Spacex's Falcon Heavy - Launch successful! -

[Kaido]

 

[Ns1]

This is all a smoke screen for the intelligence satellite they lost right?

 

[Markfw]

sounds like they lost the center core

Any confirmation on that ?

 

[DietDrThunder]

Any confirmation on that ?

I can't find any news on the center core.

 

[tynopik]

Any confirmation on that ?

officially no, but the fact they haven't confirmed successful landing is confirmation in itself

that said, one rumor was that it barely missed the ship. If that's the case, it might still be bobbing in the ocean and recoverable like the last launch where they intentionally landed in the ocean

or it might have crashed hard and taken out the drone ship with it

 

[Kaido]

Car in orbit:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/960992715579125760

 

[PottedMeat]

live view of starman:

 

[dainthomas]

officially no, but the fact they haven't confirmed successful landing is confirmation in itself

that said, one rumor was that it barely missed the ship. If that's the case, it might still be bobbing in the ocean and recoverable like the last launch where they intentionally landed in the ocean

or it might have crashed hard and taken out the drone ship with it

Throwing a car at Mars and landing 2 out of 3 rockets is pretty effing cool no matter how you slice it. We already know they can land the first stage, so this is probably some glitch from adding the two boosters (which is why they test).

 

[tynopik]

Unconfirmed Twitter report (via ars):

"Hearing from a friend that works in SpaceX, center core failed to relight and destroyed ASDS OCISLY"

 

[Ken g6]

Unconfirmed Twitter report (via ars):

"Hearing from a friend that works in SpaceX, center core failed to relight and destroyed ASDS OCISLY"

That's sad if true. They should have some kind of contingency with the grid fins to try to avoid the ship if the rocket doesn't relight. (But they could try lighting two outer cores instead first.)

 

[tynopik]

(But they could try lighting two outer cores instead first.)

The relight hardware adds weight and is only included on the engines they plan to relight

 

[K1052]

Even if they lost the center core and barge it's a remarkable accomplishment.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Aww, that poor drone ship. :-(

 

[local]

Awesome! I missed it live due to the launch delay but that meant I was able to watch it with my 4 year old twin daughters. The first thing they said was that they were sad they couldn't go on a rocket ship. I told them that this was a big step to making it much easier for them to do just that one day, they were excited.

Also watching the live stream of Star Man next to the intro to Heavy Metal is pretty cool.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That was awesome, I only really got to half see it since boss was asking questions about work related stuff but I did get to see the two boosters land in sync, that was incredible.

Also, is it going to Mars or not? My understanding is that it's heading into a Mars sphere of influence, except they won't be doing an insertion burn so it won't actually stay there, and just end up around the sun. Is that right?

It would be kind of cool if they did do an insertion burn but at the speed it will be passing Mars at I imagine they'd need like an extra booster worth of fuel for that at least. Technically more, because now you need more fuel to lift that booster, and need more fuel for that fuel... Space is hard.

I have a feeling they will come up with a version with 4 boosters though. Could add 2 more on the other sides. Then add more boosters to the boosters and now you go full Kerbal.

 

[Riverhound777]

 

[Red Squirrel]

Hard to keep your satellite dish pointed in the right direction under the thrust of a rocket engine Mark!

They should put it on some kind of gimbal. I'm sure they could engineer that just so everyone shuts up about the feed breaking each time.

 

[tynopik]

Also, is it going to Mars or not? My understanding is that it's heading into a Mars sphere of influence, except they won't be doing an insertion burn so it won't actually stay there, and just end up around the sun. Is that right?

it's going into an orbit that varies between the distance of earth and mars but never really approaches either, basically staying out of the way of everything

 

[IronWing]

it's going into an orbit that varies between the distance of earth and mars but never really approaches either, basically staying out of the way of everything

Oh, sort of like ATOTers at a party then.

 

[Kaido]

it's going into an orbit that varies between the distance of earth and mars but never really approaches either, basically staying out of the way of everything

Oh, sort of like ATOTers at a party then.

Outer space hover hand

 

[Ken g6]

Heeeeeee
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/960992715579125760
That is just weird !!!!

I knew this reminded me of something:

 

[Exterous]

they made it look easy

Yeah that was awesome that everything went so smoothly

 

[ElFenix]

 

[PottedMeat]

musk press conference:

from what i could hear (its soon after he sits down) he said there wasn't enough propellant for 2 outer engines to ignite, the center one did, it hit the water (?) at 300+mph knocking out 2 droneship engines

edit: they weren't going to reuse the core anyway, and the boosters wont be reflown because they're ver. 3/4 combinations and they're sticking to reflying v5

 

[TennesseeTony]

Would have been nice to have that center section to study for structural fatigue though...