Starlink Mission

[Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] so [Music] [Music] five three [Music] good morning it's friday august 7th and you're looking at a live view of falcon 9 as it awaits its 1 12 a.m eastern lunch time from pad 39a at kennedy space center in florida this will be the first mission from this pad since we launched bob and doug to the international space station over two months ago hello from spacex headquarters in hawthorne california my name is yomezo and i'm a dragon integration and test engineer here at spacex you're watching a live webcast for our 10th starlink mission marking our 13th mission of 2020. to date we've launched almost 540 starlink satellites to orbit as a reminder starlink is a constellation of satellites in low earth orbit that can provide high-speed low-latency internet all over the globe particularly in remote rural areas where connectivity is limited or completely unavailable today's launch will be a longer one as we are reverting to a circular orbital insertion which requires two burns of the merlin vacuum engine on the second stage we are doing this at the request of our rideshare customer flying on board today's mission which is our second small sat ride chair on a starlink mission today there are two black sky satellites sitting on top of the starling stack on behalf of our customer space flight black black sky is a global monitoring company that combines space assets with advanced ai and machine learning analysis to provide customers with the first to know advantage now in order to make room for these two black sky satellites today we'll be launching 57 starling satellites instead of the 60 we've traditionally launched in the past if for some reason we have a hold on the countdown today we do have a backup opportunity tomorrow at 12 50 a.m eastern we are now at t-minus 11 minutes and 43 seconds and all systems are go for an on-time liftoff this morning on your screen is falcon 9 our two-stage liquid field launch vehicle getting ready for launch from pad 39a falcon 9 stands 229 feet tall or slightly taller than a 21 story building today's flight will be the fifth for this booster which made its debut on our demonstration one mission in march of last year we flew on radar sat three months later and then supported two starlink missions in january and april of 2020. this flight also marks the tenth reflight of falcon 9 just this year the bottom two thirds of the vehicle is the first stage it's designed to be reflown 10 or more times with minimal refurbishment between flights if you look closely you can see the soot markings still on the vehicle from its previous four flights the first stage has nine merlin engines that do the bulk of the work to get falcon 9 off the ground and up to the thinner parts of the earth's atmosphere before second separating from the second stage and making its way back down to earth for landing today we'll be attempting to recover this first stage for the fifth time on our drumship of course i still love you which is currently stationed in the atlantic ocean about 330 nautical miles northeast of our kennedy space center launch site now above the first stage is the second stage which has the single merlin vacuum or mvac engine which ignites after the first stage separates propelling the second stage along with the black sky and starling satellites into a circular orbit above the earth's surface from there the first of the black sky rideshare satellites will separate after about an hour into flight followed by the second five minutes later the 57 starling satellites will then deploy about 25 minutes after that at t plus 1 hour 32 minutes and 55 seconds now that structure at the very top of the rocket is the 17-foot diameter payload fairing which safely encloses the stack of 57 starling satellites and two black sky satellites this bearing protects the satellites from aerothermal heating aerodynamic loads and contamination during ascent once we reach the vacuum of space we'll jettison the fairing halves while second stage continues on to orbit now as you can see the fairing halves that we're using today are a brand new set and we'll be attempting to recover them using our recovery ship's miss tree and mischief two minutes before the fairings are set to land the team will decide if conditions are good to make a safe catch attempt weather plays a big factor in the decision as it can impact not only the sea states for the ships but also the fairing's altitude position and speed which impact how the fairing will fall back to earth good early morning i'm john inspector falcon 9 principal integration engineer here at spacex a falcon 9 rolled out to the pad with the payload just over 24 hours ago this is the third time we've rolled out falcon 9 to the pad following launch attempts on 26 june and 8 july through all of this falcon 9 has been trouble free as the delays have been weather related and payload related now the launch director held the go no go pole for propellant loading and launch at t minus 38 minutes about half an hour ago now the seven members of the launch team confirmed they were ready to proceed and we began propellant loading at t minus 35 minutes now as a reminder falcon 9 is a bi-propellant vehicle that means it uses both a fuel and an oxidizer our fuel is rocket grade kerosene you'll hear us also refer to it as rp1 and our oxidizer is super chilled liquid oxygen also called locks now currently the rp1 and locks are nearly fully loaded on both stages in fact fuel is completely loaded liquid oxygen will continue to load until the last two minutes of the countdown that will ensure that this densified liquid oxygen is as cold as we can keep it to get the expected performance out of the merlin engines we're also loading ultra cold helium similar to the locks being very cold it lets us get the maximum amount into storage vessels on both the first and second stages now we use helium to pressurize falcon 9's tanks and to help