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Space Science

SpaceX Launches Advanced GPS Satellite for US Space Force, Sticks Rocket Landing at Sea (space.com) 62

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
SpaceX successfully launched an advanced GPS satellite for the U.S. Space Force on Thursday (June 17), marking the 19th launch of the year here on the Space Coast. From a report: One of the company's two-stage Falcon 9 rockets blasted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station here at 12:09 p.m. EST (1409 GMT), carrying the GPS III SV05 navigation satellite to orbit. Nine minutes later, the rocket's first stage touched down on the deck of "Just Read the Instructions," one of SpaceX's two drone ships. "What a beautiful view of the first stage landing," Youmei Zhou, a SpaceX propulsion engineer, said during the company's live launch commentary.

The GPS III SV05 satellite mission is the second to launch so far this month for SpaceX, following the launch of a broadband satellite for Sirius XM on June 6. It was nothing but blue skies over the launch pad, and onlookers were treated to a gorgeous view as the rocket climbed to orbit. Today's flight marks the fourth GPS satellite delivery by SpaceX for the U.S. military. Three previous advanced GPS III missions also launched on Falcon 9 rockets, including two missions last year. Another of the satellites launched in August 2019 on the United Launch Alliance's final flight of the Delta IV Medium rocket. "If you've ever used your phone's mapping service or retrieved a location via a pin drop, you've used a satellite in this system," Zhou said.
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SpaceX Launches Advanced GPS Satellite for US Space Force, Sticks Rocket Landing at Sea More

SpaceX Launches Advanced GPS Satellite for US Space Force, Sticks Rocket Landing at Sea

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  • wow (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cantsleep ( 2723025 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @12:26AM (#61498228)

    SpaceX makes this look so trivial. Still gotta remind myself this wasn't a thing just a few years ago.

    Congrats to everyone making these launches happen. Literally is amazing!

    • Definitely. The others are so far behind. New Shepherd is reusable but that hasn't even gone to orbit yet.
      • It never will go to orbit because it's not designed to. New Glenn is the orbital rocket Blue Origin are developing. It's far bigger, substantially bigger than F9 even.

    • Re:wow - perfect video feed (Score:5, Informative)

      by davide marney ( 231845 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @03:13AM (#61498328) Journal

      The video feeds on this flight were are perfect, no breakups or loss signals as has happened so often in the past. Especially the landing, both the outboard camera and the ship camera feeds worked right through the entire process. The weather was perfectly clear, and the seas were calm.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Rei ( 128717 )

        Was I the only one who felt for right up until the last second that the rocket was way off track? Felt like it was buffeting around, was far too far to the right, and while it managed to get back on track, it still landed on the right side of the circle. At least that's how it felt from watching the feed; maybe in practice it was all picture-perfect.

      • They forgot the cardinal rule of making stuff look flawed, unstable, and chaotic. Think Episode I, Post-production should have taken care of that.

      • The video feeds are sent via complicated UDP/IP networking, which has little provision for graceful signal degradation like analog or even ASTC television.

        "The more they overtake the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain" - Montgomery Scott

    • Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ytene ( 4376651 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @05:57AM (#61498446)
      I find it helps to try and put the scale of this achievement in perspective.

      I've been taking notes during a call this morning, with a fairly ordinary combination pen/pencil from Zebra. This instrument measures 5" or 12.5cm with the tip contracted.

      For this launch, the first and second stages separated at a velocity of approximately 7980km/h at an altitude of 68.8km... The first stage of Falcon 9 stands 70m tall when wearing socks [sic].

      So if you scale this achievement down (from original F9 scale to Zabra Pen Scale), today's launch was the equivalent of taking something the size of my Zebra pen and then firing it over the roof of the Dahlia building, at 1550 Mission Street in San Francisco [sfgov.org], then having it fall back to pavement level on the far side, where it lands smack-bang in the center of a paperback book that you left on the sidewalk. That building is 400 feet, 122 metres tall and includes 40 storeys.

