SpaceX Falcon 9 Launches Starlink 8-10

and here we [Music] go we have off propulsion continues to be norminal r68 chamber pressure looks good probably not atet water tower [Music] fly down [Music] n it's orange oh my God oh my [Music] God put that in the big bag 343 unfolds to go indeed we rise together back to the moon and Beyond me to be igniting in the Flair correct y we don't need any more of [Music] these good evening SL early morning you taking a live look right now at space launch complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral space force station in Florida where Falcon 9 is set to return to flight after a brief downtime following the most recent starlink Mission and the failed booster Landing but we've got 21 Starling satellites that are ready to launch back again tonight I am Sawyer Rosenstein I will be your host for this evening's broadcast and the oh no voice underneath Jack from last stream but uh I am not alone as always I am joined tonight by the Fantastic Trevor snic Trevor how's it going yeah I'm really excited it's kind of ins saying that it was just about 48 hours ago that we were all like uhoh what would this mean for the future of Falcon launches how long would how long will they go without a launch and the answer was about 48 hours so very excited to be here oh yeah and also very excited to have the innumerable Max Evans how's it going Max that's a new one uh good morning everybody or good evening or good afternoon depending on where you're watching from um it's weird to say that the Falcon 9 has had some downtime when in reality has not felt like downtime at all and I guess that's just a testament to the SpaceX teams involved for the the Cadence that that has still been uh knocked off over the year despite uh Falcon's uh very very rare wos yeah this feels just like a normal turnaround time for pad 40 in a way it certainly does absolutely and pushing the buttons pulling the levers running in the human hamster wheel is the fantasma gor orle Carson case gel coming up with fun names tonight to keep things awake in this early hour but one thing that's definitely been keeping us awake is the fact that we have a launch again a lot sooner than most of us expected so Trevor can you kind of give us a rundown of what launch we've got going on tonight yeah of course so this is actually one of two starlink missions tonight uh originally there was supposed to be a starlink mission from Vandy about an hour ago but this is the one from Florida which is starlink group 8-10 um so as usual on these missions from Florida where they have DTC satellites direct to cell uh they will be launching 21 starlink Satellites with 13 of those having the direct to cell capability uh and those will be going into that usual roughly 53 degree inclined orbit um at the a little under 200 km or a little over 200 km circular orbit um lifting off today will be b169 d18 uh from space launch complex 40 following launch the booster will attempt landing on just read the instructions uh which is about 600 km down range was tugged down by signit warhorse III and then go Cosmos will be recovering both fairing halves and also providing ASDS support um the not notable stats on this mission is of course this will hopefully be the first consecutive booster Landing um not the not the stat we want to be bringing up given it's one but let's all cross our fingers for uh b169 making a successful Landing uh and then this will also be the 100th recovery attempt on or sorry that was the other launch that will be the 100th recovery attempt on of course I still love you I'm getting my launches confused so yeah um 369th overall and then uh 86th SpaceX launch of 2024 there you go and the other unfortunate number there was 14 since the last failure that was the second stage issue back in July and it just so happens that the booster that was the return to flight for that mission was b169 as well I mean Max you had the perfect analogy for it earlier I did uh but I also want to point out first that ironically 10 1069 began started out in life with a very rough landing on a drone ship um believe it was CRS 24 in 2021 uh it's very first flight and it came down really really hard and crushed a lot of the engine bells and crushed a lot of the crush cords of course that support the landing legs as well so this booster knows all too well what it's like to have a rough Landing um but the analogy that Sawyer was talking about was this booster has made both RTF flights this year after Falcon has had its problems and I essentially um made the point that t booster 1069 now is essentially equivalent to the Orbiter Discovery now crispy is happy because shuttle um but it has made both RTF flights and has a decent amount of flight time compared to the rest of the falc 9 Fleet so maybe this is the next Contender for the very best Booster in the fleet uh I guess time will tell whe whether or not that will hold up we will have to see and you have awoken the chrisb and in chat already excellent oh so we keep talking about the return to flight portion of it Trevor can you kind of go over what happened during that landing and how we got back here so quickly yeah so um right it was the launch on uh octo uh August 20th not October what is my brain doing uh Starling group 8-6 with b162 d23 uh so that this is the most amount of times a booster has flown on this mission b162 is flying for 23rd time and everything seemed uh nominal uh through Ascent through the entry burn and then even through the beginning of the landing burn um it all seemed quite good until it seemed like the booster was just coming in a little bit quick and the booster ended up smashing into the D the deck of a shortfall of Gravitas at I believe it was about 10 km an hour or so um and that was well beyond the amount of um velocity and forces that the landing legs are meant to hold right this is about um it's about three times faster than a nominal Landing so right roughly nine to 10 times more energy that those legs would have to absorb and with that the Landing legs failed and then the entire booster uh tipped over we did not get from SpaceX an exact uh failure mode um they haven't unfortunately come out and said what happened yet although I suspect Elon will probably update us at some point once that investigation has wrapped up however um following that Landing failure uh as part as per the new FAA guidelines that came out in March of 2021 um SpaceX had to discounted against SpaceX on their launch license so they had to uh as we've gotten used to with these uh failures at this point whether it's Starship or Falcon um they had to either convince the FAA that there was no risk to the public so therefore they should be allowed to continue flying or uh conclude that investigation uh submit corrective action um corrective items to the FAA and then Implement all of those uh once again here SpaceX got the approval from the FAA that yeah we agree there is no risk to the public so even though you had a mishap on your last flight uh you're all cleared to fly uh so then that's how we're back here already um SpaceX obviously must not be too concerned about what whatever data they' found given that uh they're going for not just one but two launches um today and they haven't especially the one on Vandenburg they haven't they wouldn't have had time to do any hardware changes so um yeah they on screen right now you can kind of see some of the like there's a landing leg from b162 uh on a shortfall of Gravitas that was returned to the port earlier today um but hopefully there's a fairly long update as to what happened but let's just all cross our fingers that we get to like you know a thousand Landings in a row now without uh an incident agreed and again we have an entire video on the YouTube channel here going