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The return to launch operations for SpaceX has been half a year in the making, following the loss of the Falcon 9 that was attempting to loft the CRS-7 Dragon to the International Space Station (ISS).<\/p>\n
A post-failure investigation resulted in modifications being made to the rocket, specifically relating to the struts associated with the Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessels (COPV) \u2013 while additional improvements, via a \u2018deep dive\u2019 review \u2013 have also been implemented.<\/p>\n
![\"2015-10-16-171910\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/2015-10-16-171910-350x248.jpg\")
The path to Return To Flight (RTF) involves the first \u201cFull Thrust\u201d Falcon 9, which was rolled out of the SpaceX factory in August, en route to the company\u2019s test site near McGregor, Texas.<\/p>\n
That stage was erected on the new dual-purpose Test stand and came to life for the first time via a 15 second static fire test.<\/p>\n
As per the original plan, the stage was prepared for a second test, this time for the usual full duration firing that all Falcon 9 first stages enjoy prior to shipping to the launch site. This test is utilized to provide a vital health check of the nine engines and associated systems.<\/p>\n
That test was successfully conducted on an unspecified date, confirmed only by the transportation of the stage to Cape Canaveral in the second half of November.<\/p>\n
![\"2015-11-20-175128\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/2015-11-20-175128-350x235.jpg\")
Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) then successfully completed the Pre-Ship Review in late October 2015 for the satellites set to ride uphill, prior to delivering the 11 OG2 spacecraft to the Cape.<\/p>\n
Spaceflight history books (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n All OG2 spacecraft are based on SNC\u2019s SN-100 satellite bus, which can be tailored to support a variety of applications, including communication, Earth observation, weather and space science.<\/p>\n The SN-100 is designed for a five-year-minimum life and utilizes a modular payload deck that can be rapidly integrated and tested using highly automated scripts to test all functions.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got an exciting week ahead as we get ready for ORBCOMM\u2019s upcoming OG2 Mission 2 launch,\u201d noted the customer in a recent statement.<\/p>\n \u201cAll 11 OG2 satellites are fueled and stacked on the satellite dispenser, so they are ready to launch. SpaceX has integrated the two stages of the Falcon 9 rocket and encapsulated the fairing around the satellite stack. The encapsulated fairing is targeted to be mated to the Falcon 9 Tuesday, December 15.<\/p>\n \u201cSpaceX is currently aiming for a static fire of the Falcon 9 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n *Click here for more SpaceX News Articles*<\/p>\n This test involves a full propellant loading sequence \u2013 this time marking the use of denser deep cryo LOX on the upgraded Falcon 9 \u2013 launch countdown operations, engine ignition operations and testing of the pad\u2019s high-volume water deluge system. In effect, it provides a full dress rehearsal for the actual launch.<\/p>\n The rocket was rolled out during Wednesday afternoon, prior to being erected on the pad at around 4pm local time (Eastern). This marked the first time a Falcon 9 had been on the pad since the loss of the CRS-7 mission.<\/p>\n However, the opening attempts to conduct a Static Fire on Wednesday were unsuccessful for technical reasons, moving the attempt to Thursday.<\/p>\n However, several hours into the test window, with very little communication from official sources, Elon Musk took to Twitter to note they had been working through issues with the LOX loading.<\/p>\n \u201cFalcon 9 is vertical on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. Working towards static fire,\u201d noted Mr. Musk on Thursday. \u201cDeep cryo liquid oxygen presenting some challenges. -340 F in this case. Deep cryo increases density and amplifies rocket performance. First time anyone has gone this low for O2.\u201d<\/p>\n That led to an interesting debate on social media and space sites, including a tweet from United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vice President of Advanced Concepts and Technologies, Dr. George Sowers, who noted: \u201cThat\u2019s why we (ULA) don\u2019t bother. Lots of complexity for little gain. Tough to know the conditions of LOX at liftoff.\u201d<\/p>\n Hours passed without any further communication until the following day (Friday) when the customer, ORBCOMM, noted SpaceX would try to conduct the static fire for a third time during the day \u2013 albeit without any reference to the projected T-0 or window. However, the numerous attempts began earlier in the afternoon, without success until around 6pm Eastern when the Falcon 9 finally roared into life for a full duration firing.<\/p>\n Should the test prove to be successful, and once the required engine and vehicle data is collected, detanking operations will follow, before the rocket will be lowered on to the Transporter Erector (TE) and rolled back to the hanger for final integration processing in anticipation of launch day.