Hi it’s me Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut.
Welcome to part 1 of A complete guide to SpaceX’s webcasts!.
Today, we’re going to run you through a crash course on SpaceX’s current and upcoming
rockets, explain the different launch and landing pads and also ensure you that the
clouds of smoke pouring out of the rocket before the launch are perfectly normal.
By the end of this series, hopefully you’ll acquire all the knowledge necessary to have
a pretty good grasp on the cool things happening during these launches. Let's get started!
SpaceX has truly made a name for themselves not only by doing mind blowing things
with their rockets, but also by bringing us along for their launches in their really well
produced live webcasts.
They’ve changed the game on what kind of access we all expect when it comes to a rocket launch.
Now when we watch non-spacex rocket launches, they can be downright boring.
First things first, let’s lay a little groundwork.
For those of you that don’t know, SpaceX is a private rocket and spacecraft company
started in 2002 by PayPal and Tesla founder Elon Musk.
But don’t let “A private rocket company” fool you.
These aren’t some backyard bottle rockets or anything, these are some of the biggest
and most powerful rockets currently flying.
Not only that, SpaceX has figured out how to autonomously land and reuse the first stage of their
rockets with a very high degree of accuracy and success, something that no one else has
been able to do with an orbital class rocket.
If you want to know more about How SpaceX lands, or why them landing is a big deal,
or perhaps you need a basic rocket vocabulary lesson before continuing, I’ve got you covered!
Since their humble beginnings, SpaceX’s pace has picked up drastically.
Going from only a handful of launches per year to currently launching almost every two
weeks, they’re on pace to do more launches per year than all other US competitors plus,
all launches out of Russia combined!
So there are PLENTY of opportunities to catch SpaceX launch live on their webcasts at
youtube.com/spacex or spacex.com And don’t forget you even catch a launch live in person,
which I’ll talk about later in another video.
Next ground rule we should lay down is how to know WHEN SpaceX is going to launch so
you can catch them live.
Of course by following SpaceX and Elon Musk on Twitter, you’ll get plenty of updates,
but if you want to see a full up to date launch manifest, I highly recommend going to www.reddit.com/r/spacex
and check out their sidebar, or visiting spaceflightnow.com and clicking on launch schedules.
Then there’s even an app you can download called Launch Alarm that can notify you of
upcoming launches.
And don't forget I host live streams of SpaceX launches whenever I can, so join me live
whenever there's a launch and ask me any questions you might have.
So you now know when a launch is going to happen, now here’s what you’re going
to see when you pull up their live stream.
First off, they start the webcast about 20 to 30 minutes before their intended launch
time with SpaceX radio.
This is just their logo and music by the artist “Test Shot Starfish”, a duo based out
of LA who also founded the multimedia production company “Subtractive”
About 10 to 20 minutes before t minus zero, we’ll see a cool promo intro video that
always gets me really pumped!
Then we typically see a quick shot of the rocket and then a host who will be there to
update us on what the mission is and any other update on the launch.
We’ve seen a slough of hosts in the past and different formats, but lately as of summer
2017, they seem to have mostly settled with airing about 10 minutes before lift off and
having a single host give a simple run down.
One quick note, all of their hosts are actual full time employees and engineers at SpaceX and are
NOT just talking heads.
Pretty cool, right?
Now back over to the shot of the rocket sitting on the pad waiting to launch.
First, let’s talk about the different rockets you may see Spacex launch.
As of the summer of 2017, SpaceX is only launching one type of rocket, their two stage Falcon 9.
The Falcon 9 which first launched in 2010 has since been launched 39 times, making it
their workhorse vehicle.
Some future rockets we hope to see come online soon are their long awaited Falcon Heavy and
their next generation rocket that will be the biggest rocket to ever fly, the BFR
(Big Falcon Rocket) otherwise known as ITS (Interplanetary Transportation System).
If it turns out anything like Falcon Heavy which has been just 6 months away since 2013,
I wouldn’t hold my breath too much for the BFR to launch pre-2022 as we’re currently
led to believe.
Now back to Falcon Heavy…
It’s basically three Falcon 9 rockets strapped together to make a heavy class rocket with
almost as much thrust at lift off as the historic Saturn V moon rocket.
we SHOULD actually see it on a launch pad by the end of 2017.
Whether or not it flies in 2017 is to be seen, but the hardware for it has been spotted in
the wild many times.
We’re basically waiting to for SpaceX to fix one of their launch pads in Florida so
they can convert their current launch pad to support Falcon Heavy.
Prior to the Falcon 9, SpaceX first developed a much smaller rocket known as Falcon 1.