over for the speculation of what it could be analyzing the video footage everything you need to know about that Landing that we know so far and Max you were actually flying today taking a look at some of the damage what were your thoughts seeing it yeah you know there is a lot less uh there was a lot less debris on Deck compared to 1058 when that unfortunately tipped over last December um and of course obviously different circumstances 10 1058 had a good landing and top because of rough seas and was attached to the octagrabber whereas 1062 uh just came in hot and had a bad landing and of course toppled over and there was still prop uh some prop in the tanks and the copvs were still pressurized and of course when that's all blown sideways with a very hard impact on deck that can that can create some spectacular rapid unscheduled disassemblies so um there was just uh the octagrabber in a section like probably a quarter of the rp1 tank still left attached to the to the or the OCTA weab I should say excuse me uh with the engines with all nine Merlin still there uh with I think one or two having their Bells pretty squished and then there were assortments of or remnants of what were uh Landing legs both attached to the the um the OCTA web and tank structure and also scattered about all over the deck I mean there was debris all over big and small uh obviously the most not worthy being the the OCTA web and the legs and the tank structure but it's also inter in to note uh that the the top of the tank structure where you would normally be able to look down in and see either the fuel collector or or or any of the plumbing that leads into the engine section of Falcon that has all been been covered up by a tarp I suspect because SpaceX does not want any prying eyes uh looking in and seeing uh proprietary technology or gathering information that may not otherwise be known to the public for very good reasons cough cough itar uh but yes uh we were out there and it was you know it's it never feels good to see the remnance of what was a a very reliable and very noteworthy piece of orbital orbital class Hardware um it's never fun to see but you know mistakes happen and no one is immune to it uh so knowing SpaceX they will have that that deck cleaned off um and not too long from now if not um a a majority already of that of that of that debris gone off of deck uh right now um and that and that drone ship will hopefully be heading heading back out to see for poer stwn in the not too distant future and we'll touch on play oh sorry go ahead I was gonna say I think there are two good pieces of news that can come out of this like obviously it sucks losing b162 and it sucks that SpaceX had to stand down from the second starlink launch the other night um while they did this brief investigation but first of all the ship seems to be in good condition uh so like Max was saying I bet they just sweep it off and um it'll be on its way for Polaris which is very good news uh and second of all right these descent failures are kind of the best case scenario for SpaceX in some sense because this way they're pushing the limits of Falcon but not losing a mission and right with Falcon especially on these stlink missions they're wanting to take a little bit more risk they're willing to take that risk so that they can push the boundaries a little bit more more and learn more so um obviously not the result we want but not the worst one either right Max was talking about prying eyes let's take a look on the left side of your screen live from our Fleet cam over on Space Coast live with our prying eyes taking a look right at the backside of uh Falcon 9 you could see the Merlin engine still there Cruz have been working on that all day since I've gotten back into Port seen people with cranes with lifts and most of them wearing hazmat suits which interestingly Max in your pictures not a lot of them were yeah they were not um and I maybe they found something that was worthy of being extra precautious uh and being safe around uh I'm not entirely sure and I don't think SpaceX is going to tell us either way yeah probably not as we take a look at the pad there right now uh how about we check in on the weather and uh the latest forecast from the 45th weather Squadron they still put out just in case they were go for today uh is 85% go that 15% is the probability of violating weather constraints only issue cumulus cloud rule all of the SE conditions look good solar activity looks good upper level winds thankfully look good if for some reason they do have to delay 24 hours it would attempt on September 1st the window opening at 1:13 a.m. that would be 70% chance of go but again right now as you can see they're targeting 3:43 a.m. eastern time and I correct myself 1116 not 113 speaking of the weather Max how does it look where you are um I know their main concern was uh a um a building layer of cumulus clouds in the area and there are some in the area and most uh notably over my head ironically coming this way um but that the way the the rest of the sky is looking right now that should clear up in time for launch I'm not too concerned about it now and we are still you know 45 minutes away or so so I'm not too worried about the clouds covering else everything right now otherwise there is a slight breeze coming out of the southeast that actually feels quite lovely because it is very humid and sticky and uh it was very it was pretty warm today as well uh so any bit of a breeze especially at this hour to help keep the bugs off and help keep some uh air flow through your hair um would feel nice even though even though I don't have any I was going to say what hair yeah yeah I don't have any um but otherwise it is looking great uh obviously there's no moon out tonight so the the sky is a gorgeous Inky black with a ton of stars poking out and uh saying hello uh and hopefully this big old Cloud over our heads can clear out and we and we and we will have a nice view uh all the way to SEO be careful saying Inky I'm waiting for Jack to jump out now with Cony and all of those now he got Inky even though Inky is a a uh a real and uh it's an actual word it's not just a a word that jack spooled up out of nowhere yeah those are the four ghosts in Pac-Man right inky pinky Blinky and Cony that I don't even know I think you I will I will take your word on that one the conki is his Jack's way of calling Concord as a joke but yeah the real one I believe is dot is the four oh that's so bad Clyde excuse me cly good Lord Bo that hurt my brain all right anyway uh I do want to thank some support here real quick Astro klehe thank you for gifting five red team memberships and Michael getting an item from shop. nasaspaceflight.com saying I really love all your streams I'm addicted I look forward to the day when I miss a Starship because it's ho hum I don't think that day will ever happen to anyone if it becomes ho hum and what do you know getting something from our brand new thrust collection getting the Raptor shirt in case you didn't know we have brand new merch that was just released today so that now you can rep your favorite engine whether that be Raptor Merlin be4 rs25 with more to come we've got you covered and each of them have a really cool slogan with them uh ironically Merlin's being thrust you can trust that was yeah this just happened to be the week that released that we don't know it's the Merlin it could be the Merlin could have been perfectly fine that is true for right now it's thrust you can probably trust and once it is trusted wear that shirt proud I did see someone asking how it's doing in the polls Adrian is asleep but I'm assuming that raptor is still leading the polls right now in terms of favored engine here's a question Max you kind of brought this up but Trevor I'm going to pose