pull the rp1 and the locks through the merlin engine turbo pumps now to make sure engine startup goes well we also perform what we call engine chill we'll ought to hear that in the background in about 20 seconds at t minus seven minutes we begin flowing a small amount of that super chilled locks into the merlin engine turbo pumps this helps get them cold and avoid thermal shock to the system when we do the full flow of liquid oxygen through the turbo pumps in the last couple of seconds stage one engine chill has started and there we've got the confirmation stage one engine chillas started in your picture there's a white structure next to the falcon 9. that's the strong back portion of the transporter rector this strong back portion provides the liquids the gases electrical connections to the second stage as well as an air conditioning line up to the payload fairing now in about two minutes that strong back will retract slightly from the rocket about two degrees then at t zero hydraulics will pull the strong back farther away from the falcon 9 as it lifts off now on the weather front the good news is weather is cooperating we were watching clouds to the west but the probability of good weather has been increasing and we should stay go for the last six minutes of the countdown also the upper altitude winds are fairly calm for when this vehicle goes supersonic so right now the vehicle payloads in range are go for an on-time liftoff just over six minutes from now for those of you who don't know much about the starling program our mission is to bring high-speed low-latency internet to people all over earth some of the most exciting opportunities for starling are rural or remote locations where traditional fiber or cable just isn't practical on our june 7th mission we launched the first starling satellite with the deployable visor to block sunlight from hitting the brightest spots of the spacecraft this demo satellite also known as visorsat is just one of the many actions spacex has taken in collaboration with leading astronomical groups to mitigate the effects of satellite reflectivity we're still waiting for the satellite to reach its operational orbit however we're excited to report that all 57 of the satellites on today's mission do have sun visors and all future satellites will be outfitted with these visors as well it'll take a bit more time for our visor sets to reach their operational orbit and at that point we'll see the full results of this effort now today we also wanted to share a few updates on our rideshare program spacex has launched some notable rideshare missions previously including spaceflight's ssoa mission in december of 2018 and the new centaur satu mission in february of 2019 that had a lunar lander on board correct today's starlink mission marks the second official mission under spacex's smallsat red share program which gives small satellites flexible access to what is now the most flown operational rocket in the united states falcon 9. we have over 100 spacecraft slated to fly our ride to your missions and that number will continue to grow under our multi-launch agreement with today's customer spaceflight under this agreement spaceflight reserves capacity to launch payloads on several spacex launches through the end of 2021 and it allows space flight to package multiple payloads onto a single port to reduce costs for their end customer we have a long working history with space flight and look forward to continuing this partnership into the future we're coming up on four minutes from liftoff falcon 9 moving into the final stages of the countdown getting ready for the strong backed retract there on your screen the clamp arms around stage two are opening up momentarily we will see the strong back move away about two degrees from the rocket now first and second stages are both nearly fully loaded we've got almost a million pounds of kerosene and liquid oxygen on board feels fully loaded on stage one at stage two and we are finishing liquid oxygen loading in the last two minutes of the countdown it's that super chill liquid oxygen that's creating those white clouds that you can see around the falcon 9 is the bleed gaseous oxygen mixes with that warm humid florida air and that gives you the condensation clouds that you see now coming up at t minus 60 seconds you'll hear the call out of startup that means the rockets flight computers have taken over the falcon 9 commands for the last minute of the countdown inside of two two seconds we light the merlin 1d engines we will mix t-tip which is our ignition fluid with liquid oxygen that begins combustion we then allow the fuel into the thrust chamber and the engines come up to power for liftoff at t0 inside of three minutes we're closing out liquid oxygen loading on the first stage meanwhile the sterling and black sky payloads continue to be healthy the falcon 9 team is tracking no issues on the rocket the weather's looking good and the range is green for launch a moment ago we heard the call out that stage one lox load was complete transport erector has reclined next major event will be stage two liquid oxygen loading completion stage two box load is complete we've got stage two liquid oxygen loading complete that means all propellants are fully loaded on the falcon 9 first and second stages the chillin announcement was telling us that we've had enough time with the liquid oxygen running through the merlin 1d turbo pumps to get them down to the necessary temperatures to go into the ignition sequence currently you can see a large white cloud coming off of the strongback that's normal at this stage we are now having fully loaded all the propellants we're bleeding back the liquid oxygen in the fuel out of the system so that uh we're getting a little bit of anything overboard and that gives you the large white plume again as that warm humid florida air mixes with the cold gaseous oxygen to give you the clouds falcon 9 hasn't started all out falcon 9's in startup