SpaceX Falcon 1 Flight 5 - RazakSAT launch [HQ]

Falcon 1, a two-stage, liquid oxygen/rocket-grade kerosene vehicle designed and manufactured by SpaceX, lifted off Monday, July 13, at 8:35 pm (PDT). Lift off occurred from the Reagan Test Site (RTS) on Omelek Island at the U.S. Army Kwajalein Atoll (USAKA) in the Pacific Ocean, approximately 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii.

The rocket carried Malaysia's RazakSAT satellite to a 685 km altitude, 9 degree inclination orbit.

The video was recorded directly off of SpaceX' live webcast stream (no video capture etc.) and was processed to remove its washed-out appearance. The effect was likely caused by the company re-encoding the live stream from Kwajalein again at their headquarters in Hawthorne before streaming onto the internet.
Occasional dropouts in video (notably near the end) were caused by loss of signal at the ground tracking stations.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• spacex
• falcon
• rocket
• launch
• kwajalein
• razaksat

[Lastindependentthink]

2 stages way to go guys....... is that an Australian accent I hear?????

[ugowar]

Yes, Max Vozoff is from Australia AFAIK.

[Unaether]

Amazing!

[ugowar]

The niobium nozzle extension is very flexible, on the 2nd flight the first stage actually hooked it significantly, the nozzle dented in and then bounced back like nothing happened, no deformations at all.

It's hard to see just how much clearance between the interstage and the nozzle there is, but I agree it does seem close. The latest two flights however separated cleanly and the ill-faited 3rd flight also looked like it *would have* separated cleanly.

[donkeyxotedelamanche]

I played the the separation over again and the interstage comes very close to the nozzle's edges ... my next guess until I write to them they did not want to chance any dent in the edge.

[donkeyxotedelamanche]

Probably have to write to their enginering department to find the purpose of the strap. Will do!

[ugowar]

I'm not sure it's due to actual aerodynamic pressure as the nozzle is protected inside the big interstage, it's probably got more to do with the buffeting and vibrations during first stage flight, especially during transsonic flight.

[donkeyxotedelamanche]

I see, for instance, to protect it from maximum aerodynamic pressure at a lower altitude ... at the higher altitude near vacuum nothing would be buffeting the nozzle from the exterior!

We need more private sector launches to avoid the starting and stoping of these important space projects everytime there's a new election!

[ugowar]

They don't *have* to get rid of the stiffener, it's just that the increasing temperature of the nozzle makes the adhesive weaken. The stiffener's purpose is to protect the nozzle during 1st stage flight and staging, once in operation it's unneeded - you can see how the nozzle actually wobbles a bit during operation.