it to you um what does the falcon9 return to flight mean for Polaris Dawn they also added what about the number of drone ships um yeah so covering the plist point first uh I would say there's probably no indication that this has caused any uh delay to PlayOn um you know I'm sure that uh if they would have found something that they were concerned about then obviously yes they would definitely want to better understand the issue before having a launch with humans on top however um the launch was already delayed uh because of weather and it based on posts that Jared has made on X it sounds like at this point they're just kind of waiting out to hear or to see what the weather will do uh since right this is a unique Mission profile since they're not docking to anything they have to be go for splash down weather before they even launch um so that's a pretty unique constraint that makes them really have to be be careful about when they launch and that the splash down weather and launch Corridor weather uh is all um good uh so that's still the main uh I don't want to call it a delay but the main hold up is just weather and SpaceX unfortunately has not given um us any updates as to how that's going I imagine as soon as they find a window Jared Isaac May did mention that they can be ready to launch within 30 hours um so that's a pretty quick turnaround time and then he was ALS just mentioning in this post um that basx as usual is super upfront with them about all of these issues that are ongoing in the fleet um and as soon as they have an issue they brief the crew about it brief the crew uh here the solutions that we're hoping to go forward with here's what we think the problem was here's how it's going to impact your mission and so far it sounds like uh none of that um as to the second part of the question about what does this mean for drone ships like we mentioning earlier it seems like the Drone ship a shortfall of Gravitas is in good condition right they're kind of meant to they obviously don't want to take many of these hard hits but they're also uh especially a shortfall of Gravitas um they're designed to take some of these hard hits um but I definitely do see in the future SpaceX getting uh a fourth drone ship especially as the six comes online so uh nothing in the work yet some SpaceX uh VPS on X have hinted about it but uh nothing concrete yet right and we expect that they will require a drone ship down range so that will also play a part of it in addition to as you and Jared and all of them have mentioned that splash down weather which is super important so we will keep you updated as much as we know as well on the uh latest timeline speaking of latest timeline let's take a look at where we are in the countdown right now uh we have official word from SpaceX that Falcon 9 is ready weather's looking good and we're about 5 minutes away from prop load starting for tonight's launch you can see that update right there so as expected that is the tus 40 minute Mark is usually when they give the go for propellent load uh we should hopefully start seeing propellent load at the T-minus 35 minute Mark so just about 3 and A2 minutes from now that is when they start loading stage one with rocket propellant one or rp1 refined form of kerosene along with the liquid oxygen that's also when they start loading the rp1 on the second stage however the locks is loaded after the rp1 and in between that is the locks chill Down AKA The T-minus 20 minute 20 second vent that isn't really a vent but it's still the best vent all right but good that we are continuing on towards launch we will continue answering your questions don't forget to tag us at Nasa spaceflight we'll do our best to answer as many of them as we can here's an interesting question and Max I'm going to throw this one to you mg is asking cuz you were flying over it we saw on the barge do we know why there's a fourleaf clover painted on the barge I'm a little embarrassed to say that I do not know the answer to that I know that that'll be a question that Julia our our very own Julia berson would be hopping off all over to talk about but unfortunately I I I wish I knew I really wish I knew and I would love to find out more about it I I will have to text her tomorrow about it if I recall correctly it had to do with the Falcon 1 originally they did the three flights they had essentially run out of funding but Elon was able to scrun up enough money to get one fourth flight in so they went for the four leaf clover because fourth flight and good luck and since that's basically the launch that saved basx they kind of kept with the clover as their good luck charm and you see that typically on all their patches all of the employee shirts all have them so if you see the fourleaf Clover in SpaceX that's why uh here's a good question from booster 4 and I'm going to pose this to everyone here uh they're saying August has slipped away into the moment of time so how many Falcon 9es have occurred this month and probably the biggest question for everyone is SpaceX on track for 148 or at least 120 launches this year Trevor I'll start with you um so I believe this will be the 11th launch of August and then 95 will be the 12th and um that will be all uh for this month uh so as to are they on track for 148 definitely not um at this point they've had enough periods of uh just having to kind of slow down their launch Cadence that uh it's pretty much out of the window um so I'm personally predicting depending on the model that you use to fit uh the launch data for this year uh between about 126 and 136 launches so uh they should definitely get over that 120 launch number um however the somewhat interesting thing is if you look at all of the launches this year graph the time between them and uh plot a like linear trend line it's actually increasing um so hopefully that Trend doesn't continue for the rest of the year and starts decreasing again but even if you assume uh a decreasing trend line uh you're still not going to surpass about 136 launches this year Max how many do you think well I mean I think the the data for that pretty much speaks for itself they obviously are not on track to hit the 148 goal uh this year um but it's ironically enough I made a bet with uh my friend John Krauss at the beginning of the year uh as to what they would as to how many launches they would actually get off the ground this year um and I said around 125 and and he said that that he was fully confident in the 148 number and I said okay so he and I are waiting to see what they actually end up doing at the end of the year but so far does not look like it's going in his favor unfortunately but time will tell yeah if I had to put a guess on it I still think they'll hit 120 I don't see them hitting 140 maybe 125 maybe I'm just thinking that cuz I like the Hubble repair Mission STS 125 but I think it's going to be around the 120 Mark I still think there's as long as they continue the pace they're at they're going to pass 100 launches it's just a matter of how many beyond that good question though I'm interested to see in chat what people think the number is going to be I've seen someone else say 135 I've seen 137 so interesting to see yeah the Vegas odds on it yeah the latter half of this year has certainly been a bit of a struggle so far with what I think it was in June there was uh what nearly two weeks between launches when they had the they had a a bunch of weather delays and then they had the Boost the launch that aborted at just after engine engine ignition uh and then obviously the launch failure in July had them stand down for two weeks so it's been a little bit of a rough summer for them but they're bouncing back quickly and that's that's really what matters most exactly uh let's see here's a really good question and that is from Lee we talk about the ASDS the autonomous drone ship but obviously there's got to be some people around so how are crew protected around drone ships during a stage one return Trevor I'll throw that one to you sure yeah so thankfully humans are nowhere near um the barge during uh uh Landing so what they do is they go tug out the Drone ship on a tugboat U that can either be like on today's Mission it was signant warhorse on some other Miss it's like Bob or Doug themselves um so they tug it out get everything set up and then they all go onto either the support ship or the tugboat um and then uh leave the ASDS in the middle of the ocean get a few miles away from it uh and then they're just a few miles away from The Landing so uh if something goes wrong they're totally safe they're nowhere near it right and again you like we were talking about earlier the crews do come back with it especially on this one we saw them out with the non-protective gear later thankfully putting on the protective gear so they still take precautions as needed and uh here's another one from Electric Dawn I don't know if you know the answer to this one Trevor but is it known if b162 had the same older Landing leg design as b158 um I don't think we know um however it is my understanding that space X does try to do these retrofits to all of their Fleet um so my guess would be yes however I don't know for sure uh that said uh even if it had the old Landing leg design the new Landing legs wouldn't have prevented this uh the only things that SpaceX has publicly commented on about the new Landing leg design is that they can self- stabilize uh after launch so there was a hard Landing um they could you know try to make sure that at least four legs are touching the ground and make the booster a little bit less leany uh however when you have like I was saying at the start of the stream right this Landing had about 10 times more energy uh that those legs had to absorb and at that point uh none of the landing leg upgrades are going to be able to handle that right I think that was more for balancing than it was for hard impact I mean they all still have the crush cores built into them which are meant to help with these harder Landings and as Max alluded to we saw those in action on on b169 First Flight CRS 24 when it came back with quite the lean to it but obviously that's been repaired and we see it on the pad right now and the question is Max do we see it Frosty yet I'm trying to look through the Shrubbery uh right at the bottom of the lock of the locks tank and I think I want to see I I want to I want to say I'm seeing some vapor and some whiteness building on the tank structure um on the outside of the booster but I'm not sure if that's the case or if my eyes are just playing tricks on me but I I want to say yeah I'm almost certain now that I I can see Frost building on on the tank so I think it's I think it's pretty it it's almost safe to say that we are definitely in propad at this point but we should be based on the timeline yeah it definitely appears to be frost it's hard to tell a little bit with the heat Haze but the enhanced Zoom that we have there looks like there is some wispy clouds at the bottom of the booster right through those trees as we pass the T-minus 30 minute Mark so we should be 5 minutes in to prop load and as mentioned right now the rp1 is currently being loaded into the second stage while rp1 and Lux are being loaded in or excuse me rp1 locks being loaded to the first stage while the rp1 is loaded into the second stage which Trevor why don't they just load both at the same time on stage two yeah this is a very good question right we see them doing this on Starship so may a lot of people may wonder why why on Falcon is it different and the reason for this is the second stage really doesn't have that much liquid oxygen right you can see how small the tank is and realize that it's it's tiny um so uh additionally right you want that liquid oxygen to be as cold as possible for launch uh since when the liquid oxygen is colder uh it is more dense and because it's more dense that means you have are able to store more on the vehicle and your engine runs uh higher performance and um so you have a bunch of advantages uh so therefore they want to load it as late as possible so there's is as little time for it to warm up as possible uh so therefore SpaceX doesn't need to start loading it until T minus um 16 minutes uh however the rp1 on the other hand right is much closer to room temperature it's only about I think it's like -5 -10 degrees grade somewhere in there um so the rate at which that warms up is much much slower right exponentially slower um so uh because of that SpaceX is fine just letting the rp1 sit on stage two a little bit longer have that loaded and then go into uh the liquid oxygen load procedure yeah I mean I've back when I went to college I went to class in temperatures that were colder than minus5 - 10 at times so yeah that's very close to ambient temperature although again you'll still see some of that Frost in Florida there given that it's Florida and it's hot and it's humid okay people are people are asking me whose room is near ne5 and I'm saying I'm comparing order of magnitude right liquid oxygen is like -200 de centigrade and right room temperature is like 20 cenr so -5 centigrade is like basically the same order of magnitude as 20 but -200 is far far away from that yeah I mean back when I was in college in Syracuse New York go orange uh I mean there were temps as cold Asus 36 - 37 Celsius that I went to class in which is also about- 36- 37 Fahrenheit it was cold yeah the point where you don't even have to ask what unit exactly yeah that was uh chilly but the meain time it is uh getting Frosty on the boosters as we hit the team minus 262 minute Mark let's take some more questions here uh here's one from booster 4 and Max you've kind of seen a little bit of it but what's the process after a booster landing on a drone ship so after landing on the Drone ship SpaceX has this contraption called the octagrabber and essentially what that does is it rolls out of a little garage on the Drone ships and what the job of the octagrabber is essentially to grab onto and secure the booster on the deck of the Drone ship to ensure or reduce the odds of of of an incident of the booster falling over or more importantly moving across the deck in rough Seas um then of course once once that's complete obviously they they drag it all the way back over to Port Canaveral or the Port of Long Beach if they launch out of venburg and then they they attach uh what's called I you know I don't exactly know what it's called it's it's it looks like a hat and it attaches to the very top of the interage and they attach it to a very big Crane and then they they essentially just lift it uh off of the the deck of the Drone ship after uh removing it from the octagrabber and they place it on a little like I think they use the exact same amounts they used to secure the rocket to the Launchpad in order to secure It To The Ground over at the port and from there they they then raise um The Landing legs uh individually and then secure them before bringing it back back horizontal uh with a pair of cranes usually before throwing it on a transporter and bringing it back either over to Hangar X or throwing it on a barge to bring it back up to uh venburg so there's a lot more of course that's that's a that's a heavily over oversimplified explanation of what happens um there is so much there is so much much more that that goes on but we are not EXA exactly privy to a lot of those processes we can only talk about what we can uh witness and document with our cameras say in Port Canaveral or what we we can see in Long Beach so um Falcon 9 is usually turn around I want to say they average anywhere anywhere between like 27 to maybe 33 or or 34 days when when of course SpaceX is in a Groove and of course they lately unfortunately have not been but based off of what's been happening um but yeah that's that that should be about it for that yeah that's a really good summary and if you want the super in-depth portion of it there is again a video right here on the NSF YouTube channel going over the recovery operations basically from Landing to Port so you can check that out as well uh here's one from Captain dram who's asking as SpaceX find failures and improve upon them what do you think the maximum number of flights a booster will be capable of Trevor I'll start with you and then I'll throw it to Max yes so I'll give two partial answers to this question the first is SpaceX is working on certification for these boosters to fly 40 times um and right given that they seem to be trying to average about 20ish boosters in The Fleets right that's a total of 800 launches balcon has has launched not even 400 times yet so uh I suspect they won't need to go above that number with Falcon 9 UM however the second part of that question is what do you define as the booster right this is kind of the ship of thesias question how much work can they do on it before you say no I don't really think that's the same booster anymore um because right the this aluminum tanks that they have right the lifespan on those you could with enough refurbishment and inspections right that's more or less an infinite life um so the actual you know aluminum 2 may be capable of flying you know tens of thousands of times or whatever but obviously with Falcon they're never going to reach that point uh that'll be a question of for super heavy and star shift way down the line Max what are your thoughts you know I'm going to disagree with you Trevor just a little bit um because are just so many points of failure on Falcon especially as as they get older even with uh refurb um it could be anywhere from the I mean just in general terms it could be the grid fins it could be the the welds on the tank structure it could be uh the the bulkheads inside the tanks it could it could be something with with the Merlin structurally or with the or with the OCTA web or or even the uh Landing The Landing legs as we've seen um there's just so much that has to go I think SpaceX has made it look so easy that we have to uh um we have to keep we have to keep telling ourselves that the this is absolutely so far so far from routine it's pretty it's pretty it's so I'm I'm like I'm I have no words right now honestly my my brain is fried um there's so much to go wrong and there are so many moving parts and so many things that have to go right for a launch to be successful and of course with a landing as well uh with the first stage with all those points of failure I don't it's tough to say cuz we we saw 1058 uh be the first to to pass 18 and then of course it had its unfortunate demise and then we had 1062 unfortunately have a uh a real failure on Landing so and we don't exactly know the the cause behind that yet so it makes it very tough to say and I want to say falcon can fly to 40 flights pretty easily I mean we were all looking and and pretty worried after 15 flights that the the boosters were going to pop at any time but it's there's that is a that is a very very uh loaded question that it's almost difficult to answer I'm going to go with 20 minutes and 20 seconds as we see the T-minus 20 minute 20 second vent happening on screen right there uh I will give my answer afterwards but uh Trevor what are we seeing here yeah so as I was mentioning earlier the rp1 is loaded before uh that liquid oxygen the liquid oxygen load starts at t- 16 minutes so what SpaceX is doing with this tus 20 minute and 20 second vent is they're just cooling down and purging uh that liquid oxygen load line ahead of uh liquid oxygen load uh so there's making sure that it's not you know ambient temperature so you don't flash any propellant or any of the liquid oxygen and that you know it's all cleaned out so that's what this uh vent is for and there you go and that's a good sign so once we see that vent stop we will know that liquid oxygen load has begun on the second stage as for my answer to that question I think 30 is a good number I mean we've seen them get very close as you mentioned we've got 1062 that flew for a 23rd time we have one that is set to be on its 23rd flight if SpaceX goes ahead and continues with that I think 30 is a safe number uh I know we've talked in the past about maybe going in increments of five and then breaking down the vehicle examining it checking it if it's good to go put it right back out for another five I think that may be what they do anything beyond 30 I'm going to uh hold my breath every single time it launches as we continue down the rocket may be Frosty but uh how's the weather looking Max it is improving um and that pesky Cloud that was hanging over uh our heads here at the KSC press site uh earlier as uh it has seemed to split apart and break apart and we are seeing many many many more stars in the sky over our heads now which is lovely and we love to see it um there's still that that breeze coming out keeping everything nice and cool well as cool as it can be because it's still pretty warm theight and very sticky uh but things seem to be trending in the right direction as we like to say that's what we like to hear SpaceX earlier mentioning so far weather is good to go and a reminder for those just joining this is booster 1069 on the starlink 8-10 Mission with 21 Starling satellites including 13 direct to cell that will eventually be part of the cellular network for through space uh and we attempt to land on just read the instructions just hours after after receiving clearance from the FAA to continue with launches after the previous landing failure uh I see people asking about the booster number uh if you hit refresh you'll see the updated information in the description down below which gives you all the fun facts you would ever want to know about this Mission too so if you're ever in doubt check it out oh that rhymed you know you brought up um interesting point about the direct to cell constellation that ties into something that Elon posted on X the other day unfortunately I don't have the post handy but I was just reminded of it that once this direct to cell network is operational which uh right SpaceX has been saying they're expecting that to be at the end of the year about since the start of the year so I don't know if they're still on track for that but hopefully they are but they're actually going to open up uh the direct to cell network for anyone in case of an emergency so you know if you're in the mountain somewhere and you don't have T-Mobile you're not paying for U starlink service on your um phone you'll still be able to use direct to cell uh in case of an emergency which is just an awesome decision by the SpaceX team and especially as a climber who is commonly out in the mountains uh it'll be super nice to have that as a backup to you know a Garmin in reach or any alternative like that yeah I see some people talking about well was it grounded was it not grounded yes it technically was grounded uh the investigation is still ongoing however the FAA determined that it is not a danger to Public Safety and that as long as they continue to adhere to their launch license they can continue on in fact their exact response to us when we asked here at NSF was the Falcon 9 vehicle May return toight flight operations while the overall investigation of the anomaly during the Starling group 8-6 Mission remains open provided all other license requirements are met SpaceX made the return tolight request on August 29th the FAA gave the approval on August 30th so the wording there there was a return to flight needed and this is said Return to flight and also very good point there with the uh with the starlink direct to sell too here's a question that we haven't actually asked yet uh I see Ninja guy inquiring about it Max what direction is this going sure so uh launch tonight is heading up on a 5316 degree uh orbital inclination so in layman's terms it's heading Northeast so if you are north of Cape Canaveral say new smea beach Daytona Jacksonville or even up in the Carol or Georgia uh you should have a very very very nice feel of launch tonight as it goes through your Sky pretty much um above your head if you are south of of the KSC or Cape canaval not to fret you will you will have a very good view of launch still but because of your location uh compared to the launch pad is it is going to be a much narrow narrower Arch and it will not take up as much uh Skys space as it normally would uh but yeah uh it is heading Northeast there you go and we talked about just read the instruction C is the Drone ship located down range uh that is I believe about 620 km usually for that and then we have go Cosmos down range to help catch the fairings which is approximately 700 kilm down range and uh Astro canucklehead coming with the support saying no question just enjoy soyer's commentary well thank you I appreciate that and I'm glad you enoy the commentary cuz I enjoy doing the commentary in case you can't tell let's see I see we've already got people asking about it so we'll address the Starship sized elephant in the room uh what is it looking like since we saw the landing problem here how are we looking for potential catch of the first stage or the booster I guess technically Trevor with Starship yeah so right this um Landing failure really has absolutely nothing to do with uh super heavy Landing attempt um super heavy right our understanding is that next flight it will they will be going for a catch attempt they've it seems like they' filed for those modifications to the launch license with the FAA and now the FAA is you know doing all of their own analysis and um working with SpaceX to make sure that they're doing this in a way that is safe to the public um so in terms of timeline which I assume is the next part of this question I think we're probably all thinking it's mid to late September at the earliest um SpaceX has said on I believe several occasions at this point that they're ready to fly uh they're just waiting for regulatory approval however they've still been doing a ton of work on the pad um right they've had tons of cherry pickers working on the Chopsticks and whatnot so um yeah we'll just we'll have to see we will indeed have to see uh i' say it's going to be at least two weeks that that's elon's usual number right two weeks and at this point now we are te minus 12 minutes away from this starlink launch here of 8-10 we talked about the recovery of the booster but Trevor we don't really talk about the recovery of the fairings how does that work yeah so I agree this the fairing recovery program is not discussed as much as it should be it's an awesome program so uh the fairings uh there's two on the the two fairing Hales which you can see on the vehicle right there's the black inner stage and then the second stage and then the vehicle gets a little bit wider those are the two fairing Hales and those fairing halves actually have RCS thrusters and parach shoots built into them uh so what they do is they Orient themselves during uh re-entry and then once they're in the uh correct orientation and after they've U gone through re-entry they deploy a parachute and then uh they splash down in the water about 45 minutes after launch so it takes them a while to come down uh just because right they don't the mass is very low on them and the surface area is very high so they have a a lot of drag uh coming into the atmosphere uh and then they go up with one of their boats which on the East Coast they have Bob and Doug and right now go Crusader uh as a temporary one and then on the uh West Coast they have go Cosmos and they just scoop them out of the water more or less um and then into the boat onto some fairing holding devices and then they uh take them back to land uh where they begin refurbishment on them and I believe at this point we know that fairing have flown uh for yeah 20 times uh at this point so uh it's very exciting and I agree SpaceX should talk about the program more yeah and just want to mention you flip-flop to the ships go Cosmos is the one that is here on the east coast and in fact that's the one that is downrange tonight hopefully to recover these fairing halves and I've seen some confusion in the chat of you know booster and timing there are two SpaceX launches tonight you right now are watching the first one group 8-10 from cap canaval space force station the second one is starlink group 9-5 that one is out of Vandenberg space force base in California that is scheduled to launch an hour and 5 minutes after this launch so 4:48 a.m. eastern 1:48 a.m. local time there that is a different booster that one is booster 108 one this one here tonight is 1069 in Florida uh that one will be Ling on the Drone ship of course I still love you and this one will be landing on just read the instructions so I know there's a bit of confusion with that but we got backto back starlink return to flights here yeah and that Vandy Mission will be the 100th Landing attempt on of course as to love you which is pretty cool oh yeah uh personally one of my favorite barges I got to say I have a person connection to it and it's the first one I saw I still love the name my family still loves the name uh of course I still lie here towel is in my possession as well so uh I do want to go ahead it'll be the 93rd successful landing on just read the or on of course I still love you uh it has had based on my count I believe seven uh Landing failures so yeah unfortunately a shortall of Gravitas had the perfect record of the fleet and now it is uh believe 81 for 82 and just read the instructions out there tonight uh do want to thanks the support here Urban vanel thank you for becoming a pad rat member and mattz thank you for gifting five red team memberships tip my hats to Matts here for that so thank you very much and again all that support greatly appreciated from everyone especially at this ungodly hour in the middle of the night here 3:35 a.m. currently Eastern Time thank you it allows us to keep going have all these camera R views out there have people out there for the launches and bring you say drone and helicopter footage of booster Parts returning on a barge so thank you all right let's see here we are now at the T-minus 7 Minute Mark and uh we may not be chilling right now but Max I'm sure the engines are chilling why is that so the last thing you want to do is flow cryogenic uh fluids or fuels through uh through Plumbing that is certainly not at the temperature that the the fuel is at because that will cause a load of thermal shocking uh flash steaming from the the the propellant meeting the surface of the not so uh cold um plumbing and that will cause a whole range of issues from uh from the plumbing cracking and and just a whole bunch of other nasty things happening uh so what you want to do is is flow just a tiny amount of that propellant uh at a time through through all of that plumbing in the engine section to to make sure that all of that uh plumbing and everything else the the pumps the plumbing and everything else are down to uh their proper operating temperatures to ensure a smooth start up and and of course smooth operation of the engines so that should be happening here uh right now if not uh very shortly that is what we are hoping and I do see the comments in chat yes uh I am aware there's a lot of people viewing tonight from overseas especially people where it's 9:35 in the morning 8:35 over in the UK and Europe uh we've got about what is that 5 in the afternoon or so over in Australia so yeah uh but your team tonight to of us here Max and myself are based on the east coast and Trevor is in mountain time so it's still quite early for us but at this point it is not quite so early for the launch countdown to continue on here as we come up on the T-minus 5 minute Mark things are about to get exciting starting with the strong back retract Trevor how does that go yeah so coming up the strong back back will retracted by 1.8 de uh which may not sound like much and it's not um this is just preparing for it to throw back during launch so after um the vehicle has lifted off it will then fall back in additional oh it goes past 45 degrees so it's substantial um and the reason why SpaceX does all of this is they just want that strong back to be as far away from the vehicle as possible and having it far away just means that less the flamy bit of the rocket is far further from the strong back and that means less refurbishment is needed speaking of being far away from it Max I know you're still only a couple miles away so I'm going to let you get set up and get ready to capture fantastic views and we'll catch you after coming up now on the T-minus 4minute Mark here uh we've got a bunch of fuel lows that should be wrapping up Trevor can you kind of run us through the rest of the timeline here yeah of course so um as you mentioned SpaceX will be wrapping up fuel load on all stages so rp1 right is concluded on second stage and will be concluded here shortly on stage one and then liquid oxygen uh load on both stages will be wrapped up by about tus 2 minutes um from this point going forward the next big event will be a tus 60 seconds in an event known as startup which is when the vehicle uh Takes Over Control control of the countdown so right now it's all on groundbased computers and then that's when the signal and everything is handed over to the vehicle um in preparation for launch also at T minus 60 seconds the uh tanks on the vehicle will begin pressurization to flight pressure uh which right you want them to be at high pressure during launch uh so that they're structurally sound um following that about 15 seconds later at tus 45 seconds the launch director will give their go for launch and this is just a final go um and when we hear that we know that systems are looking pretty good um this will continue up until tus 10 seconds at tus 10 seconds the ground operators can no longer call on abort of the vehicle it is all automatic out and there we have confirmation stage one locks load is complete and then engine ignition will start at tus 2.7 seconds there we go and you hear the call out stage one locks load complete liquid oxygen fully loaded there into the first stage and we should be hearing the call out on the second stage coming up in about a 30 seconds or so from now on that being fully loaded and once that's done Falcon 9 will be completely loaded with all of its propellants ahead of tonight's launch and as we hit the team 2-minute Mark so far everything appears to be looking good for those just joining as we hit that 2-minute Mark this is Starling 8-10 from Cape canaval space for station in Florida space launch complex 40 where Falcon 9 is returning to flight after a booster lock compl and now stage two locks load complete the vehicle completely fueled this booster b169 will be the return to flight here and it is scheduled to land on just read the instructions about 620 km downrange while it delivers these 21 starlink satellites including some direct to cell gas line CL out started that gas line close out is that vent that you see there Trevor that's purging the line right yep just trying to get them all clear ahead of um engine ignition here coming up in just about a minute yeah you don't want any gaseous oxygen hanging around right near uh engine ignition all right we are under tus 1 minute at this point we should be waiting for the call out Falon start and there it is as you mentioned Trevor the onboard computers now taking over also the tanks are being pressurized to flight levels as we hit tus 45 seconds we're going to hope to hear go for launch from the launch director go for launch there it is everything is go for launch next thing to keep an eye out for will be the flash of the tab and the ignition of the nine Merlin 1D engines underneath Falcon 9 at T-minus 3 seconds followed 3 seconds later by liftoff and once it lifts off the sound will take a little bit of time to get to our mics but we will be quiet and let you enjoy the beautiful Rumble that is Falcon 9 in about T-minus 10 seconds as it lifts off about five seconds now keep an eye out for engine ignition there it is and liftoff Falcon 9 returning to flight once again B 1069 takes to the skies Go internet [Music] satellites [Music] I I [Music] oh that was quite some launch audio so you're maybe talking well muted but we have had a successful liftoff of starlink group 8-10 the return to flight of Falcon 9 after just over 48 hours we got to love the VAB squeal that was fantastic to hear super clear on a night like tonight and as we hit t plus 2 minutes we are coming up on three events in Rapid succession Mo main engine cut off with the N Merlin 1D engine shut down followed by stage separation and then that will be followed shortly thereafter by scs1 second engine start one as the Merlin vacuum engine fires up and then about 20 seconds after that we should expect payload fairing separation so a bunch of stuff to look out for back to back we should be coming up on Mo there we go looks like we have Mo we have stage separation and ignition of that Merlin vacuum engine there we go 21 star link satellites heading to their orbit and now booster B10 69 heading to the Drone ship just read the instructions hoping to make the first successful Landing in a row restarting spacex's Landing streak and payload fairing separation happening right there on your screen as well everything looking good so far it's always cool to see those uh Starling satellites stacked like that Trevor I don't think we talk about it that much usually about how they're stacked and how they're separated yeah it's a very very clever mechanism and it's obvious they design the satellite around the launch vehicle which is pretty cool um and then they're doing the same with the fulls siiz starlink V2 and Starship so certainly a unique deployment mechanism exactly now you'll see on the bottom left the speed slowing down the altitude going up it should be nearing apogee the highest point in its current trajectory here and at that point you will see the speed basically stop the altitude stop and then it will pick up speed again as it works its way downward that usually happens right about 119 km and there is that 119 km Mark and then we'll see the speed pick up and the booster come down obviously a lot of eyes tonight on that first stage hopefully Landing back on on the Drone ship and there we go speed completely stagnant that's apogee now it'll be picking up and working its way down so we have two engine Burns we've got the entry burn and the landing bur that entry burn coming up in about a minute and a half from now or so uh can you kind of talk about the importance of the entry burn Trevor and how it works yeah of course so uh Falon 9 has uses a three engine Landing burn most of the time and on all of these starlink missions so what that means is it's in a 131 configuration where it'll start by igniting its Center E9 engine um before a couple of seconds later igniting the two side engine so this will be obvious because you'll see the flame around the vehicle