      So yeah: performing the equivalent of firing a ballpoint pen over a 40-storey, 400-foot high building and then navigating it to a successful landing on something the size of a paperback.

      Still cool.

      • That building is 400 feet, 122 metres tall and includes 40 storeys.

        If you have to break down the exact size of a 'Library of Congress,' you've chosen the wrong unit of measurement for your analogy.

  • Missed oppotunity (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stikves ( 127823 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @12:42AM (#61498242) Homepage

    Think about all the science we could have done, if many cooks did not spoil the space shuttle program.

    First they wanted almost every state to take part in it, instead of having a streamlined process. Then they had to change requirement to carry larger military cargo, breaking many design assumptions. And the final nail in the coffin was not heeding the warning from engineers, ending in fiery disasters.

    Finally SpaceX (and several others like Rocket Lab, Richard Branson, and so on) taking on the fully reusable space vehicle concept back to reality. We lost several decades, but better late than never.

    • That is the difference between a private entity contracted by the government and the government itself trying to be something it is not (a developer or a manufacturer). The government can only be marginally effective, and slightly more so when the military is involved, but not by much. Hire private industry to do it and keep the costs low and the value proposition high.

      • Well aren't you an optimist....

        Private industry will also go after money, meaning that they will charge more if they can. Yes, the space shuttle was a iobs program, as is SLS. But claiming outsourcing singly to, for instance, Northrop-Grumman, will keep prices down is veiling one's face.

        Space-X lowers cost because it isn't entrenched, and that Musk is slightly insane, thus trying new things, that seem to have been working out so far...

        Competition works when the cost of market entrance isn't astronomical. Sp

        • The best enterprises are those where the actual product or service is the main, overarching goal which everyone involved strive for. Money, jobs, influence, power etc are useful tools and byproducts, but are far too often seen as the most important goals.

        • Well aren't you an optimist....

          Private industry will also go after money, meaning that they will charge more if they can. Yes, the space shuttle was a iobs program, as is SLS. But claiming outsourcing singly to, for instance, Northrop-Grumman, will keep prices down is veiling one's face.

          Space-X lowers cost because it isn't entrenched, and that Musk is slightly insane, thus trying new things, that seem to have been working out so far...

          Competition works when the cost of market entrance isn't astronomical. Space faring is astronomical.

          Private industry is every bit as corrupt as the government that is hated by so many. How do we know this? Because both consist of humans. Humans are corrupt

          Who provides the bribes that line the pockets of politicians? Government? Nope - private industry. And the briber and bribee are both corrupt. Was Enron a government organization? Nope.

          It's funny how people can completely ignore the obvious examples of private industry corruption and criminal behavior, while extolling it as a paragon of virtue.

          Fun

          • Private industry are not a monopoly. The government is. You have no say in how government money is spent. Government is therefore more corrupt. Private organizations have a profit incentive and a market capture incentive. Both mean they have to operate reasonably.

            • Private industry are not a monopoly. The government is. You have no say in how government money is spent. Government is therefore more corrupt. Private organizations have a profit incentive and a market capture incentive. Both mean they have to operate reasonably.

              That's private market kool-aid, friend. .Let's say we get your privitization dream - Government is eliminated, and everything is pay as you go. So now - we have an outfit that provides decent service and makes a lot of money. You aren't naieve enough to believe that they are going to hand that over to anyone else?

              You see, Private industry is composed of the same people as those in Government.

              And the invisible hand of the free market gets amputated as soon as someone rises to the top.

              And it isn't eve

      • Who knew Morton Thiokol wasn't a private entity?

        • Who knew Morton Thiokol wasn't a private entity?