flight computers are now running the falcon 9 we're pressurizing the stages for flight and we're waiting for the final go ld go for launch with that the spacex launch director has confirmed we'll go for launch so as we come up on t minus 30 seconds let's listen to the final countdown and watch as falcon 9 takes our starlink satellites and black sky satellites to orbit stage pressing for flight t-minus 15 seconds 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 two one zero [Music] and flipped off and when the propulsion is nominal plus 40 seconds since the launch of falcon 9 propulsion is confirmed merlin's looked nominal power and telemetry are confirmed nominal from the avionics engineer with throttling down right now on the merlin 1d engines preparing for super sonic and max q got the call out for mach 1. we have throttled the merlin's back up to full power next event will be maximum dynamic pressure and there we are we're going through the thickest portion of the atmosphere at the highest speeds now as we continue to accelerate falcon 9 the air density gets thinner and the loads on the vehicle decrease a minute 30 seconds trajectory continues to look good that d chill indicates we now begin to bleed a little bit of liquid oxygen through the upper stage engine turbo pump to get it ready for ignition coming up in just about 40 seconds from now nice view from the ground camera looking up the long plume coming out of the nine merlin 1d engines now major event coming up will be main engine cutoff coming up but just after two and a half minutes called miko we shut off all the nine engines we'll separate the first stage from the second stage and we will ignite the second stage engine called ses1 the second stage engine start number one begin to throttle down stage separation confirmed and we've got successful mvac full power ignition the view on the right shows the mvac engine the second stage now taking over carrying the starlink and black sky satellites to orbit on the left screen the first stage is continuing without power to coast to apogee and you can see the large titanium grid fins beginning to open with the lights of the united states in the background as we slowly head up the eastern coast of america coming up will be fairing separation there's a view of the fairing and we confirm fairing separation so the falcon 9 second stage continues at full power carrying the starlink and black sky satellites to the first of two orbits the first stage is continuing to coast to apogee and then it will begin to fall back to earth and eventually two burns to land on the drone ship in the atlantic ocean the trajectory right now continues to look great down the middle everything's looking good on falcon 9. so as we come up on four minutes we will remind you that we are attempting to catch and recover both varying halves now that they've separated on our recovery vessels mystery and mischief if we make a successful catch we'll try to bring you these views live otherwise check our social media accounts for updates right now four minutes 20 seconds the mission all is going well while stage two is doing its job there on the right stage one is headed back home to to earth can't quite see it on the video on the left but it is doing that and it will do this by executing a series of two burns the first burn is the entry burn where three of the nine m1d engines will light up and slow the stage down as it reenters the upper part of the earth's atmosphere the second burn is the landing burn and this is a single engine burn that brings the vehicle speed down rapidly in order to land on the drone ship you can see on your screen that the second stage mvac is still glowing and in the middle of its burn there carrying our satellites to orbit so stage 1 entry burn is going to start in just over a minute here at t plus 6 minutes and 21 seconds stage one is currently navigating home to earth using both its grid fins and that small spread of light that you saw was a nitrogen burst from the attitude control system which is nitrogen gas that helps to orient and guide the first stage as it heads home there are four grid fins and four attitude control thrusters on the inner stage of the rocket just about 20 seconds here we will hear the call out for the start of the stage one entry burn this burn will last 20 seconds again it's a three engine burn that will slow the first stage down as it enters the upper parts of the earth's atmosphere stage one entry burn startup heard confirmation of the stage one entry burn startup you can see those backlit grid fins with those three engines burning there again this burn lasts 20 seconds stage one entry burn shutdown we've had confirmation of successful stage one entry burn and we're about a minute away from our landing burn the landing burn will start at t plus eight minutes and it is also about 20 seconds long the landing burn should bring us to our drone ship of course i still love you in the atlantic ocean so we have briefly lost that first stage view but we should get it back when we get closer to the drone ship we're about 30 seconds out from the stage one landing burn again this is a single engine burn hd it's the engine right in the middle stage one is transonic right now for about 10 seconds from landing burn start stage one landing burn heard the call out for the start of stage one landing burn you can see the clouds sort of lighting up there stage one landing leg deploy wow look at that stage one sitting on our drone trip of course i will still love you that was a beautiful view of the stage one as it came down there lighting the clouds up and in just about 10 seconds here we'll have second engine cut off there right on your screen we've had confirmation of that second engine cutoff and we're waiting for a confirmation of good orbit out of this first burn here nominal parking order insertion we're in a nominal orbit and now we're about to enter a coast phase so we're going to take a quick