This vehicle only had one merlin engine on its first stage as opposed to the 9 merlin
engines we see on the Falcon 9.
The second stage had a small vacuum optimized engine known as the Kestrel engine which was
only used on the Falcon 1.
The first Falcon 1 launched on March 24th, 2006 but was unsuccessful after an engine
failure at T + 33 seconds.
The next two attempts at flying Falcon 1 were also unsuccessful but on September 28th, 2008,
Falcon 1 flight four succeeded to become the first privately funded and developed liquid-propellant
rocket to reach orbit.
Following another successful launch, the Falcon 1 was retired as SpaceX pursued their 9. Falcon
The success of Falcon 1 was crucial for SpaceX to secure contracts.
The Falcon 1 launched from a small launch pad in Kwajalein, Marshall Islands, which
is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and has remained unused since 2009.
Speaking of launch pads, let’s talk about which launch pads you can expect to see being
used today.
Let’s start in order with where the Falcon 9 had its inaugural launch.
On June 4th, 2010 SpaceX launched their first Falcon 9 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Now we often hear people refer to this whole area as “Kennedy Space Center” but technically
Cape Canaveral is just adjacent to Kennedy Space Center which is on Merritt Island, separated
only by small causeways.
This is a funny technicality, but you can spot the difference when you hear SLC (or
slick) for Space Launch Complex compared to just LC for Launch Complex.
SLC denotes the launch pad is on the Air Force side while LC denotes the launch pad is at
Kennedy Space Center.
Fun fact for the day.
You’ll recognize SLC 40 by it’s four large lightning towers and it’s relatively flat
and simple design.
SLC 40 is the site of the vast majority of SpaceX launches.
To date, 27 out of the 39 flights have taken place here.
Launches from SLC 40 are going to either be heading to Low Earth Orbit such as those heading
to the International Space Station, a Geostationary orbit, or perhaps a sun synchronous orbit.
While we’re talking about SLC-40, as of the making of this video, SLC-40 is still
offline after being completely destroyed.
On September 1st, 2016, a Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel (COPV) exploded inside the
second stage which caused an entire loss of the vehicle and its 200 million dollar payload,
the Amos-6 satellite.
This “pad anomaly” happened while fueling up a Falcon 9 for a pre-flight dress rehearsal
of an upcoming launch.
SpaceX always holds their rockets down and performs what’s called a static fire of
their rockets before launches to ensure all systems are in perfect working order.
SLC-40 is expected to return online by late summer 2017.
The next launch pad SpaceX got online and launched from was out of Vandenberg Air Force
Base, in central California.
SpaceX acquired launch pad SLC-4 in 2011 and on September 28th, 2013, SpaceX launched their
first Falcon 9 for the Cassiope mission into a Polar orbit.
You’ll easily recognize Vandenberg by its beautiful hilly landscape.
But don’t be fooled by its beauty, every launch I’ve been to at Vandenberg looks
like this.
Expect either insanely dense fog or the most gorgeous launch you’ll ever see.
Due to its location, all launches from Vandenberg head southward and are almost always on some
form of polar orbit or an occasional sun synchronous orbit.
Polar orbits are generally not as common as the others previously mentioned, so to date
there have only been 4 launches from Vandenberg.
This is bound to change in the near future as SpaceX will be launching and maintaining
an upcoming global internet satellite constellation that may see several launches out of Vandenberg
per year.
Vandenberg is also designed to be able to accommodate Falcon Heavy when it goes online.
The most recent launch pad SpaceX acquired and activated is historic LC-39a in Kennedy
Space Center, Florida.
Yes, you will almost ALWAYS hear the words historic in front of 39a.
Why?
Well, this is the launch pad that humans left Earth from to go to the moon!
As a matter of fact, every mission to the moon launched from 39A as well as a majority
of Space Shuttle launches.
So by all accounts it is fair to call it historic.
SpaceX officially leased 39A on April 14, 2014.
A day I remember very well, because I was there!
My first time doing photography for Spaceflight Now would happen to allow me the opportunity
to catch the signing of the lease of 39A.
Yes, I even got a selfie with SpaceX president, Gwynne Shotwell.
39A is easily recognizable by the remains of the Space Shuttle Fixed Service Structure
or FSS and Rotating Service Structure, RSS, which were last used on the final Space Shuttle
launch, mission STS-135 on July 8th, 2011.
Although SpaceX has heavily modified the pad, they’ve been slow to dismantle the large
rotating service structure as it doesn’t hinder their capability to launch, but it
is slowly being dismantled.
