Thursday, July 25, 2019

SpaceX Falcon 9 - CRS-18

  SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 - CRS-18 - Launching July 25, 2019

Screenshot of CRS-18 on Space Launch Complex 40 from SpaceX YouTube video

Mission Rundown: SpaceX Falcon 9 B5 - CRS-18

Written: January 7, 2021

Lift Off Time

July 25, 2019 - 22:01:56 UTC - 18:01:56 EST

Mission Name

CRS-18

Launch Provider

SpaceX

Customer

NASA

Rocket

Falcon 9 Block 5 serial number B1056-2

Launch Location

Space Launch Complex 40 - SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida

Payload

Cargo Dragon serial number C108-3

Payload mass

Approximately 7 700 kg ~ 16 975 pounds)

Where did the Dragon go?

Initial orbit - 203 km x 387 km x 51.6° 

Low Earth Orbit to the International Space Station

Will they be attempting to recover the first stage?

Yes - There is enough fuel to return to launch site

Where will the first stage land?

LZ-1 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida

Will they be attempting to recover the fairings?

No. The Dragon capsule have a jettisonable nose cone  and solar panel covers on the Trunk

This will be the:

When stars align and numbers match up like pad launches and rocket landings, it looks magical - sort of true

Just a fluke of counting with 73 flights and 30 failed landings giving 43 successful landings - it also means all launches from pad 39A and SLC-4E equals 30 launches

You will see this alignment again

– 73rd flight of all Falcon 9 rockets

– 23rd re-flight of all Falcon 9 boosters

– 17th flight of Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket

– 9th re-flight of Falcon 9 Block 5 booster

– 3rd mission for this Dragon capsule C108-3

– 43rd SpaceX launch from SLC-40

– 43rd booster landing overall

– 9th mission for SpaceX in 2019

– 50th anniversary for Apollo 11 in July 1969

Where to watch

Where to read more

SpaceX link

Other


Launch debriefing

(This is what happend)

If the times given in the articles about CRS-18 are correct then the T+ are correct.


Local time in Florida EST is 5 hours earlier.


Between the deorbit burn and splashdown it only took 11:22 minutes to get down to Earth.


The second count is frozen due to lack of exact seconds given by the UTC times.

-

T-00:14:27

Hosts:

T 00:00:00

T+00:01:18

T+00:02:23

T+00:02:30

T+00:02:43

T+00:03:05

T+00:06:45

T+00:07:54

T+00:08:46

T+00:09:44

T+00:12:13

T+00:14:00

-

T+41:59:04

784:59:04

787:21:04

No Tim Dodd coverage on this mission

SpaceX live feed at 00:32

Siva Bharadwaj and Michael Andrews

Liftoff at 15:00 - 22:01:56 UTC - July 25, 2019

MaxQ at 16:18 (3 sec delay on downlink camera)

MECO 17:23, stage separation 17:25

SES-1 at 17:30

Boost back burn at 17:43 for 40 seconds

Nose cone separation at 18:05

Entry burn 21:45 by 3 Merlin 1D# for 21 seconds

Landing burn 22:54 by 1 Merlin 1D# for 33 seconds

SECO at 23:46 and coasting

Dragon C108-3 deployment at 24:44

Dragon solar arrays deploy at 27:13

Rap up from SpaceX at 29:00

Other events during CRS-18 mission was:

Berthed with ISS Harmony Nadir at 16:01:xx UTC

Released 30 days later at Aug. 27 - 15:01:xx UTC

Splashdown near NRC Quest LZ at 20:23:xx UTC



Finally a run of the mill flight

At 6:01 p.m. EDT, or 22:01 UTC, on Thursday, July 25, SpaceX launched its eighteenth Commercial Resupply Services mission (CRS-18) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Dragon separated from Falcon 9’s second stage about nine minutes after liftoff.

The Dragon spacecraft supporting the CRS-18 mission previously supported the CRS-6 mission in April 2015 and the CRS-13 mission in December 2017. Following stage separation, SpaceX recovered Falcon 9s’ first stage on Landing Zone 1 - LZ-1 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

Booster B1056-2 previously flew with CRS-17 on May 4, 2019.

A notable difference on the Falcon 9 is a painted gray thermal stripe on the bottom third of the second stage. It’s an experimental passive heat exchanger leading “heat” to/from the LOX tank to the RP-1 tank in outer space.

For CRS missions, maintaining fuel (RP-1 kerosene) and oxidizer (densified Liquid Oxygen) temperatures in the second stage is not as challenging as it is for long coast missions which sometimes require the propellants to be thermally maintained or reconditioned up to six hours after launch – as is the case for some Geostationary Transfer Orbit missions and Defense missions for the U.S. government.

The most challenging aspect of thermal control up until now had been maintaining the densified liquid oxygen’s (LOX’s) temperature and chilling that LOX back down to an acceptable temperature before second stage reignition on long coast flights. 

A series of experiments on the second stage after deployments of Dragons on CRS missions have led to the use of this gray stripe. Apparently white paint reflects too much sunlight and the thermal conductivity is nonexistent in the shade.

“Is there a rocket scientist in the room? Somebody here just had a brain freeze.”

The Dragon Payload

NASA has contracted for the CRS-18 mission from SpaceX and therefore determines the primary payload, date/time of launch, and orbital parameters for the Dragon space capsule. It carried the third International Docking Adapter (IDA-3) in its unpressured trunk and it’s weighing 534 kg (1 117 lb). IDA-3 will be attached to the Zenit docking port.

The pressurized capsule carried 1 756 kg of various science and supply materials.

The Dragon spacecraft also featured a handful of ceramic heat shield tiles, meant to flight-test a critical component of the SpaceX Starship spacecraft.

CRS-18 is the 18th commercial resupply mission, which was awarded to SpaceX in February of 2016. This is the third to last Commercial Resupply Mission with Dragon 1, the 5th reuse of Dragon, and the first time a Dragon is reused for a third time.

The Cargo Dragon is expected to arrive at the station ISS within two days after lift off. Once it navigates into position, it will be captured by the Canadarm, and then berthed to the station a few hours later. After about 30 days Dragon will depart ISS, ditch it’s trunk, reenter the atmosphere and splash down in the Pacific Ocean.

SpaceX technicians opened the side hatch of the Dragon vehicle and retrieved the time-critical refrigerated items. The critical cargo items were placed on a fast-boat for the 450 kilometers (280 mi) trip back to California for eventual return to NASA that then took care of the precious science cargo and handled the post-flight analysis of the samples.

The rest of the cargo was unloaded once the Dragon capsule reached SpaceX's test facility in McGregor, Texas.

Author Chris Gebhardt link

link

Coauthor/Text Retriever Johnny Nielsen

link to launch list


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