From the what we’ve all wanted to do: “launch an electric car into space” department. Live video feed below. SpaceX is now targeting the launch time at 2:50PM EST.
SpaceX is counting down the launch of the Falcon Heavy demonstration mission now from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) (yes the one that launched men to the moon on Apollo’s SaturnV booster) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The primary launch window opens at 1:30 p.m. EST, or 18:30 UTC, and closes at 4:00 p.m. EST, or 21:00 UTC. A backup launch window opens on Wednesday, February 7 at 1:30 p.m. EST, or 18:30 UTC, and closes at 4:00 p.m. EST, or 21:00 UTC.
When Falcon Heavy lifts off, it will be the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two, with the ability to lift more than twice the payload of the next vehicle, at one-third the cost. Only the Saturn V moon rocket, last flown in 1973, delivered more payload to orbit.
Three cores make up the first stage of Falcon Heavy. The side cores, or boosters, are connected to the center core at its base and at the vehicle’s interstage. With a total of 27 Merlin engines, Falcon Heavy’s three cores are capable of generating more than 5 million pounds of thrust.
For this test flight, Falcon Heavy’s two side cores are both flight-proven. One launched the Thaicom 8 satellite in May 2016 and the other supported the CRS-9 mission in July 2016. SpaceX will attempt to land all three of Falcon Heavy’s first stage cores during this test. Following booster separation, Falcon Heavy’s two side cores will attempt to land at SpaceX’s Landing Zones 1 and 2 (LZ-1 and LZ-2) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, 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.
The payload for Falcon Heavy’s demonstration mission is SpaceX CEO and Lead Designer Elon Musk’s midnight-cherry Tesla Roadster. (no, really, this is not a joke)
Demonstration missions like this one typically carry steel or concrete blocks as mass simulators, but SpaceX decided it would be more worthwhile to launch something fun and without irreplaceable sentimental value: a red Roadster for the red planet. Following launch, Falcon Heavy’s second stage will attempt to place the Roadster into a precessing Earth-Mars elliptical orbit around the sun.
It’s important to remember that this mission is a test flight. Even if SpaceX does not complete all of the experimental milestones that are being attempted during this test, we will still be gathering critical data throughout the mission. Ultimately, a successful demonstration mission will be measured by the quality of information gathered to improve the launch vehicle.
Watch it LIVE:
Last night, I posed this question/poll on Twitter:
#FalconHeavyLaunch on Tuesday will be:
— Watts Up With That (@wattsupwiththat) February 6, 2018
Mission Timeline (all times approximate)
COUNTDOWN
Hour/Min/Sec Events
– 01:28:00 SpaceX Launch Director verifies go for propellant load
– 01:25:00 RP-1 (rocket grade kerosene) loading underway
– 00:45:00 LOX (liquid oxygen) loading underway
– 00:07:00 Falcon Heavy begins engine chill prior to launch
– 00:01:00 Flight computer commanded to begin final prelaunch checks
– 00:01:00 Propellant tank pressurization to flight pressure begins
– 00:00:45 SpaceX Launch Director verifies go for launch
– 00:00:05 Engine controller commands side booster engine ignition sequence to start
– 00:00:03 Engine controller commands center core engine ignition sequence to start 00:00:00 Falcon Heavy liftoff
LAUNCH, LANDINGS AND ORBITAL INSERTION
Hour/Min/Sec Events
00:01:06 Max Q (moment of peak mechanical stress on the rocket) 00:02:29 Booster engine cutoff (BECO)
00:02:33 Side cores separate from center core
00:02:50 Side cores begin boostback burn
00:03:04 Center core engine shutdown/main engine cutoff (MECO) 00:03:07 Center core and 2nd stage separate
00:03:15 2nd stage engine starts
00:03:24 Center core begins boostback burn
00:03:49 Fairing deployment
00:06:41 Side cores begin entry burn
00:06:47 Center core begins entry burn
00:07:58 Side core landings
00:08:19 Center core landing
00:08:31 2nd stage engine cutoff (SECO-1)
00:28:22 2nd stage engine restarts
00:28:52 2nd stage engine cutoff (SECO-2)
Mission continues on an experimental long coast and third stage two burn to target a precessing Earth-Mars elliptical orbit around the sun
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Better put the top up… It’s gonna get really windy!
For some reason I thought of that episode of Star Trek TNG where the Enterprise finds a Model T floating in deep space.
The only thing wrong was that South Australian Premier Jay Wetherill didn’t replace the mannekin (sorry, personkin) in the roadster’s driver’s seat!