break but we're going to leave you with an animation that shows you where we are in the coast we'll be back at about t plus 46 minutes and 30 seconds for a second stage relight acquisition of signal new finland [Music] [Music] my so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] so [Music] expected loss of signal bermuda [Music] [Music] my [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] acquisition of signal goon hilly expected loss of signal new finland [Music] [Music] [Music] um no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no [Music] [Music] [Music] okay so [Music] this my [Music] we're all working together now uh [Music] expected loss of signal gun hilly um so [Music] three [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] my [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] acquisition of signal digo garcia [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] so welcome back to the live webcast of starlink nine we had an on time liftoff from pad 39a and a beautiful landing on our drone ship of course i still love you we are now awaiting the second relight of our second stage engine at t plus 47 minutes and 23 seconds and this is the shortest burn that we will do lasting only about three seconds we also just got an update on our fairing halves we did not manage to catch them this time but we'll keep trying we're just about 10 seconds out from second engine startup 2 and this is the shortest burn that we'll do it is the second of two burns and it will put us in the proper orbits to deploy the black sky satellites and starling satellites stage two ignition and shutdown wow you can see a beautiful video of that second stage as it successfully started up and shut down lasting only about three seconds there there were some beautiful plumes coming off you heard the call out we have nominal orbital insertion and now that we are in a good orbit we'll be coasting again for the next 15 minutes or so and we'll be back at about t plus one hour for the first of two payload deploys of the black sky satellites for our rideshare customer see you in a bit [Music] [Music] expected loss of signal diego garcia [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so it's good [Music] [Music] um [Music] [Music] i'm ready for another [Music] [Music] for our journey tomorrow [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so so acquisition of signal tasmania [Music] [Music] welcome back to the webcast for our 10th starlink mission and second mission with a rideshare customer today's share includes the two earth observation black sky micro satellites now we're about a minute away from the first of the two satellite deployments we got here with a great launch of stage one we also got to see the landing on the drone ship in the atlantic ocean we're getting to see a view right now looking from the camera on second stage all the way up the starlink stack and at the very top are the two black black sky satellites second stage did two burns put us into the circular orbit we're about 400 kilometers circular right now and we're coming up on the first of the two deployments as i mentioned that ought to be happening in about 30 seconds we'll then go through a six minute period uh actually about five minutes and change and then we will get the second and final black sky rideshare satellite deployment we're then going to go through another coast phase where we'll drop away briefly and then come back to see the 57 starlink satellites deploy a t-plus one hour and 33 minutes global 7 deploy confirmed we've heard confirmation from the avionics engineer that global 7 the first of the two black sky satellites has successfully deployed we're waiting to see if it might come into the field of view of the camera this camera is mounted on what we call the payload attach fitting it's a somewhat conical structure on the front of the second stage and that's what the starlink satellites are mounted on top of that's the stack of satellites you see in the picture and then at the very top are the two black sky satellites and i think we're starting to get a view there and right into the sunshine or sun glare not sure yet if that's a reflection or but i think we got a short view of it there and then it's uh overpowered the field of view a little bit camera's still working though so that's good now as a reminder way at the top of the stack that's where the two satellites are the second satellite will be separating in just over four minutes from now currently as you can see on the map the falcon 9 second stage with the 57 star links and one more black sky satellite we're passing south of australia you know kind of halfway between australia and the uh antarctica continent we're getting telemetry video down through the tasmania ground station now we're beginning to switch camera views back looking at the mvac nozzle we've got two cameras on the back end of the second stage one on each side of the mvacd engine so that we can get a view almost all the way around to the engine when it's operating brings you those views as we head into space where the nozzles glowing red hot right now you can see there's that white crystalline looking structure at the end of the tube that is solid oxygen so in the vacuum of space that densified liquid oxygen we use when it actually comes out that's a drain tube that helps vent some of it overboard it'll actually freeze into a solid so just think about that that's oxygen that you breathe in solid form it's actually fairly fluffy it's not a very hard crystal and you'll see them pop off if you watched our webcast before or we may see one come off a little bit later now currently i mentioned we're getting data through tasmania if you recall earlier young talked about to accommodate black sky we went down to 57 starlink satellites now we had to do that because typically when we're flying starlink we go into an elliptical orbit after one burn and then we separate the satellites and their ion thrusters