Falcon 9 Flight 21

Falcon 9 rolling out on 15 January 2015.

Falcon 9 Flight 21 (also known as Jason 3) was a Falcon 9 space launch by SpaceX that occurred on January 17, 2016 at 18:42 UTC from the company's launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base Space Launch Complex 4E in California.[1][2][3] Its payload was the Jason-3 Earth-observation satellite for NOAA/NASA/CNES.

The launch was the second to be conducted by SpaceX following the catastrophic failure of a Falcon 9 v1.1 launch vehicle's second stage on Falcon 9 Flight 19 in June 2015. It was also the final launch of a Block 2 Falcon 9—the Falcon 9 v1.1—although some parts of the rocket body were reworked following conclusion of the failure investigation.[4]

Launch schedule history

The Jason-3 mission appeared on the SpaceX manifest as early as July 2013, with a no earlier than launch year of 2015.[5]

A 7-second static fire test of the rocket was completed on 11 January 2016.[6] The test was successful, and the Launch Readiness Review was successfully completed with all parties on 15 January 2015.

Payload

Main article: Jason-3

The payload on Flight 21 is an Earth observation satellite named Jason-3, a follow-on to the Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM) (Jason-2). The initial OSTM satellite, Jason-1, was launched in 2001.

Jason-3 is the result of a four-agency international partnership consisting of NOAA, NASA, the French Space Agency CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales), and EUMETSAT (the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites). Thales Alenia Space built the spacecraft.

Jason-3 massed 525 kilograms (1,157 lb) at launch[7] and was successfully deployed into its target orbit after an orbital insertion burn about 56 minutes into the flight.[8]

Post-mission landing test

First stage of Falcon 9 Flight 21 descending over the floating landing platform, 17 January 2016.

Following paperwork filed with US regulatory authorities in 2015,[9] SpaceX confirmed in January that they would attempt a vertical landing controlled-descent flight test of the first stage on the west coast floating landing platform.[10]

This followed the successful eighth test, and first successful landing and booster recovery, on the previous launch in December 2015.[11][12] The controlled-descent through the atmosphere and landing attempt for each booster is an arrangement that is not used on other orbital launch vehicles.[13]

Approximately 9 minutes into the flight, the live video feed from the autonomous drone ship Just Read the Instructions, located about 200 miles (320 km) out in the Pacific Ocean, went down due to the ship losing its lock on the uplink satellite. Elon Musk later reported that the first stage did successfully soft-land on the ship, but a lockout on one of the landing legs failed to latch and it fell over resulting in a rapid unscheduled disassembly event.[14][15][16][17][18][19]

Debris from the fire, including several rocket engines attached to the octaweb assembly, arrived back to shore on board the floating landing platform on 18 January 2016.[20]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Bergin, Chris (7 September 2015). "SpaceX conducts additional Falcon 9 improvements ahead of busy schedule". NASASpaceflight.com. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
  2. ↑ "CRS-7 Investigation Update". SpaceX. 2015-07-20. Retrieved 21 July 2015. Our investigation is ongoing until we exonerate all other aspects of the vehicle, but at this time, we expect to return to flight this fall and fly all the customers we intended to fly in 2015 by end of year.
  3. ↑ "Jason-3 satellite". National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service. NOAA. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  4. ↑ , NASASpaceFlight.com, 8 January 2016, accessed 9 January 2016.
  5. ↑ "Launch Manifest - SpaceX". SpaceX. Retrieved 31 July 2013.
  6. ↑ Falcon 9 Static Fire Complete for Jason-3, NASA, 11 January 2016, accessed 12 January 2016.
  7. ↑ "Science AMA Series: We're NOAA and NASA scientists on the Jason-3 satellite mission set to launch January 17, used to observe global sea surface height, AMA! work=Reddit AMA, Reddit Journal of Science". 5 January 2016. doi:10.15200/winn.145199.97405. Retrieved 9 January 2016.
  8. ↑ Jason-3 Hosted Webcast. SpaceX. 2016-01-17. Event occurs at 1:37:08 (55:58 after lift-off). Retrieved 2016-01-17.
  9. ↑ "OET Special Temporary Authority Report".
  10. ↑ SpaceX Plans Drone Ship Rocket Landing for Jan. 17 Launch, NBC News, 7 January 2016, accessed 8 January 2016.
  11. ↑ "SpaceX ORBCOMM-2 Mission" (PDF). press kit. SpaceX. December 21, 2015. Retrieved December 21, 2015. This mission also marks SpaceX’s return-to-flight as well as its first attempt to land a first stage on land. The landing of the first stage is a secondary test objective.
  12. ↑ Gebhardt, Chris (31 December 2015). "Year In Review, Part 4: SpaceX and Orbital ATK recover and succeed in 2015". NASASpaceFlight.com. Retrieved 1 January 2016.
  13. ↑ "SpaceX wants to land next booster at Cape Canaveral". Florida Today. December 1, 2015. Retrieved December 4, 2015.
  14. ↑ Jason-3 Hosted Webcast. SpaceX. 2016-01-17. Event occurs at 1:06:30 (25:20 after lift-off). Retrieved 2016-01-17.
  15. ↑ tweet from SpaceX official twitter account after announcement on livestream
  16. ↑ "Elon Musk on Twitter". Twitter.
  17. ↑ "Instagram". Instagram.
  18. ↑ Boyle, Alan (2016-01-17). "SpaceX rocket launches satellite, but tips over during sea landing attempt". GeekWire. Retrieved 2016-01-18.
  19. ↑ "SpaceX: ice buildup may have led rocket to tip over". Washington Post (Washington Post). 2016-01-18. Retrieved 2016-01-18. Musk tweeted that the lockout collet on one of the rocket’s four legs didn’t latch, causing it to tip over after landing. He said the “root cause may have been ice buildup due to condensation from heavy fog at liftoff.”
  20. ↑ "SpaceX rocket wreckage back on shore after near-miss at landing". SpaceflightNow. 2016-01-20. Retrieved 2016-01-21.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Falcon 9 Flight 21.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, May 06, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.