I thought of the movie Heavy Metal. But that was a Corvette, and this is a Tesla, so they could not play that music during the mission.
That was a Star Trek Voyager Episode. They found Amelia Earhart.
At least Musk is a billionaire greenie with a sense of humor. Car has “DON’T PANIC” on the dashboard.
Mars is in for a surprise. They should hurry and build a wall.
I cannot remember about this one, has Elon said it real or CGI this time? Never mind still going to have my dinner early to watch it. 27 engines firing at the same time has got to be impressive.
Mom, do I HAVE to watch this?
Okay, I will put this in plain English: if that stupid car crashes into my house or my yard, I will whack Elon Musk for every cent I can squeeze out of his silly… er, pockets. Yeah, “pockets”. I will. I mean it!
Why not just launch an Abrams tank instead? Or a Stryker? Something useful instead of a practical joke? It just confirms that Musk is a twit at his core.
No, Sara you don’t. Based upon your comment the event will probably just annoy you.
How useful would any of your alternatives be?
How useful is an Abrams tank parked in an eternal orbit between Mars and Earth?
(BTW an Abrams tank is far too massive)
The rocket must lift something with appropriate mass otherwise it won’t perform as planned. Usually they loft up inert “dead-weight” (concrete/steel blocks) because it is cheep and nobody cares what happens to it.
This is called flight testing. Whether you are aware of it or not, it occurs for every class of vehicle before its put into regular use. Yes, Apollo too. You’d be surprised at the “payloads” that are used during testing.
All Up Testing of the Saturn V/Apollo. The third launch of a Saturn V/Apollo took Apollo 8 to the moon and back with three astronauts on board.
You’re not my Mom!
“You’d be surprised at the “payloads” that are used during testing.” Uh, no, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised, rocket scientist, because the entire payload testing business was explained during the waiting period for launch, well ahead of the actual Mercury-Redstone rocket launch carrying Alan Shepherd, Jr., into suborbital flight when I was in high school. We got to watch that because my history teacher brought his portable TV to school so that we could see such an historic moment.
But considering everything, an Abrams tank, fully loaded and operational by remote control would be that whole ‘Star Wars’ idea that Reagan nattered on about. You’d have to add stabilizers to the tank to keep it focused, avoid tumbling and spinning, and counteract the “kick” of a rocket launched at a target from the Abrams, but — well, anything is possible and ‘Tanks In Space’ just seems more practical than a shiny red car.
Smooches!!
As an alternative to the Abrams tank, I’ll settle for a Sherman tank at 38.1 metric tons.
And this time they are lofting Musk’s own Tesla.
Who wants to bet he left it parked somewhere too long and it ‘bricked’? Launching it into space has to be less embarrassing then getting caught needing to have it towed in for a battery replacement.
~¿~
Falcon Heavy max payload=70 tons, M1 Abrams=68 tons. Close, but could do it.
The guy is a born promoter.
“There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
Musk has a knack for providing that little kick at the right moment to keep the shell game in oscillation. With one launch he got great publicity and got rid of the car (evidence) that according to some cannot, based on its form factor, possibly do what it’s claimed to be able to do.
Seen this?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/feb/06/humans-need-to-become-smarter-thinkers-to-beat-climate-denial
Um, sure, OK.
The “critical thinking” argument is being used by the left to argue against anyone who disagrees with them.
It’s essentially an ad hominem attack in nice clothes.
Paging Cathy Newman …
Hey Juice. Your opponent will never present your argument correctly. The article claims that crisis skeptics number one argument is: “Earth’s climate has changed naturally in the past, so current climate change is natural.” Of course, that is not the argument at all. This statement made by crisis skeptics is actually a challenge of the warmists argument that the majority of the warming is man-made. And it is just part of the challenge, which goes on to point out that the warmests have no clue about natural climate variability because the don’t even try to understand it.
Their little flow chart is a straw-man argument trying to pass off as critical thinking. The flow might be reasonable, but the results are preordained by the input. I could use the same method and easily ‘prove’ that the climate crisis paradigm is void of all reason, just as long as I control the inputs and assumptions.
It’s not ‘good’ thinking. It’s good hand waving propaganda!
Juice
Their sequence of logic needs some logic. First when you pick an example for a logical deduction you do not use the example of which you are promoting. From the middle of their “logic” train.