will lift them to the final orbit but for the uh space flight customer with the black sky satellites we need to get to a circular orbit so that required two burns the second of which you saw just a while ago when we got to apogee that circularized the orbit but in order to do that that took more propellant out of the vehicle so you couldn't carry quite as much mass so we traded off three of the starlinks so we're at 57 star links on the stack again another view there looking back on the mvac d engine that's the solid oxygen out on the overboard drain line that you can see in that one camera view now currently second stage is fairly passive we deployed the first of the two satellites we don't do any maneuvering we're just holding it there what we essentially are doing is occasionally we're letting a little bit of pressure out the back end of the vehicle we want to make sure that when it's time to deploy the second satellite in about a minute and a half that we aren't maneuvering the second stage you know it's kind of you can do a couple of things with the second stage for satellite deployment one is you can go into an idle mode that's where you're not commanding any of the attitude control thrusters you're not opening any vent valves you want the stage to be passive so that when the satellite separates there's not the chance the second stage may be rotating or slewing a little bit the other way that we'll see a little bit later with the starlinks is you can spin the stage that'll give a little bit of gyroscopic stability or rigidity to the satellites as they come off of the stack so for the black sky satellites right now we're getting ready for the second deployment and we're just leaving the second stage in an idle mode where it's not maneuvering and giving good conditions for the deployment the black sky satellites themselves are each held onto the very top of the stack with what they call a light band that opens up with a motor and then springs slowly push away the satellites as you saw with the first one moving away slowly expect to come to the next deploy in about 20 seconds we're going to listen in for the avionics engineer confirmation global 8 deploy confirmed and there it is global eight deploy confirmed the second of the two black sky satellites that are on top of the large stack that you see there so we've got the first two out there are 57 more to go so right now we've got as i said two black dry satellites on behalf of our customer spaceflight now that makes a total of six black sky satellites in the constellation and we want to wish a bon voyage to the black sky satellites it was our pleasure to give you a lift today into earth orbit now as i mentioned earlier stage two is going to continue to coast in this orbit for another 24 minutes now during this time we will slowly spin at the second stage along its central axis as we come back to camera view you may be able to tell it's fairly hard to see that we're spinning it's very slow but that will provide the stability that the starlink satellites need as they space themselves out over time after they separate from the second stage so with that we're going to take another break right now we'll leave you with the animation shows where we are in the coast phase and we'll back around 2 plus 1 hour and 32 minutes a little under 24 minutes from now for the deployment of our 57 starlink satellites [Music] expected loss of signal tasmania [Music] [Music] no no [Music] uh no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no [Music] [Music] [Music] um [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] is hello [Music] uh um [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do so [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Applause] [Music] [Music] do [Music] starting deployment spin [Music] [Music] [Music] hello welcome back again to the webcast for starlink nine just before we went on break we saw the successful deployment of the two black sky satellites which were ride sharing with starlink the mission manager has confirmed that black sky has successfully acquired signal from both global seven and global eight acquisition of signal vandenberg we are less than a minute away from the deployment of our 57 starlink satellites you can see them appearing on and off on your screen here as we get signal from our ground stations deployment for these satellites will start at about t plus one hour 33 minutes and eight seconds again the second stage will slowly spin and deploy the stack of 57 starlink satellites coming up in just under 10 seconds here starling tension rod separation confirmed the call out that we've had a successful deployment of our starling satellites you can see the video just came back here of them floating away into space to date now we've sent 595 sterling satellites into orbit you can see on your screen there the satellites are slowly separating from each other and shortly they will deploy their solar arrays now over the course of the next few days and weeks these satellites will use their onboard ion thrusters to distance themselves from each other and enter their operational orbits well that brings our webcast to a close and what a week it's been here at spacex just four days ago we saw crew demo 2 successfully returned home with nasa astronauts doug hurley and bob benkin on tuesday starship took flight in our south texas location and now we've capped it off with our 10th successful starlink mission to date as we watch the starlinks drifting away getting ready for their weekend we'd like to thank you our customer spaceflight the federal aviation administration for licensing the launch and the 45th space wing and nasa kennedy space center for their range support today now if you're interested in future updates about starlink launches as well as general updates about future service availability head over to starlink.com and sign up as always thank you for joining us today and we'll see you next launch [Music] [Music] you

