. The downward trajectory of the F9 booster may focus the boom to some extent.
Patches! (Score:3)
OK I was going to write something funny and stupid, but when I looked up the Wiki page for some additional information I found something much more interesting. They make a launch patch seemingly for every single launch, of which there have been a lot! Some are hilarious, others sort of menacingly inappropriate, others just cool artwork. Honestly some of them could be a bit more ambiguous if they are supposed to be "classified" spy satellites... I mean when your patch is a sailing ship with an angry looking eye over top, I mean people can guess the purpose... Also did they all go to evil art school? Apparently not all of them, because some look like they were designed by a 10 year old and MS paint. Interesting to look at anyway!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]