“Step 3: Determine whether the argument is deductive, meaning that it starts out with a general statement and reaches a DEFINITIVE conclusion.” (CAPS MINE)
I have looked in two dictionaries and find nothing about deduction being definitive. It is simply going from general to particular, wow can that be dangerous. Sounds like they are going from conclusion to conclusion. This is an interesting part of the definition of deductive in the big Random House Dictionary. “The truth of the conclusion is verifiable only in terms of future experience and certainty is attainable only if all possible instances have been examined.” No wonder they put faith in 97%. That is why I started teaching logical errors, even to graduate students.
I was in Cape Canaveral and watch the first successful return landing of a Stage One to the Canaveral AFB, from a distance oa a mile or so…..later was told by one of NASAs safety officers that we had been right in the “debris zone” if something had gone wrong. despite that, It was awesome.
I’ll bet you wish you were on the boat right about now.
Friend — you sure have that right — for many reasons. (One is the white stuff that was falling from the sky this morning — and the ice on the driveway, on which I slipped twice while feeding the birds…and …….
I do think it a bit frivolous to boost a Tesla roadsterr into orbit…..certainly their was something useful that could have been risked ….
Kip,
No there literally wasn’t anything more useful that could have been used that wasn’t many times more valuable than the roadster. It’s his car, why do care what he does with it. Better than what many others have done with their exotic sports cars (i.e., wrecking them and endangering other motorists).
Paul ==> I was thinking of a satellite or something that would have provided value to the rest of us. I do understand that the car is entirely worthless and cost only a bit more than a concrete cube of the same weight.
Satellites are risked every time they are launched….
The roadster is there for dead weight to lift, and its going into a solar orbit, not an earth orbit. Anybody with a practical payload needing to go to Mars is going to want a launch vehicle with demonstrated reliability not an experimental maiden voyage besides, launching your personal car to Mars is deliciously irreverent.
I doubt the insurance companies would cover the cost of a satellite on a test launch.
Kip==> a satellite costs way too much to risk in a test flight like this; even if its success would give value..
One things I’m interested in is if they did stability tests on the Roadster: they do that for satellites prior to launch to keep the bus from tumbling… wonder if they did that and how it fared.
I wonder if they had to put the roadster through one of those car compactors in order to better balance the load?
Possible theme song:
What? No ‘Rocketman’? No ‘Space Oddity’? None of Holst’s ‘The Planets’, e.g., ‘Jupiter’?
Here ya go — ground control to Major Musk:
https://youtu.be/yY-cZew2xTc
39A was the pad Apollo 11 launched from. I wish them luck. I don’t much care for Musk’s subsidy farming, but I can get behind the US having a heavy launch vehicle again.
Ditto. WE (meaning USA) need a moon base and a colony on Mars. No more pokey stuff.
Good observation. I keep wondering why it’s taken so long to colonize moon world. Why the Ruskies or Chicoms never made a one-up run themselves. Or any other nation for that matter. Been what now, a half a century or so since they loaded their moon buggy up and headed out? Got to appreciate Musk’s sense of humor with the roadster and all atop what looks like a capsule. Well, bon voyage . . .
Some day it will be revealed that the Human race was warned not to go into space. Robots, telescopes, rovers etc were all OK but no humans. That is the price we as a species are paying to keep from being eradicated.
Are they launching The Stig? I just hope Hammond and May aren’t involved. We know what happened when they tried to launch a car…
https://youtu.be/pJdrlWR-yFM
I am amazed the bloody contraption took off! “Awesum” landing even.
Apparently delayed — the time to launch has increased over the last hour…..
Like I said yesterday, delays due to getting the car charged. 😉
Anthony wins this one. Congrats.
also many lives will be saved by delays as tesla adds a BIG RED FIRE TRUCK PARKED IN FRONT OF YOU sensor the the autopilot
I suspect the car has no batteries included, because if the launch failed the scattered lithium would be destructive and need to be collected.
I can imagine the problem that would be caused if the vibration caused the batteries to self ignite as the rocket was passing through 5000 feet.
Didn’t it take something like three tries to get the first Space Shuttle launch off the ground?
What is the carbon footprint?
It’s Progress, so it doesn’t count.
The scorch marks don’t go that far from the pad. 🙂
Launching a Tesla Roadster into orbit gives affirmation to the term “space junk”.
Since it won’t be in Earth orbit, it’s nothing to worry about; interplanetary space is REALLY HUGE.
When our grandgrandgrandchildren headcrash with a Roadster on the Martian hyperway, they’re going to need their newly invented shields.
Hugs,
They probably will be collecting these and other artifacts for museum pieces, like Apollo’s S IV-B translunar stages that were sent into heliocentric orbits after they were spent as well as any PAM-D upper stages from Mars bound spacecraft.
