Hello All,

Space Daily http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/J...the r_999.html reported that JAXA said the SS-520-4 launch will occur no earlier than Saturday. Here (see: https://xissufotoday.space/2017/01/...orbital-launch/ ), in concise form, are particulars of the upcoming launch of JAXA’s SS-520-4 nanosat launch vehicle carrying the TRICOM 1 test & educational satellite, including the ascent events timeline, a video of the recent (weather-scrubbed) first launch attempt, and a drawing of planned developed versions of the SS-520-4 test vehicle. ALSO:

SpaceX is providing live webcast coverage of tomorrow's (Saturday, January 14) scheduled launch of their Falcon 9 vehicle from Vandenberg Air Force Base, carrying 10 new-design Iridium satellites for the space-based telephone service provider--SpaceX's full information on this mission (including the webcast link) are reproduced below:

From: emily@spacex.com

WATCH LIVE: IRIDIUM-1 MISSION

SpaceX is targeting launch of the Iridium-1 mission tomorrow, January 14, from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The instantaneous launch window opens at 9:54:39 am PST or 5:54:39 pm UTC, and the launch will be broadcast live at www.spacex.com/webcast beginning at approximately 9:34 am PST or 5:34 pm UTC.

With this mission, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will deliver 10 satellites to low-Earth orbit for Iridium, a global leader in mobile voice and data satellite communications. The 10 satellites are the first of at least 70 satellites that SpaceX will be launching for Iridium’s next generation global satellite constellation, Iridium NEXT. For more information, visit www.spacex.com .

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NAR #54895 SR

Thanks for that... didn't get to watch it in realtime but just finished watching it on the video... very nice polar launch from Vandenberg, 10 satellites deployed for the Iridium constellation, and successful pinpoint first stage recovery on their secondary drone ship in the Pacific. All around by all appearances a "perfect" flight.

The drone ship landing was spectacular... not only did video remain uninterrupted from the Falcon 9 first stage through the descent, but through the landing burn and actual touchdown on the ship and engine shutdown as well. It was a perfect "bulls-eye" landing right on the center of the drone ship's deck; I guess "X" really does mark the spot! LOL

Reading their website a bit, apparently they've overcome the problems that blew up the second stage on the pad at Cape Canaveral back in September, caused by a buckle allowing super-chilled LOX to get between the outer carbon fiber layers of reinforcement around the aluminum liner of the high-pressure cooled helium spheres inside the upper stage LOX tank, which caused the explosion that destroyed that vehicle on the pad.

It's good to see them find the cause, quickly and efficiently repair it, and get back on their way. Quickest "return to flight" in recent history...

Later! OL J R

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The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

You're welcome, and thank you for confirming that the first stage landed successfully and precisely on-target (and with uninterrupted coverage, which I look forward to watching momentarily), as none of the radio news reports I heard here mentioned the first stage landing at all (such "radio silence" regarding that event has usually not boded well for what happened, when I looked up the Falcon 9 launch reports on the space news websites later...). Also:

This is, I think, the first successful off-West Coast first stage drone ship landing (Jason-3's first stage landed successfully, but a LOX/water ice-frozen lock-out collet on one landing leg allowed that leg to collapse after touchdown, resulting in a rather slow-motion "Timber!-Kaboom!" RUD [Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly] event). Plus:

I'm relieved (as SpaceX no doubt is, too!) that the problems which led to the Falcon 9/AMOS-6 launch pad explosion apparently *weren't* due to large, fundamental flaws in the Falcon 9 (which would have required lengthy re-design, ground testing, and re-qualification-for-flight work). Instead, a lot of SpaceX's fix for the helium tank explosion problem was simply procedural (changing the time and helium temperature [with respect to loading the super-chilled LOX into its surrounding tanks] when filling the pressure vessels with helium), although they are also improving the manufacturing and inspection of the carbon fiber-wrapped helium pressure vessels.

__________________
Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR

Yes, they said during the webcast this was the first landing on their secondary (Pacific Ocean) drone ship "Just Read the Instructions"... and AFAIK the first successful landing in the Pacific/West Coast of a first stage.

