Falcon Heavy Launch

[sted]

Yeah, the launch was amazing but i was more amazed at the 2 boosters landing back on land again. Shame about the one on the boat.

Dont know why it has to land on a boat, and havnt looked yet. Seems a unnecessary challenge.

 

Have seen a video of every test from them and its impressive.

 

because of the earths spin. As i understand it to get back to land would take a lot more fuel so weight which needs more fuel (repeat to fade) lannding in the ocean (or further east iirc) uses a lot less fuel but there just isnt any land to land on hence a barge

[mavhc]

Not because the earth spins, but because rockets don't really go up

 

They go sideways because their aim is to orbit the earth, so they have to be going 1000s of mph sideways. The main reason they go up to start with is because it gets to the bit with less air faster.

 

The booster rockets are going much slower than the centre rocket by the time they're finished, and much less sideways, so they need less spare fuel to turn around.

 

The original tests were done on the barge because when they miss, it doesn't blow up half your space port when it misses

[tg12]

The booster rockets are going much slower than the centre rocket by the time they're finished, and much less sideways, so they need less spare fuel to turn around.

 

Beaten me to it! The central core of the Falcon Heavy is flying much higher and faster than the boosters are so returning to Florida would require a huge amount of fuel (which is extra weight too) in order to have the ∆V available to do it. It's much more efficient for it to slow itself enough to start free falling in the direction of travel.

[6Foot2]

Link:

[spaceX Picture Tweet]

 

Starman, last seen leaving Earth, made its first close approach with Mars today—within 0.05 astronomical units, or under 5 million miles, of the Red Planet

 

 

Posted on Twitter: 7^th October 2020.

[6Foot2]

Link: An asteroid got deleted because it was actually Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster

 

On Jan. 2, the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, announced the discovery of an unusual asteroid, designated 2018 CN41. First identified and submitted by a citizen scientist, the object’s orbit was notable: It came less than 150,000 miles (240,000 km) from Earth, closer than the orbit of the Moon. That qualified it as a near-Earth object (NEO) — one worth monitoring for its potential to someday slam into Earth.

 

But less than 17 hours later, the Minor Planet Center (MPC) issued an editorial notice: It was deleting 2018 CN41 from its records because, it turned out, the object was not an asteroid.

 

It was a car.

 

To be precise, it was Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster mounted to a Falcon Heavy upper stage, which boosted into orbit around the Sun on Feb. 6, 2018. The car — which had been owned and driven by Musk — was a test payload for the Falcon Heavy’s first flight. At the time, it received a great deal of notoriety as the first production car to be flung into space, complete with a suited-up mannequin in the driver’s seat named Starman.

 

The case of mistaken identity was resolved swiftly in a collaboration between professional and amateur astronomers...