You are correct the universe is really huge. That’s why we call it…. space.
Doesn’t anyone know the history of launches from Cape Kennedy in late January/early February?
Apollo 1 tragedy: January 27, 1967
Challenger tragedy: January 28, 1986
Columbia breakup: liftoff January 16, 2003, breakup February 1, 2003.
Karma?
Some pseudoscience numerology for everyone:
19 years, 17 years, now 15 years. What are they?
Not Karma, cold temps. Not an issue today.
Not cold temps. Cold temps can be expected and planned for. Poor engineering risk management.
Cold temps and high wind shear aloft, in the case of Challenger.
But it wasn’t the weather that did the Challenger in; it was the decision to override the 45-degree constraint on launching, and figuring a 28 degree launch was OK.
In other words, they violated the golden rule of engineering:
RTFM
Energized electrical circuits, flammable materials, and a pure oxygen environment. What could go wrong?
Pressurized pure O2 environment. Had the O2 been at 1/5th atmosphere as was designed for the problem wouldn’t have been as bad.
Instead they wanted the pressure differential between inside and outside to be 1/5th atmosphere, as it would be during flight, so they pumped the O2 pressure up to 120% of an atmosphere.
Battery powered car in space? Already been done, Lunar Roving Vehicle, with Apollo 15, 16, and 17 to the moon. Cars are still there.
We already knew Elon Musk lived on Mars (and he wants to be buried there, despoiling its environment)
The genius Nikola Tesla died alone in a NYC hotel in 1943. Found by the maid, he’d been dead for 2 days. Broke and bankrupt after decades of blowing fortunes pursuing his schemes.
Musk wants to follow Tesla’s legacy.
If Tesla had not negotiated away his commission on A/C electricity produced by Westinghouse, he would have be fabulously wealthy. Of course, he still might have killed himself in one of his experiments to transmit electricity wirelessly, but at least his death would have more befitting to a man of his notoriety. Still, we have Tesla to thank for radio, A/C motors and generators, and many other modern devices that we take for granted today. Elon could do much worse than following in those footsteps.
Nikola Tesla , Howard Hughes, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk. All innovative thinkers, Geniuses. All just a bit quirky.
Well, ok, a lot quirky. But geniuses.
Someone should tell the Greenies that Musk’s rocket runs on diesel and it’s gonna burn about 40,000 gallons in about 1 minute as it climbs through the troposphere and into the stratosphere. Watch their head explode as they contemplate that.
Joel: Yes but the upside is that car will emit no co2 pollution in space. It’s a tipping point for renewables!
Joel, I think this one is all liquid hydrogen, tho you’re right that many rockets use a 1st stage kerosene-mix.
Paul,
From above countdown list:
01:25:00 RP-1 (rocket grade kerosene) loading underway
From Wiki:
“Falcon 9 is a family of two-stage-to-orbit medium lift launch vehicles, named for its use of nine first-stage engines, designed and manufactured by SpaceX. Variants include the retired Falcon 9 v1.0 and Falcon 9 v1.1, as well as the current Falcon 9 Full Thrust, both partially-reusable launch systems powered by rocket engines utilizing liquid oxygen (LOX) and rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1) propellants.”
Diesel.
sorry Paul.. Meant for Beng135.
Joel, you’re right! I stand corrected.
it will also produce the most spectacular conflagration a tesla ever made.
Q: What accelerates better than a Tesla Roadster?
A: A few things, including a Tesla Roadster with 29 additional rocket motors.
Sorta takes the JATO concept to a new level.
And, it appears to have actually worked so far! Congrats to the proud team!
Will this be the furthest a Tesla roadster has EVER gone under it own power?
Needs at least one solar cell on top, doesn’t it? 8<)
I would like to know what condition the car will be in after it’s been launched. Cars are subject to all kinds of force and vibration. They aren’t usually operated in a vacuum though.
OK, I realize that there’s no requirement that the car has to survive. My curiosity is strictly academic.
I’m guessing there’s something about a car that they forgot to take into account.
All of Tesla’s cars are bristling with cameras and sensors. Autopilot and collision reports go back to Tesla computers are recorded. I’m guessing the SpaceX engineers have all that on telemetry today.
I wonder if the sun will melt the padding in the seats- or the steering wheel.
that much more solar irradiation entering the seating area should cause some additional heating…
Space is really really cold, and the sun can only heat one side. This on an elliptical orbital path that goes between the Earth and Mars so it never gets closer to the sun than Earth.