I looked around their website a bit and read the "news" timeline about the failure at the Cape last September. Evidently they had some prior experience that "buckling" could occur in the outer layers of carbon fiber reinforcement over the aluminum liners of the high pressure helium spheres but it hadn't been a problem to that point. Evidently, in the presence of super-chilled high density LOX, the oxygen could make its way through seams into the voids caused by the buckling and cause a buildup of high pressure ultra-low temp liquid oxygen. This presented an explosion hazard from friction ignition of the LOX or further separation of the layers in flight, as tank pressures dropped and the pressurized LOX in the void forced itself back out of the buckle void under it's own pressure, or even turn into solid oxygen "ice" which then presents a HIGH risk of frictional ignition and explosion. Evidently one of these two scenarios happened and led to the pad explosion last September.

The "fix" was to revert to the old style of mounting the pressure spheres (evidently outside the LOX tank) until redevelopment of the carbon-fiber reinforced aluminum spheres can be perfected to prevent the problem from recurring... then they can be mounted back inside the tank submerged in supercooled LOX.

IIUC, anyway.

Later! OL J R

__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

The Japanese Rocket crashed into the Pacific....

http://www.popularmechanics.com/spa...hes-into-ocean/

Wernher von Braun's team used titanium helium pressure vessels on the Saturn rockets, and they were mounted outside the propellant tanks (they were readily visible on the S-IVB stages, ringed around the J-2 engine on each stage). They may have been less efficient in terms of dry mass and the amount of helium they could hold (not being super-chilled by immersion inside the stages' LOX or LH2 tanks), but none of them ever ruptured in flight or during preparations for static firings of their stages on the ground. Seeing all of those (often quite large) chunks of solid oxygen on and around Falcon 9 second stages between engine burns in orbit, I shudder to think of those forming in the "wrinkles" of the pressure vessels' carbon fiber wraps...

__________________
Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR

*SIGH* Well...it took ISAS (the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, which became a division of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency [JAXA] in 2003) five tries, between 1966 and 1970, with their L-4S (Lambda 4S www.google.com/#q=Lambda+4s , denoting its four-stage configuration)--which was also based on a sounding rocket--before they successfully placed the Osumi www.google.com/#q=osumi+satellite test satellite into orbit on February 11,1970. Also:

I wrote the following for folks I know whom I've been keeping up-to-date on the SS-520-4 mission, and it includes links to additional reports, videos, photographs, and drawings (including of ISAS's/JAXA's proposed operational follow-on to the SS-520-4, the NL-520). It is as follows:

After a promising liftoff from the Uchinoura Space Center at 8:33 A.M. Japan Time (6:33 P.M. EST or 2333 GMT) on Saturday, January 14, JAXA’s SS-520-4 nanosatellite launch vehicle apparently ceased sending telemetry during the 31-second burn of the S-520 first stage, which prompted the flight controllers to refrain from issuing the second stage ignition command. The diminutive (just 9.5 m [31’] tall and 52 cm [20”] in diameter) satellite carrier rocket, with the TRICOM 1 satellite inside its nose cone atop the third stage, fell into a designated safety zone east of the launch site, which is located in Japan’s Kagoshima prefecture. Also:

JAXA has not announced plans for a second three-stage SS-520 orbital launch attempt, and the apparently one-off test was intended to validate low-cost technology for a future operational nanosat launch vehicle for injecting tiny satellites into desired orbits. (Such satellites, which currently ride mostly as “hitch-hiker” payloads, have to ‘settle’ for the orbits and launch schedules of those missions’ larger, primary spacecraft payloads, and this has spurred interest in small launch vehicles that can boost nanosats into dedicated orbits on their owners’ desired schedules.) Since JAXA has released drawings of proposed follow-on operational nanosat launch vehicles that are based on the SS-520-4 (having a short and finless booster added below the S-520 stage—one is called the NL-520, see: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/in...p?topic=40509.0 and https://xissufotoday.space/2017/01/...orbital-launch/ ), hopefully they will proceed with these designs. Below are links to more reports—some with videos, drawings, and diagrams, as well as photographs—about the SS-520-4 mission:

http://spaceflightnow.com/2017/01/1...short-of-orbit/

http://www.space.com/35341-experime...unch-fails.html

http://global.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/...html#topics9370

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/201...ricom-1-launch/

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/in...p?topic=40509.0

I hope this material will be helpful.

__________________
Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR