SpaceX Falcon 9 B4 - ZUMA - Launching January 8, 2018
Screenshot of Tim Dodd hosting SpaceX ZUMA launch
Mission Rundown: SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 4 - ZUMA
Written: January 21, 2021
Zuma summarum. It didn’t deploy.
SpaceX is launching an unknown payload “ZUMA” for an unknown customer tonight onboard their Falcon 9 rocket taking off from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The mission has a two hour launch window starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern (1:00 UTC). SpaceX will be attempting to land the first stage of the Falcon 9 at the LZ-1 landing zone which is also at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
This is the 1st launch of 2018, the 2nd attempt of this particular mission (was supposed to launch in November last year), the 3rd classified payload SpaceX has launched, the 26th landing attempt and will be the 21st landing if successful and the 19th consecutive launch success Since AMOS-6. This will be the 47th launch of all Falcon 9 rocket models.
The ‘secret no one sees’ Payload
The Zuma satellite, manufactured by Northrop Grumman, was initially scheduled to launch on a Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) in November 2017, and launch-license LLS 17-104 for the rocket was issued by the Office of Commercial Space Transportation on 9 November 2017. Northrop Grumman purchased a payload adapter to customize the release mechanism, which was then tested three times on the ground prior to payload fairing encapsulation.
The Falcon rocket performed a static fire test as part of its pre-flight preparation, but results from a payload fairing test for another customer led to a delay of nearly two months. On 22 December 2017, the launch license for special temporary authority to transmit signals at 2.2 GHz during launch of "Mission 1390" was re-issued with a change of the launchpad from Launch Complex 39A to Launch Complex 40. The launch was subsequently rescheduled for 4 January 2018, and was further delayed because of weather concerns related to the January 2018 North American blizzard.
The satellite was launched on 8 January 2018 at 01:00:00 UTC from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station SLC-40 in Florida. The Falcon 9 first stage touched down at Landing Zone 1, and SpaceX later announced that all data indicated the launch vehicle had performed properly.
The fate of the spacecraft is not publicly known. According to unsourced media claims, U.S. lawmakers were briefed about the loss of the spacecraft and an unnamed government official said that it had re-entered the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean, possibly due to a failure in the payload adapter provided by Northrop Grumman in detaching from the second stage.
According to The Wall Street Journal, sensors had not reported the initial failure to detach. Later on, Zuma did ultimately detach from the upper stage payload adapter, but only after it was too late and with the orbit too low to attempt a rescue of the satellite.
On 8 April 2018, The Wall Street Journal reported that two independent investigations "tentatively concluded" that the spacecraft failed to separate from the payload adapter after launch due to errors introduced by Northrop Grumman. The adapter had been bought by Northrop Grumman from a subcontractor and heavily modified for use on the mission.
The Payload Adaptor Fitting - PAF used by or rebuilt by Northrop Grumman should have been purchased from SpaceX including the release rings mounted to the satellite and on the top part of the PAF. They look like a barrel locking ring holding the lid onto the barrel, and when the three locks open the ring segments and release of the payload follows.
Without knowing anything about the Zuma satellite actual mounting on the PAF, it must be noted that SpaceX have a preference for attaching payloads and fairings to the Falcon 9 second stage lying down on the Transporter Erector Launcher - TEL, while most other companies in the rocket launching and satellite building industries like Northrop Grumman prefer to mount payloads on vertical launch ready rockets.
Therefore there is a chance that the satellite on the Payload Adaptor Fitting - PAF used by or rebuilt by Northrop Grumman got jammed or squeezed in the payload release ring. If so then the release ring opened up unevenly and the ring edge got stuck under one of the sides of the locking ring. In hindsight if two locks open but the third is still locked, then the release ring doesn't open wide enough, and the satellite ring can’t pass through the gap.
Due to the classified nature of the mission, detailed information on the satellite and its fate may not be publicly released. Officially, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) still lists the satellite but with no orbital parameters and the orbital status code "no elements available", which is standard procedure for classified missions.
A previous tweet by Dr. Marco Langbroek (@Marco_Langbroek), who later has written up his analysis (including trajectories and maps) of what's known about the 2nd stage. This is a really good read about the fate of Zuma or at least the second stage.
A number of articles published by the amateur satellite tracking community stated that if the satellite was still in orbit or operating covertly, then it would likely be located visually. In the process of searching for Zuma, amateur astronomers found radio transmissions from IMAGE instead, a NASA satellite that was lost in 2005.
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