Falcon 9 check completed for SES 10 mission

Translator's note: The entire translation was started for the sake of several phrases, which worked my curiosity in the original text - in the text of the translation they are underlined.

Photo from Twitter SpaceX. The Falcon 9 rocket undergoes a static engine test at site 39A on Monday afternoon. Original: SpaceX

After a pilot static engine launch on Monday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, SpaceX scheduled the first launch of the “flight-tested” Falcon 9 rocket on Thursday evening.

Almost ready for its second trip into space, the first stage of the Falcon 9 was turned on at the 39A launch pad at 14:00 AM Eastern Time (1800 GMT) and tested at full power — about 1.7 million pounds of thrust — for several seconds, and only the clips held the rocket on the ground.

A brief ignition of the nine main engines of the Merlin 1D rocket occurred after the SpaceX starting group, which was watching a computer-controlled sequencer, prepared a launcher, filling it with stocks of overcooled, compressed RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen.

On Twitter, SpaceX reported that the static test of the engine was successfully completed. Engineers will analyze data from the start-up rehearsal before testing the readiness for flight this week to resolve all the formalities for launching a rocket.

The launch window opens at 6 pm EST (2200 GMT) on Thursday and closes two and a half hours later.

Initially, this static test was scheduled for Sunday, after which an attempt would be made to start on Wednesday, but the preparation this weekend did not go as planned.

Launch is extremely important for SpaceX, which intends to repeatedly restart its missiles as part of cost-cutting measures aimed at lowering launch prices and opens up more opportunities for space transportation and research.

Engine start, view from the Kennedy Space Center press center. Image: Bill Harwood / CBS News.

The founder and head of SpaceX, Ilon Musk, intends to send large transport ships to Mars with passengers and cargo in order to eventually create a self-sufficient civilization on the red planet. Such high ambitions require spaceflight to become less costly, and reuse is the cornerstone of this goal.

The company hopes in the future to produce missiles that can be quickly reused, but so far SpaceX engineers have spent about four months upgrading the first stage installed this week. This first stage of the Falcon 9 was launched for the first time on April 8, 2016 with the Dragon supply ship in the cargo mission to the ISS, and then landed using jet propulsion on a mobile platform in the Atlantic Ocean.

After that, she was returned to Cape Canaveral, and then sent back to SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, for thorough inspection and repair. Then the first stage visited the SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas, where it underwent several tests with the launch of engines and a few weeks ago was delivered to Florida.

For this week's flight, the second stage of the rocket, equipped with a single Merlin 1D engine with a special nozzle extension, and a payload envelope are not reused, but, as usual, made anew. SpaceX is working on the search and reuse of the Falcon 9 fairing, which consists of two folding halves, but in the foreseeable future, the second stage will remain disposable.

After completing the static engine launch on Monday, ground crews will roll the two-stage Falcon 9 rocket back to their hangar on the south side of the site 39A, where the SES 10 communications satellite is waiting for its installation on the rocket.

The SES 10 spacecraft, weighing almost 11,700 pounds (5,300 kg), is already encased in the Falcon 9 nose cone after preparing to take off in a separate process room a few miles south of platform 39A.

SES, the international satellite communications operator in Luxembourg, announced its agreement with SpaceX in August 2016 to send the SES 10 satellite to orbit on a Falcon 9 rocket with a reusable first stage.

Although SpaceX and SES do not disclose the terms of their SES 10 launch contract, SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell last year said that the launch provider offers a 10 percent discount for customers who want to buy the removal of their payloads on used accelerators.

According to representatives of SpaceX, this discount should be even more for future similar launches. The company estimates the regular commercial launch of Falcon 9 in the amount of $ 62 million.

SES is designed to broadcast video and provide telecommunications services throughout South America. It was built by Airbus Defense and Space and assembled in Toulouse, France.

Shotwell said earlier this month that the company intends to launch up to six reusable accelerators this year . The first launch of the Falcon Heavy SpaceX rocket, consisting of three interconnected first stages of the Falcon 9 rocket, is expected to use one or two previously fired rockets , but SpaceX has not publicly defined other missions that will reuse the first stages.

The weather forecast for the launch window on Thursday night suggests a 70 percent chance of acceptable conditions.

The 45th US Air Force Meteorological Squadron will monitor the state of cumulus clouds and clouds during the countdown.

"On Wednesday, the state of the states on the Atlantic coast will be covered with weak surface clouds, which will turn back into a developing storm over Texas," the weather forecast said on Monday. “On Thursday, the enhanced system of the Texas storm will begin to be tracked in the northeast of the Tennessee Valley. Although the storm and the associated front of the weather front will not directly affect the launch site until late Friday and Saturday, cloudiness and increased weather instability are possible. ”

Forecasters predict individual clouds at an altitude of 3000 feet (1 km) and cloudiness with clearings at an altitude of 28,000 feet (9 km), a southeast wind at a speed of 10-15 miles per hour (4-7 m / s) and temperature at the time of launch 80 degrees Fahrenheit (25 ° C).

If the launch is postponed until the reserve day on Friday, the probability of good weather will decrease to 60% of favorable conditions.

The SpaceX landing platform is on its way to the landing zone a few hundred miles east of Cape Canaveral to receive the first stage of the Falcon 9, which will again attempt to land at sea after completing two and a half minutes of flight to launch SES 10 into space.

It is also expected that this will be the debut of the new robot , which, after the first stage has sat down, will remotely secure and secure the rocket on the deck of the automatic barge to return to Port Canaveral.