          I suspect the intense disrespect that some people pay to NASA might be based on being too young to know how it worked, and not bothering to look up the facts of the matter. There are many private sector companies that have provided work for NASA. A very short and incomplete list follows:

          Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp, North American Rockwell Corp.’s Space Division, and Boeing And also firms such as the International Latex Corporation, Black & Decker, Plantronics, Grumman, North American Aviati

      • You forgot the "Costs Plus" contract that do not make even private companies try to find the cheapest way to do something. When the contract is "Fixed" then the cheaper the company can do it, the more profit it makes. Also there can be no easy out if they do not meet the contracted goals. Here in Canada the government was building a gas power plant. They did not finish, the government goals also changed, yet the company was able to demand the full contract payment, not pay for the percentage of work don

        • You forgot the "Costs Plus" contract that do not make even private companies try to find the cheapest way to do something. When the contract is "Fixed" then the cheaper the company can do it, the more profit it makes.

          The cost plus is something that the private company uses if something has never been done before. So few companies want to bankrupt themselves, they won't bid on programs that are innovative, preferring to stay profitable.

          Because in today's age, servicing the stockholders is more important than anything else, and if you don't do cost plus on something that had never been done before, it get's iffy. As in stockholder revolt, or just going away.

          Whne people complain about cost plus, I remind them of the

      • That is the difference between a private entity contracted by the government and the government itself trying to be something it is not (a developer or a manufacturer). The government can only be marginally effective, and slightly more so when the military is involved, but not by much. Hire private industry to do it and keep the costs low and the value proposition high.

        So you are saying that no private entities were in involved in Apollo? Musk takes subsidies for Spacex, just like all the other actors. It takes a mighty tapdance to try to prove otherwise.

    • Re: Missed oppotunity (Score:5, Interesting)

      by BadgerStork ( 7656678 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @12:56AM (#61498252)
      SpaceX is not fully reusable yet. The second stage is discarded. I think their fairings are reused tho
      • The fairings are reused, yes - they fish them out of the water now after getting rid of the boats with the giant nets on the back

      • SpaceX is not fully reusable yet. The second stage is discarded. I think their fairings are reused tho

        Does anyone have info on the savings realized by the present system of retrieval and refurbishing? I haven't heard solid numbers, so I kind of wonder how much cheaper it is.

    • We didn't have the computational abilities to pull off spacex-style automated landings in the 80s or 90s or probably the aughts. Hardware + modeling know-how.

      • We did. It's not rocket science. Apart from GPS (which was already operational back then), the main ingredient of rocket landings is not computational supremacy but confidence and the budget and guts to fail 20 times before getting it right. It's exactly those things that were missing and almost always are missing in government projects or any project where the one that pays does not sufficiently understand the risks and complexities.

        • The Gemini, Mercury, and Apollo space programs had a lot of failed attempts - lucky we didn't have the internet to allow everyone on the plant to share/like/opine on each failed test engine firing, botched landing test, etc.

        • We did. It's not rocket science. Apart from GPS (which was already operational back then),

          Can you show me the citations that tell us that GPS was already operational in the 1960's My references have it as first functional in 1993 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          Yer posting bullshit, and you invalidate your argument by claiming somethign that is either a lie, or ignnorant beyond belief.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by zmooc ( 33175 )

            We were talking about "80s or 90s", dear.

            • We were talking about "80s or 90s", dear.

              I see, So my comment about the GPS not existing until 1993 is 100 percent irrelevant? Reuseable engines and guided back to earth boosters don't just appear out of thin air. Although since you call me "dear as if I'm an idiot - what are the re-useable engines from the 80's and 90's? And what are the booster sections that were good for redesign to return to Florida in the 80's? or 90's?

              The Spacex trick of landing the boosters is kinda cool, but I still haven't seen exactly what the real cost savings are

      • What are you talking about? There was enough computing power in my Commodore 64 to control such a landing. You are more talking the limits of the people at NASA (not the engineers, the upper management) who could not think of a machine out performing a pilot.

      • We didn't have the computational abilities to pull off spacex-style automated landings in the 80s or 90s or probably the aughts. Hardware + modeling know-how.