<\/p>\n Providing the Static Fire proceeded as planned, engineers will take the flow into a Launch Readiness Review (LRR), which will then confirm the launch date for the OG-2 mission with eleven new satellites for the company.<\/p>\n The initial launch date was to result in a launch window of 20:25-23:25 Eastern on the 19th. However, as expected with the static fire issues, this has since moved to an alternate date of December 20.<\/p>\n That window was expected to be 20:02-23:02 Eastern. However, that has since been updated to an instantaneous window of 20:29 Eastern. The next launch opportunity will be December 21, after it was negotiated over the weekend, also with an instantaneous window at 20:33 Eastern.<\/p>\n While the absolute priority of the mission is the successful deployment of the OG2 passengers, marking the Return To Flight of the Falcon 9 rocket, the core stage may make its most ambitious propulsive return attempt to date.<\/p>\n Some of the most recent landing attempts have come close to nailing a touchdown on SpaceX\u2019s Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (ASDS).<\/p>\n One of the ships, \u201cOf Course I Still Love You\u201d, was spotted in transit on Wednesday, but SpaceX has not addressed the plan for her during the OG2 mission.<\/p>\n All that is currently known for this mission is SpaceX\u2019s ambition to conduct a historic landing on its new Cape Canaveral landing pad, officially known as LZ-1 (Landing Zone -1), but also tagged \u201cX1\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cNASA Causeway, east of the Space Station Processing Facility to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station boundary, will be closed until approximately 1 hour post launch,\u201d noted the update in SpaceX L2.<\/p>\n \u201cFollowing the launch, SpaceX may attempt a landing of the Falcon 9 rockets first stage at Space Launch Complex 13 on CCAFS. Should there be an anomaly, personnel are to shelter in place and avoid being next to glass windows and doors.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Musk later took to Twitter, his \u2013 and SpaceX\u2019s \u2013 main route of limited information to the media and public to confirm the landing attempt on the pad.<\/p>\n Previously it was understood that the first return to a landing pad would be via the Jason-3 mission, using the final Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket, launching out of SpaceX\u2019s Vandenberg site \u2013 which is now scheduled to take place in the second half of January.<\/p>\n In the event of a successful return of the OG2 first stage, NASA officials noted during a recent media event on the Space Coast that they would utilize the stage for testing at the company\u2019s newly refurbished LC-39A, which will eventually launch both Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9 rockets.<\/p>\n (Images: ORBCOMM, SNC, NSF Forum and L2 \u2013 including a render from L2 artist Nathan Koga \u2013 The full gallery of Nathan\u2019s (SpaceX Dragon to MCT, SLS, Commercial Crew and more) L2 images can be *found here*)<\/p>\n (To join L2, click here: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/l2\/)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SpaceX has conducted the key milestone of a Static Fire test at its Space Launch Complex \u2013 40 (SLC-40) pad on Friday. The debut launch of the upgraded \u201cFull Thrust\u201d Falcon 9 is set to loft eleven ORBCOMM-2 (OG2) satellites, marking the rocket\u2019s Return To Flight. The launch date is now scheduled as December 20, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[479,3842,316],"class_list":["post-39172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-falcon-9","tag-orbcomm","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39172"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"2015-12-16-202627\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/2015-12-16-202627-350x284.jpg\")
The satellites were then encased inside the Falcon 9 fairing and mated with the vehicle.<\/p>\n![\"2015-12-16-221608\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/2015-12-16-221608-350x228.jpg\")
The Static Fire test is a major milestone ahead of a SpaceX launch.<\/p>\n![\"2015-12-17-173019\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/2015-12-17-173019-350x221.jpg\")
During Thursday\u2019s attempt \u2013 with the rocket remaining on the pad overnight \u2013 propellant loading followed the path of the launch flow, with the aim of a short ignition of the nine Merlin 1D engines while the vehicle is held down on the pad.<\/p>\nSee Also<\/h4>\n
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![\"2015-12-16-230145\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/2015-12-16-230145-350x198.jpg\")
All previous attempts to refine SpaceX\u2019s ambition of returning core stages for eventual reuse have been conducted out in the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n![\"2015-12-16-230427\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/2015-12-16-230427-350x245.jpg\")
Such an event would be at the mercy of refinements to SpaceX\u2019s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) launch license \u2013 which SpaceX hasn\u2019t discussed publically. However, KSC workers have received a security notice on Friday, relating to large exclusion zones for one hour post-launch.<\/p>\n