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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Two out of three ain’t bad – what happened to the core engine? Any word on that, other than, thank-you for watching we’re all done now? Great launch/landing, was amazing even if the core splashed down in water.
That’s what it did. Only one of three engines for landing lit, and the bird hit the water at around 300mph (500kph). So, mostly a success.
They only use one engine for landing normally. It may have run out of fuel though.
Musk says they think it ran out of fuel on final descent burn.
Mostly successful – payload at least got to LEO without a problem (haven’t heard on the subsequent burns). Now it’s working out the kinks that must be solved to make the cost projections – expending the core every launch definitely ruins those.
But that is why you have test flights on new hardware. I can’t find the number of flight hours before the first 747 airframe was certified (something that the brother in law worked on), but it was several thousand. The 747-8 variant, which I can find, had 3400 hours.
Dare I say more exciting than the superbowl halftime?
Absolutely!! And no ‘ take-a-knee’ or ‘wardrobe malfunctions’!
After that adrenaline rush, a loooong walk is in order….
I think they cheered louder than an equal number of fans at the game. Very different from NASA launches of the 60’s.
In case the “watch it live” link disappears, the show has been posted on YouTube:
I queued it to start at T-1 minute, to give you time to adjust the HD settings etc.
I’ve watched the good parts, like the double landing, a few times over.
enjoy!
Well, my clever attempt to queue it T-1 failed. Good thing I don’t work for SpaceX.
Just noticed that both lower frames show the same camera and not one of each side booster. The moderators got that wrong there.
You can see the burn of the first landing booster appear on the top border of the frame, a bit to the left of the center, and almost exactly above the one visible landing pad. In both frames at 37:48.
Has something happened to the camera of the first landing side booster? Does anyone know? Or it is perhaps in the exact same position on the first booster and therefore none of the pads would be visible for the viewer so they decided to just show the obvious footage…
well… I was slow in searching and too quick to ask. Sorry.
Just found another video from SpaceX https://youtu.be/bCc16uozHVE where they now have replaced one frame with the footage of the first landing side booster.
Red Tesla? Poor choice of color, unfiltered sun will be havoc on red.
Well, I actually see some future value of having Musk’s Tesla Roadster traveling in an elliptical orbit around the Sun. Can you imagine a distant future space traveler, without knowledge of our current history, coming across the Roadster in space and wondering, “Did we miss a valid step in our space travel development?”
Reminded me of the opening of the “Heavy Metal” animated feature. Hope no Loc-Nar follows it back to Earth.
Crazy movie. Saw it in Belgium in the early 80’s.
Oh yeah!
I cried, I cheered with the SpaceX engineering teams as each aspect they had designed and tested worked.
We are leaving the planet, folks. And we are not doing it with grant $$$ for climate studies.
The next few years are gonna be interesting as the government heavy tries to catch up with the Falcon.
Gums…
How much (if any) was NASA involved in this launch??? SpaceX used their launch pad…
One damn expensive AD for that cherry Tesla Roadster…!!!
I was amazed at the simultaneous return of those two rocket boosters. I wasn’t sure of how the were going to land. Truly amazing – we have a new “Rocket Man”…
Looked totally fake to me.
Any proof of that?
Don’t feed the troll.
I know what video game CGI looks like. The video I saw was CGI.
The only role NASA had was in approving the launch and providing range coverage. The pad is leased to SpaceX and for all I know, SpaceX also pays for the range time as well.
NASA and USAF got paid by SpaceX for their services and facilities. At the going rate for launch services from Cape Kennedy.
Found the answer to my question about NASA:
“In 2014, NASA signed a 20-year property agreement with SpaceX for the use and operation of the launch pad.”
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/falcon-heavy-a-multi-user-spaceport-success-story
No matter what you think of how Musk garners his celebrity, this is a huge example of how the private sector can do many things better than government agencies can. Very appropriate that it happened during the Trump years.
ABC says the roadster could be out there for BILLIONS of years. Seriously?
Hey, where else is it going to go?
If it’s in a stable orbit around the Sun, then it should be around, in one form or another (maybe in pieces eventually), for as long as the inner planets.
Unless of course, someone either salvages it or retrieves it for a museum piece some day.
http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/1999/10/green-hills-of-earth-robert-heinlein.html
The “Green Hills of Earth.”
Somewhere Heinlein is smiling..
Not quite like Delos Harriman did it (if you think that Elon is a huckster, read “The Man Who Sold the Moon” – and not near to a Moon landing yet. Still a damn fine job.
1969…1980…2018 – Today was just too cool! Still can’t believe it…Elon’s the man.
I guess the Tesla is going to go further (into the asteroid belt) than they had planned.
icisil February 6, 2018 at 6:44 pm
Looked totally fake to me.
*******************************************
Has it occurred to you that 100,000 people were there to watch the thing launch and see the two engines return to land?
Or will you argue they were all hypnotized???
