SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 - CRS-19 - Launching December 5, 2019
Screenshot of CRS-19 ready for launch one sunny clear December day
Mission Rundown: SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 - CRS-19
Written: January 5, 2021
Orange link above are to Everyday Astronaut Tim Dodd’s homepage, that’s still working.
Screenshot: Mission overview of CRS-19 by Geoff Barrett
How many Falcons flew over the Ocean?
SpaceX will be launching their cargo Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA. The Dragon C106-3 — which has flown twice — will be launched on a Falcon 9 (1059-1) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The booster supporting this mission is brand new, it will only perform a reentry burn, and a landing burn. The booster will land on Of Course I Still Love You, which will be located 344,42 km down range.
This Landing is unusual for CRS Missions, as CRS Missions usually always are returned to the launch site (RTLS). Every CRS Mission since CRS-8 has landed at LZ-1, excluding CRS-17, which had to land on OCISLY (just off shore) due to the investigation of the May 20th anomaly, which was happening on LZ-1.
SpaceX is going to perform a “thermal demonstration” with the second stage after it releases the Dragon spacecraft. A testing of engine ignition after a 6 hour long coasting phase. It’s very hard to use cryogenic fuel in the vacuum of space, as the propellant is either going to freeze or boil. To ensure there is enough fuel in the second stage for these tests, the first stage booster will not use its full boost back burn as usual to return to LZ-1.
The Dragon Payload
NASA has contracted for the CRS-19 mission from SpaceX and therefore determines the primary payload, date/time of launch, and orbital parameters for the Dragon space capsule. CRS-11 carried a total of 2 617 kg (5 769 lb) of material into orbit. This included 1 693 kg (3 732 lb) of pressurized cargo with packaging bound for the International Space Station, and 924 kg (2 037 lb) of unpressurised cargo composed of the Kibō-mounted Hyperspectral Imager Suite (HISUI) from Japan, the Robotic Tool Stowage (RiTS) platform, and a replacement lithium-ion battery for the station's solar array truss.
Among the science experiments transported to the station are the Anheuser-Busch sponsored Germination of ABI Voyager Barley Seeds in Microgravity, the Confined Combustion experiment, and 40 genetically engineered mice as part of the Rodent Research-19 experiment.
A number of CubeSats were launched on CRS-19. The ELaNa-25B flight included AzTechSat-1, SORTIE, and CryoCube, while the ELaNa-28 flight included CIRiS and EdgeCube. Other small satellites launched on this mission include QARMAN and MakerSat-1.
CRS-19 is the 19th commercial resupply mission, which was awarded to SpaceX in February of 2016. This is the second to last Commercial Resupply Mission with Dragon 1, the sixth reuse of Dragon, and the 2nd time a Dragon has been reused for the third time. The Dragon C106-3 supporting this mission was previously flown on CRS-4 and CRS-11, and was the first Dragon to ever be reused.
The Cargo Dragon C106-3 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. NASA TV will provide coverage of the arrival, capture and berthing. After about 30 days Dragon will depart ISS, ditch its trunk, reenter the Earth's atmosphere and splash down in the Pacific Ocean.
Block 5’s? That’s the question
At 14:11 somebody asked, how many Block 5 rockets are there?
Well I made a Google datasheet about Falcon 9 launches from 2010 to present day, and there are (Counting) 19 Block 5. Some new Falcon 9 Block 5 are in production.
B1059-6 bought the Fish Farm on the bottom of the ocean on flight 104 L19.
By this fourth edit of this page July 19, 2021 the count is now:
Block 5 boosters produced, flown, spent, destroyed, damaged or just lost.
There are 8 active Block 5 boosters, 2 Falcon Heavy sideboosters and 9 fallen, spent or crashed Block 5 boosters, who are no more. Their serial numbers are as follows:
Bold numbers are the last flight of that particular booster. First flight was in this order:
B1046-4 , B1047-3, B1048-5, B1049-9, B1050-1, B1054-1, B1051-10, B1055-1, B1052-2, B1053-2 , B1056-4, B1057-1, B1059-6, B1058-8, B1060-8, B1062-2, B1061-3, B1063-2, B1067-1,
There have been a total of 67 Block 5 launches, and 2 Falcon Heavy triple launches.
Just how many Block 5 boosters, that are in reserve, I don’t know.
B1064-0, B1065-0, B1066-0, B1068-0 This is my guess. But later I found diamonds.
I reckon, the teams building Block 5 boosters are currently building 2nd stage rockets, and that the team's building Merlin 1D# rocket engines are on Raptor engine building teams.
By this fifth edit of this page August 29, 2022 the count is now much higher,
No comments:
Post a Comment