SpaceX Falcon Heavy updates (Falcon Heavier?)

[Dr Mordrid]

Getting quotes from the pre-flight presser

A 6 hour coast is impressive. Makes the escape insertion burn about 1930 Eastern.

@SciGuySpace Eric Berger (Ars Technica)
Musk: We are doing a six-hour coast to demonstrate to the Air Force the capability to do direct-to-GEO missions. Risk is that the Roadster ends up in LEO.

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/stat...15490803634176

@SciGuySpace Eric Berger
Musk: If the third burn goes as we hope, the Tesla will get as far away as 380 to 450 million km from Earth.

https://twitter.com/sciguyspace/stat...16514708758529

[Dr Mordrid]

The 3 cores,

B1023.2 (Flight Provenâ„¢ Block 3)
B1025.2 (Flight Provenâ„¢ Block 3)
B1033.1 (Block 4)

Block 5 #1 will be B1046, which should be leaving Hawthorne CA for McGregor TX any day now.

Block 5 is designed to fly 10 times between refurbs, and up to 100 missions.

[Dr Mordrid]

Elon Musk ✔ @elonmusk
Upper atmosphere winds currently 20% above max allowable load. Holding for an hour to allow winds to diminish. #FalconHeavy
12:02 PM - Feb 6, 2018

[Dr Mordrid]

Emre Kelly ✔ @EmreKelly (media)
New SpaceX #FalconHeavy launch time: 1450 ET (1950 UTC). Additional time to keep an eye on winds.
12:14 PM - Feb 6, 2018

[Dr Mordrid]

Watching upper level winds & wind shear. USAF sending up weather balloons.

T-0 now 1505 Eastern (2005 UT)

[Dr Mordrid]

Elon Musk ✔ @elonmusk
Launch auto-sequence initiated (aka the holy mouse-click) for 3:45 liftoff #FalconHeavy
1:52 PM - Feb 6, 2018

[Dr Mordrid]

@SpaceX
Continue to monitor the upper level wind shear. New T-0 is 3:45 p.m. EST, 20:45 UTC.
1:49 PM - Feb 6, 2018

[Dr Mordrid]

GO for propellant loading

GAME ON!!

[Dr Mordrid]

SpaceX ✔ @SpaceX
T-60 minutes until Falcon Heavy’s first test flight. Launch webcast will go live about 20 minutes before liftoff → http://spacex.com/webcast
2:45 PM - Feb 6, 2018

[Dr Mordrid]

RP-1 loaded

LOX load has started

[Dr Mordrid]

YouTube stream is live!

Webcast in ~5 min

[Dr Mordrid]

Wahoooo!!!!

[Dr Mordrid]

[Dr Mordrid]

Confirmed 3rd burn, and Starman is headed to just short of Ceres,

Elon Musk ✔ @elonmusk
Third burn successful. Exceeded Mars orbit and kept going to the Asteroid Belt.
10:46 PM - Feb 6, 2018

Bye, Starman....

[VJ]

Great achievement!
Funny thing is that while launching a car is impressive, the actual possible payload is much heavier than that... But somehow launching a heavier chunk of concrete would not have the same effect.

A shame the landing of the center stage on the barge failed. I read though that they were not planning to reuse that one and that puzzled me: they just tried to land it as a test? or for parts? Any idea?

I also read that the third burn was too long and that the car did not end up in the correct orbit, but it was in a short article without references... Any other references to confirm/deny this?

edit 1: found: https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16...elon-musk-mars
edit 2: it seems like there was no planned orbit, rather the estimate of where the full burn of the third stage would take it. And it went further than that estimate.

And if Hollywood decides to remake the first Star Trek movie, now they can use T'la instead of V'ger.