“Phaugh. All they needed was a CGI setup and a really big projection screen! Or psychedelics in the bottled water! Or… squirrel!”
Flat Earthers – Geocentrists – Warmistas – we’ll always have them.
IF people saw the things land, there will e videos of that. I want to see it. The video I saw was CGI.
Then you may have just watched the simulation cgi they published before the launch. 🙂 Take a look at the real launch in the link provided in the article.
Unfortunately, the link is a live feed. Doesn’t help me.
See video in Richard Keens post above.
I don’t have the bandwidth margin to watch a 43 min video hoping to find something, unfortunately.
“Then you may have just watched the simulation cgi they published before the launch”
That may be. Where’s the SpaceX landing pad video showing just the landing? (not the live feed) I can’t find it.
The landing is 38 minutes out in Richard Keens video. You should be able to drag the start cursor to 37:30 and watch from there.
Putting aside it was a test, which has been tested before, they had an opportunity to put something useful on it and they chose a second-hand electric car? We really are in the age of stupid! Voyager 1 may well have been just a brick with a bit of paper and an 8w torch tied to it.
Nobody is going to risk an extremely expensive payload on a first trial launch.
This is the first test flight of the Falcon Heavy and there was a reasonable chance that it could blow up. To put something valuable or essential on it would be stupid. Traditionally they would use concrete or steel to simulate the load. I have a pretty low opinion of Tesla, but sending a used Tesla into space was a very nice idea.
This launch was a spectacular success, despite the loss of one booster. I hope Space X have many more successful launches in the future.
Chris
I don’t think that an ordinary object it like a car is totally useless.
I hope the cameras will continue to operate and send pictures.
I think it will be fascinating to observe the solar system from the perspective of such a familiar object in an elliptic heliocentric orbit. This will appeal to a wider group of people than if it had been a camera on an ordinary satellite.
I also think it will be interesting to see whether the car the and its colors and polish will be affected by the vacuum and sunshine over time.
/Jan
Try getting a rocket into space using wind power, Elon.
No problem, methane is a useful rocket propellant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_(rocket_engine_family)
Methane can be produced from electricity, and electricity can be produced by wind power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas#Power_to_methane
/Jan
I do not want to be considered as negative in relation to this,so let me say, good job – to SpaceX and Elon, in the main point of this test…and in general term, if it could be put that way.
But still, while it could be considered as a good – successful test, in the main, that it consist only as per a “passage to space” test, and not as a good or a successful one in the term of “space exploration”…
If SpaceX and Elon have not made provision for this test to include or be inclusive to a test tracking of the “vehicle” thrown into a Sun orbit, for a month tracking, or a fortnight one, or at the very least a week period track testing, then there is no any accommodation of the thought or the claim of a “space exploration” concept…
If they at the very least have not missed to include or accommodate, at the very least, a week time period tracking of their vehicle in space, they in no way have being showing any serious or meaningful approach to “space exploration” in this one test, even when the test seems good enough and really touchy, or even a very good resulting one for a “passage to space” result… still it will not and does not even consist in principle with the basic means required to be tested, yet, for even traveling to Mars, let alone landing or exploring or colonizing Mars…
NASA vehicles already have traveled, landed, explored, and through whole that time and process have communicated and send a lot of info and data back to Earth and NASA…
I do not know, if this a good or not so good point, but still got to say, in overall good test and a good result, touchy, really touchy….but still, myself, can not see it as much to do with a space exploration perse test.
Still, got to say, a good one, and good luck to SpaceX and Elon with the future plans and aims…
Hopefully this point made is not so messy. 🙂
cheers
I am amazed at the carping going on. That was a first test flight and went very well. I’m sure the SpaceX team already has some idea of what went wrong with the barge landing and will fix it.
Now Elon did say he was going to launch the most ridiculous thing he could think of and I’d say the thing was a PR success as well as a technical success.
Sure NASA has been to lots of places BUT THEY AREN’T DOING IT NOW. SpaceX will go to those places also, but with people. It isn’t about exploration but exploitation. Expanding the range of the human race.
If I was 25 again I’d be wanting to work at SpaceX. Unfortunately at age 21, NASA gave us a taste of the Moon and then took it away for my entire working life.
Mike Borgelt
February 7, 2018 at 2:29 pm
Sure NASA has been to lots of places BUT THEY AREN’T DOING IT NOW. SpaceX will go to those places also, but with people. It isn’t about exploration but exploitation.
————————————-
Hello Mike.
Just allow me to express my view…which could be wrong…
Let’s see, simply using numbers…NASA has already set the bench mark…
Numbers, most tolerance allowed at a 1.1 mark, at max error tolerated, aim always at below it, below 1.1 mark max error tolerance, to send “robots to space and Mars, land and operate….as per NASA bench mark.
Regardless of NASA keep DOING IT OR NOT ANY MORE, still that bench mark stands….
SpaceX slings a “rock” or a “dead vehicle” to space at a 1.3…..
To get from 1.3 down to 1.1, at the very least, and contemplating people in space, it could even take an eternity and not be achieved ever if in the wrong path….no amount of cheering or an excellent PR will change it just like that…
Again as I have point it above, still a good one, a very good job so far, but no anywhere to be considered in terms of a success test as per space exploration…far too early to make that call, at this point….premature from my point of view.
thanks.
cheers
So is the payload (the Tesla Roadster) on it’s way to mars or not? If not, how far off track is it?
Can’t seem to find any news on it’s actual track – is it being monitored by SpaceX or NASA?
If it is way off track, could it crash back into earth’s atmosphere?
To “Get into Mars orbit”, THEN – as a very separate “thing” – to “Get into Mars orbit so you can land on Mars” requires a couple of “things”
First:
“Have enough energy and reliable spacecraft and reliable engines and enough fuel” to:
Get off the ground safely from Cape Canaveral,
Get into Low Earth Orbit from Cape Canaveral,
Restart the engine from Low Earth Orbit and get “aimed” out towards Mars, and
Get to Mars (past Mars orbit distance)
… and still have a restart-able engine and workable controls systems and radar and radio and antenna and power supplies and antenna controls!),
AND
Rocket controls and engine and fuel supplies to get down to Mars through the atmosphere and dust conditions and time delays.
So this “test” launch was to verify their Cape Canaveral systems and controls and communications were sufficient to let them launch (one) rocket from Cape Canaveral AND return (two) rocket to Cape Canaveral AND land TWO rockets at Cape Canaveral AND (one) more rocket on the barge mid-Atlantic downwind AND control one rocket in mid-space to the next launch point!
All of THAT is NOT easy-to-do! And ALL of “just that” requires several practice flights and thousands of hours of command and control simulation before you try it the first time for real.
Now, to actually navigate to Mars requires a very, very precise launch point and very, very precise orbit-with-powered flight from (now_0) earth position-and-orbit to next-year’s Mars position-in-orbit and positon-of-rocket all the way from Cape Canaveral to LEO to mid-Mars-intercept to -final orbit to first landing.
So, this flight is successful if they only get “out towards” (past) Mars with a re-start-able rocket engine. And enough fuel to simulat going into Martian orbit. Regardless of where Mars is when they get out there.
This practice flight aims the Tesla no more than “past Mars orbit” (into the asteroid field”) simply becxause there is no need right now to actually try to “get to Mars” …. First, you have to be able to “get further than Mars” so you can practice “bring enough fuel with you so you can stop before you pass Mars …
J. Philip Peterson
February 7, 2018 at 4:12 pm
——————
According to Elon press info, the batteries, in the payload will last only 12 hours.
From my superficial understanding, that means no any way to track it in the means of ping signaling to be tracked… no any further communicado or a signal from it beyond that time period….
No any planed or means for a communication or a signaling from the “dead vehicle” after the 12 hours battery time…
All I can say in that regard for as far as I can “see”…maybe I am missing something here. 🙂
@whiten – You would think they would have put one solar panel on the payload somewhere to keep the camera batteries charged.
I was thinking that the camera battery(s) were the ones that last only 12 hours.
They must have removed all the Tesla lithium batteries to lighten the load…
J. Philip Peterson
February 7, 2018 at 5:25 pm
——————
J. thanks for the reply.
I hope I am wrong in this, but I think you misunderstood my point.
If I am reading you correctly, you are saying that I am not right or correct or in the position to contemplate that SpaceX and Elon must have done something they did not…
My friend if that is what you point at, let me say…you are wrong.
I have just pointed at a fact, as it happens to be, meaning that a lot of care and serious approaches should be considered in such cases, simply as to make sure that Elons of this world do not get spoiled…
I am very aware that I have no right or position to tell or demand, either SpaceX or Elon in any thing concerning their business, but never the less, i think that I, as many others, can still have the right to point straight at the facts relating such affairs…
I did not point at what should have being done, simply pointed at what actually was done, a fact, the point related to it, and how that all affair seems to be from my point of view…
From my point of view, spoil Elons and be prepared to share responsibility and compliance in their failure and damages…when that happens….That is what I was trying a point out.
Failures of Elons, when do happen, are not entirely Elon’s fault…generally you will find that a lot of spoiling went on…
Give to Elon what is Elon’s, but for the sake of Elon, do not spoil it..:)
Putting it another way, as for the merit of this matter, exploitation is exploitation, it does not consist anywhere as far as I can tell, as exploration which, it, always requires that extra mile of straggle and endurance, which does not actually compute with exploitation at all at that point… 🙂
Ok, let me apologize at this point, if I happen to have misunderstood you, Philip.
Thanks.
Cheers
What’ he doing putting “The Stig” in his eleccy car. I would have thought the Musk and Clarkson were not buddies. :^)