it'll OB it'll first be kind of all in a circle and then you'll see it kind of go to a line uh when those two side engines ignite uh and then those two side engines remain lit for the vast majority of the burn uh before shutting down just before the center engine and what this burn does is it just helps uh bleed off a lot of that uh velocity from falling back down uh which reduces the re-entry heating because right keep in mind Peak re-entry heating is roughly proportional to the cube uh of your velocity so if you right even just decrease your velocity by 30% then your amount of heat is whatever like 7 cubed is like your Peak heating is about a third um so this just makes it much uh better for reusing the vehicle uh and that's why they have the entry burn on falcon9 um so yeah and there's your Trevor math for the day standing by for that entry burn and there we go entry burn has started this us lasts for approximately 20 seconds as it fights fire with fire to work its way down to the Drone ship yeah so I did hear I have seen some people in chat wondering why Falcon 9 or why super heavy um doesn't need an entry burn and the reason is uh the burn of super heavy is done in kind of a more efficient way where the booster velocity is actually a decent amount lower uh at stage separation uh so therefore super heavy is actually going slower through re-entry than Falcon 9 is after its re-entry burn uh so because of that they just don't end up needing uh that entry burn there we go you can see the effects coming off there through those grid fins as we pass lower than 13 kilomet now towards the deck of the Drone ship you can see stage two also continuing its burn on the right side there no it is not a stubby nuzzle chat it is the full size all right 8 km up we should hopefully see that Landing burn starting in a couple seconds here and hopefully we get a successful Landing I'll just read the instructions I know that everyone in chat is probably holding their breath right now under 1,000 kilm to go or under 1,000 km an hour going to say I hope under 1,000 kilomet yeah 2 kilomet in fact now so stand by for that engine burn there it is there is the landing burn see those grid fins doing their steering waiting for the landing legs to deploy landing leg deploy and Bingo right in the center this time we can actually say it as SpaceX successfully lands booster 1069 bringing their Landing streak up to one and Counting and that was a 342nd booster Landing yeah I should have said yes yes yes yes yes instead of no no no no no and there is SEO one shutdown of the Merlin vacuum engine that will complete one more burn that's a couple seconds long prior to the deployment of those starlink satellites into their initial orbit but just based off of the initial Telemetry looks like a good parking orbit there Max how was that launched for you my goodness um well so we use Starling for a a chunk of our of our Communications here and like right at around T minus 2 minutes it appears we had some kind of satellite Handover and I lost coms with you guys briefly so I apologize if that caused any issues with with anybody else um but launch was good apart from the fact that another Cloud decided to form up right above our heads and obstructed a large amount of our view for launch unfortunately so uh we still saw it we saw it of course leave the pad and then go right behind the cloud and we saw it poke through a couple of times uh but the audio was absolutely crisp and clear and clean just like just like you like to hear the VAB was making all sorts of noises like like it normally does um and then we saw poke out right before uh main engine cut off uh for the for the booster and then of course we saw uh scs1 and we we were able to look at it with our own eyes almost all the way to the Horizon almost uh but I could not get get the camera on unfortunately um so bit of mixed results here tonight but you know it's all pretty much out of our control and uh we did the best we could but the sound was absolutely fantastic yes the VAB squeal was quite apparent tonight it really made itself known for those who don't know the VAB squeal that kind of screeching noise that you heard during Ascent is actually a result of the panels on the Vehicle Assembly Building resonating at a frequency very similar to those of those Merlin 1D engines and because it's a straight shot essentially from pad 40 to the Vehicle Assembly Building side panels you get that beautiful squealing sound you don't get it as from 39a the only other place that you do get it is the landing zones lz1 and two will give a little squeal as well we will have a couple of replays coming up so hang tight for those uh we will do a couple of quick ones here so let's start it off Carson let's take a look back at the return to flight here we go we'll start with this one from one of our remote cameras there at the Kennedy Space Center gotta love when it lights up the sky like that this the wide angle from Max's camera just it's so hard to describe in person what it's like for a night launch seeing it turn night into day and I I mean I think this is as close as you can get seeing something like that wide shot there of how it really really changes night today am I trying to describe that well Max absolutely I think it's best described as an artificial or man-made Sunrise it is absolutely stunning and that's why Carol's engines I think are some of the most brilliant to uh watch and look at at night apart from of course solid rocket boosters just because of how well oh we got audio coming in oh yeah listen for the VAB squeal [Music] there it is got to love it absolutely got to love that audio and also got to love all the people that that have been joining us and watching and hanging out and chat with us and as well as people have been giving us some support uh Janice thank you for becoming a padr member and go Flyers uh saying what an awesome time to be a fan of the space industry you all are the best hashtag sendit # fluffhead thank you very much for that it is I think that's perfectly put is what a time to be a fan of the space industry and I'm so honored to be a part of a team that has such amazing fans here including my co- commentators for the evening Max thank you for joining us from out in the field it is an absolute pleasure as always everybody and thank you very much for coming to hang out to hang out with us on this not not so bright but very early morning here at the KSC and Capal space for station and we we will hopefully see you again very soon it's true this wasn't your ordinary star link and they do be hitting different thank you all for joining us Trevor yes of course and just as a reminder this is not spacex's only launch of tonight in uh just over an hour they will have another and if that launch time holds this will be the shortest amount of time between any two SpaceX launches ever so about an hour five minutes that's super quick yes yeah previous record was 1 hour and 51 minutes let's keep our fingers crossed for that and thank you as well to Carson for operating the stream tonight pushing buttons pulling levers and all the Fantastic views and a quick thank you as well to the Fantastic bford for the $25 Super Chat saying wonderful launch fantastic Landing great hosts well thank you so much for that bford we always appreciate your support and we appreciate you watching as well so we will see you all for the next launch have a great night or morning or day everybody and here we go we have off propulsion continues to be normal R 68 chamber pressure looks good probably not tow [Music] fly it's orange oh my God oh my God put that in the big bag 343 unfolds to go indeed we rise together back to the moon and Beyond if MC be igniting Flair correct yikes you we don't need any more of [Music] these for