Channel: SpaceX

Views: 1,549,022

Rating: 4.9437532 out of 5

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Id: KU6KogxG5BE

Length: 112min 18sec (6738 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 06 2020

Reddit Comments

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[u/Kuchenblech_Mafioso]

Unlikely. I don't think they would launch in 7 hours without anybody noticing until now. My guess is it is the wrong date and description for the GPS launch tomorrow

[u/4KidsOneCamera]

Their streams have had the wrong time before. This is likely another case of that.

[u/Screamingmonkey83]

spacextimemachine says 1 day 7 hours. im also bit confused. maybe someone whos responsible for the livestream set it up one day too early?!

[u/seanbrockest]

They still haven't noticed. 40 minutes till stream start.

511 people waiting

[u/TheLonlyGuy]

Next SpaceX launch is GPS III SV03 'Columbus' on June 30th Source 1 Source 2

[u/seanbrockest]

LOL This stream is still up with 48 people Waiting.

[u/Decronym]

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Jargon	Definition
Starlink	SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation
scrub	Launch postponement for any reason (commonly GSE issues)

Fewer Letters	More Letters
GSE	Ground Support Equipment

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^{2 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has acronyms.
[Thread #276 for this sub, first seen 2nd Jul 2020, 12:36] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]}

[u/Firecul]

Well they got round to it eventually lol