        Exactly. Could you imagine landing the first stage of Saturn V? We simply couldn't then. I'm actually getting a little bored by it these days.

    • Think about all the science we could have done, if many cooks did not spoil the space shuttle program.

      First they wanted almost every state to take part in it, instead of having a streamlined process. Then they had to change requirement to carry larger military cargo, breaking many design assumptions. And the final nail in the coffin was not heeding the warning from engineers, ending in fiery disasters.

      Finally SpaceX (and several others like Rocket Lab, Richard Branson, and so on) taking on the fully reusable space vehicle concept back to reality. We lost several decades, but better late than never.

      Now analyze the fog launch of the Starship. Pure launch fever, and capturing visuals is rather important, if you remember Challenger and Columbia.

      I'll probably get marked as troll or flamebait, but Spacex is on borrowed time as far as disasters go. For all humans are just that - humans. And unless Spacex is somehow different, they will make the same mistakes as any other group of Humans will.

      So when the horrifying inevitable happens (even Musk says it will), and when investigation finds out the mistake

    • First they wanted almost every state to take part in it, instead of having a streamlined process.

      BS - who had a facility big enough to build a space shuttle vehicle all in one place? No one.

      Then they had to change requirement to carry larger military cargo, breaking many design assumptions.

      When it means the difference between funded and not funded, it's scope change, not 'broken assumptions."

      And the final nail in the coffin was not heeding the warning from engineers, ending in fiery disasters.

      The engineers decided it wasn't too cold to launch Columbia, their crappy over-loaded power-point presentations regrettably buried the issue. The people that approved the flight were engineers.

      I don't recall any engineers saying that a stray piece of styrofoam would knock heat shield tiles off the booster rocket.

      Y

  • Seeing the name of this drone ship makes me wonder if the people in charge of naming the ships are fans of Iain M. Banks' Culture novels.

    • Re:"Just Read the Instructions" (Score:5, Informative)

      by cmseagle ( 1195671 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @04:15AM (#61498370)
      The person who names them, Mr. Musk, is indeed a fan: Elon Musk Names SpaceX Drone Ships in Honor of Iain M. Banks [tor.com]

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Rei ( 128717 )

        Yeah, the Culture series was formative to him growing up. Elon has a strong "techno-utopian" worldview, of technology posing threats but also having the potential to usher in a utopia if used right, and it's strongly reflective of Banks' work.

    • Yes, they are. Most ships are named by Eon himself.

  • The other guy's gone. We can rename it now to something classy. Like "Super Space Force".

    • Oddly enough, the predecessor is STILL called the "Air Force".

      You remember that one, right? The one that was created from the Army Air Corps after WW2...

      • It really has more to do with the navy, my good man. They're called "space ships", not "space planes". I hope you're at least civilized enough to agree on that point.
        • I prefer boats, since, if you open the door you die....like in a u-boat

        • Alas, the Space Force was spawned from the Air Force (formerly Army Air Corps).

          Its Army parentage makes it impossible to even suggest that it has anything to do with the Navy.

          Remember, as big an enemy (potentially) as China is (or the USSR was), the REAL enemy of the US Army is the US Navy, and vice versa....

  • Now Space Force will be tracked and given targeted advertising. Hope they have Prime!

  • Better video (Score:4, Informative)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @07:57AM (#61498558) Journal

    The original YouTube feed is higher resolution than what space.com is hosting.
    https://youtu.be/QJXxVtp3KqI?t... [youtu.be]

  • Does SpaceX use GPS to land? (Score:3)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @10:54AM (#61498872)
    Then this was a kind of self-improving mission for them.

    • I suspect they use GPS to get close, then use computer vision to fine-tune the actual landing in the big circle in the barge.

      • The circle is a radar reflective paint to help it hone in. I would suspect computer vision doesn't work very well when you're looking into rocket exhaust, at least not in the visible spectrum.

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