The Fixed Service Structure on the other hand will remain and function as the new crew access
tower where future astronauts will ride the elevator and climb inside a Dragon 2 capsule
sitting on top of a Falcon9, or maybe even a Falcon Heavy.
The FSS also houses a 24.4 meter (80 foot tall) lightning mast which provides lightning
protection to the vehicle and pad.
You’ll also notice on the outer perimeter a very large Horizontal Integration Facility
with SPACEX written in large letters on the side.
This building is large enough to house 5 cores at once, which is a good thing since SpaceX
has been landing so many first stages, they’ve been utilizing every square inch to store
them all!
This also means it’s big enough to bring together the three cores necessary to assemble
their mighty Falcon Heavy.
Spacex first launched from 39A on February 19th, 2017.
Since then they’ve managed to do 8 launches in just 6 months.
History will note it was fortunate that SpaceX had been preparing 39A for launches since
2015 so when the Amos 6 anomaly happened just some 6 kms (or 3.5 miles) away, they were
almost ready to go online with 39A, shortening their stand down time drastically.
Once Pad 40 is operational by late summer 2017, they'll resume Falcon 9 launches from
there and then work to convert Pad 39A for Falcon Heavy flights.
Once 39A is back up after its upgrade, we will hopefully see Falcon Heavy head out there
for its first static fire and then launch! Oh I can't wait!
Just like LC-40, launches from 39A are heading to Low Earth Orbit, or Geostationary orbit,
and of course the occasional sun synchronous or interplanetary mission as well.
Lastly, within a few years we hope to see SpaceX’s new launch site known as South
Texas Launch Site in Boca Chica, Texas go online.
SpaceX is working on this 100 million dollar launch site at the very southern tip of Texas.
This will be SpaceX’s first entirely private Space Launch Facility, with the other three
launch sites being leased from the government.
Launches out of Boca Chica will have a little bit limited flight paths due to the large
number of Caribbean islands, Florida, and Oil Platforms that constrain where the rocket
can fly.
It is however perfectly valid for some LEO launches, and any Geostationary or interplanetary
launch... like Mars!
Next we’ll get you up to snuff on SpaceX’s landing pads… something that is still crazy
to think about.
They need LANDING pads and not just launch pads these days?!!!
So SpaceX currently has two landing pads LZ-1 at Cape Canaveral, and another landing pad
at Vandenberg.
Each sites will have smaller pads around the primary pad for Falcon Heavy missions when
two cores will return to land and touch down simultaneously.
Something I can’t WAIT to see.
We also need to mention the two autonomous spaceport drone ships or ASDS’.
These football field sized barges are named Of Course I still Love You which lives on
the east coast and Just Read The Instructions that lives on the west coast.
If you don’t know why SpaceX lands on land sometimes and on these drone ships other times,
I’ve got a video for that!
One last item that gets asked often.
Why is there smoke coming from the rocket?
Is everything ok?
YES everything is perfectly fine.
That's just boil-off of the liquid oxygen.
Just like how water can exist as a liquid at a certain temperature and then boil off
into steam, oxygen does the same thing.
Oxygen’s boiling point is just much, much colder.
Liquid oxygen boils at -183 degrees Celcius or -297 degrees fahrenheit.
Since oxygen is more than 1,000 times denser in liquid form than gaseous form, all rocket
companies opt to use liquid oxygen.
So as the rocket sits on the ground waiting to go to space, it’s being warmed up by
ambient air around it, which in turn heats up the liquid oxygen and forces it to boil
off.
This means if the rocket didn’t vent the oxygen that boils off and turns into gas,
it would rupture the tanks from over pressurization!
But again, this is known and engineered, so don’t panic when you see large clouds of
smoke or steam pouring from the rocket while it’s on the pad. Everything's just fine.
So that’s going to do it for part one of “a complete guide to SpaceX’s webcasts.”
In part two we’ll talk more specifically about what you’re seeing during the countdown
and what you hear over the radio during that time.
Meanwhile let me know specifically if there’s any questions you’ve always had about their
webcasts and I’ll make sure and include them in the upcoming parts of the series.
While you’re at it, I’m wanting your opinion.
There are so many opinions out there about me wearing my iconic flight suit that I’ve taken around
the world with me since 2014.
If you didn't happened to notice, I didn’t wear the helmet after the intro as a way to be
less distracting.
I want to hear from you and get your opinions on whether or not I should wear the suit the
whole time and the helmet the whole time, or do half and half kind of like this, or don't wear the suit at all
(but I probably won't be naked...) Go ahead and take the poll here and let me know!
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Thanks everybody, that does it for me.
I’m Tim Dodd the Everyday Astronaut.
Bringing space down to earth for everyday people.