Of more interest is how plastics and other volatile materials will behave in vacuum. My bet is that it will eventually end up like LDEF, shot full of holes from MMOD (micro-meteoroid orbital debris)
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/history/ldef01.html
I was a student at University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh when the first US Space Shuttle was launched into orbit April 12 1981. Watching the launch of Columbia from Cape Canaveral (“Go Baby! Go Baby! Go Baby! GO!”) and the landing at Edwards Air Force Base on April 14th were spine chilling and breath holding exercises in both hope and pride!
B’gosh!!!
The ‘Mission Anomalies’ section of wikipedia’ STS-1 article is worth a look, as it summarizes launch damage to Columbia and subsequent effects on it during re-entry and landing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-1
J Mac – me and a couple Navy buddies drove from San Diego to Edwards the night before that Columbia landing. We got a prime spot next to the low fence where all the spectators were. We had TV cameras on either side. It was awesome! Just awesome! I got a couple good photos. I’m looking at one on my office wall as I type this.
Well, I like the color of the car. And it’s great to see some economic competition in aerospace, too often held back by governmental monopolies.
sarc/on
But, Elon, what’s with that huge white globe in the foreground that says “flammable gas” on it? Surely, you’re not using fossil fuels to launch an electric car into orbit, are you?
‘Fossil’ fuel is stored solar energy – ‘No Batteries Needed!’
Q?: What is worth less than blocks of steel or concrete?
A!: “Elon Musk’s midnight-cherry Tesla Roadster”.
And we’ve reached a new low in space junk.
Any odds on whether they launch a real lithium battery pack and motors with the car?
A chunk of lithium that large should produce interesting color flare, (crimson red), when returning to Earth. Copper cored motors will burn blue.
From NASA Reference Publication 1353: Primary Battery Design and Safety Guidelines Handbook.
I’m thinking flight safety rules required removal of the Tesla battery pack.
Joel:
Are you claiming that the Tesla battery pack is more dangerous and more volatile than the rocket engines and boosters?
ATheoK,
It will never return to Earth unless someone goes up to bring it back. It is now in orbit around the Sun.
Thanks Paul!
I could have sworn the published mission plan stated that the rocket was aiming for low orbit. So much for the veracity of NOAA news sources…
Now, Musk’s old Tesla is heading for the asteroid belt.
If anything could puzzle the *ell out of aliens, it would be sending a terrestrial vehicle, driven by a mannequin, into the asteroids.
Tax credits to space and beyond!!!
I’ll say one thing for Elon, he does some really epic sh*t with other people’s money! Hope it’s successful!
This is all on Musk’s dime. I salute him for that.
Mike,
The Falcon Heavy was completely internally funded. SpaceX does not receive any special government subsidies. All the money NASA paid was for services rendered, and they got a great deal at that. Much less than anybody else could offer. So how exactly was this done with “other people’s money?” I think it’s put up or shut up on this whole smear campaign against SpaceX and Elon.
Note – SpaceX or government – still other people’s money. But it is still quite a different matter when it is money voluntarily put into the project by investors. So your final point is well taken.
Observer,
It should also be noted that Musk sunk much of his own personal fortune into SpaceX, so some of it literally is his own money; but your point that he also has private investors, is well taken.
The one who really put his own money on the line was Jeff Bezos. He’s been investing a billion dollars, more or less, each year into the world’s most expensive hobby, Blue Origin. Upcoming sales of his rocket engines to other companies will soon make his company profitable, so he can start working on his dream of a permanent Mars colony. Blue Origin expects to start manned suborbital flights later this year for those seeking a real joyride. Blue Origin began operations in 2000.
Also, I hope all of the buzzards circling the launch site isn’t an omen….
If Musk retrieves all three boosters intact, I would say that’s a pretty good accomplishment.
Two out of three ain’t bad for a test flight.
Well, the two are the ones that they’ve gotten the bugs out of. First one for the heavy core – and, actually, they did pretty well. Landings are so much harder than taking off.
Oldsters like me remember the absolutely enormous areas that the Navy covered with their recovery fleets for Mercury/Gemini/Apollo – and they had contingencies for if the capsule didn’t even manage anywhere in those. Also that the Shuttle was landed at Edwards for quite a few missions – much longer runway, along with a relatively flat run if it ran out of runway anyway. (Plus – not mentioned by anyone – no big population if something went seriously wrong on descent.)
I wonder how many miles per gallon the Tesla will get on the way up?