SpaceX Falcon Heavy to launch ashes of an all-star, astronaut and others

[The AchieVer]

SpaceX Falcon Heavy to launch ashes of an all-star, astronaut and others

The first nighttime launch of the big rocket will also be a celestial funeral of sorts.

 

The SpaceX Falcon Heavy sits on the launchpad in Florida.

SpaceX

When Elon Musk's huge Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off for just the third time Monday evening, it will be carrying the remains of over 100 earthlings to orbit.Spaceflight memorial company Celestis is sending individual canisters containing the cremated remains of its clients into space, where they will orbit our planet until their cosmic urns eventually re-enter Earth's atmosphere and burn up just like a shooting star.  

 

Dubbed the Heritage Flight, the cremains are hosted by the General Atomics Orbital Test Bed, which is just one of 24 satellites set to launch atop Falcon Heavy from Florida's Kennedy Space Center.  

An engineer secures capsules containing remains into the vessel that will carry them to orbit. 

Celestis

Celestis has been sending loved ones to the beyond for over two decades, even offering a similar service for beloved pets. 

Among the individuals to be memorialized this week is Bill Pogue, a NASA astronaut who was on the support crew for the historic Apollo 11 moon landing mission in 1969. Pogue later spent 84 days aboard the Skylab space station, setting spaceflight endurance and distance records at the time.  

 

Also on the Heritage Flight is Masaru Tomita, who was a two-time all star player in Japan's Nippon Pro Baseball league, and Marj Kreuger, who worked for NASA in the 1960s and published both science fiction and technical science papers, including one about the use of nuclear power in space.  

 

Memorial biographies for over 120 of the people aboard the flight are available online, and they're pretty fascinating reads.  

You can watch the launch online, which is set for no earlier than 11:30 p.m. EDT Monday night. But for some more perspective on its most emotional payload, you can also watch the livestream of the Heritage Flight Memorial Service below, which begins at 2:50 p.m. EDT Monday. 

 

 

 

 

Source

[Karlston]

Falcon Heavy rocket set to attempt SpaceX’s “most difficult launch ever”

Mission critical to demonstrating several capabilities for the US Air Force.

 

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket will attempt its most technically demanding mission yet on Monday night, with a rideshare flight organized by the US Air Force. Company founder Elon Musk has characterized the mission as "Our most difficult launch ever."

 

During this Space Test Program-2 flight, the world's most powerful operational rocket will attempt to deliver 24 different payloads into three different orbits, resulting in multiple re-lights of the Merlin 1D engine powering the rocket's second stage.

 

It is a critical mission for SpaceX and its Falcon Heavy rocket for a few reasons. First of all, this is the first time the Air Force has flown payloads on a Falcon Heavy rocket. And while this mission will not be carrying anything critical to national security—such as large satellites valued at $1 billion or more used for observation, communication, or other purposes to advance the national interest—Air Force officials will be watching closely.

 

The US military is in the middle of determining which providers among SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin, and Northrop Grumman will win lucrative launch contracts from 2022 to 2026. The Air Force is only expected to pick two winners, and SpaceX has said its Falcon Heavy rocket can meet all nine of the Air Force's "reference orbits," which means sending heavy payloads to some exotic orbits that require a lot of energy to reach.

 

The unique profile of Monday night's mission will help demonstrate that the Falcon Heavy rocket's second stage does indeed have the capability to reach all of these orbits. After the rocket launches and its second stage separates, it will perform four separate upper-stage engine burns, and then, almost like a school bus, drop off satellites at three different locations. These maneuvers will require precise performance by the upper stage over the course of six hours.

Testing reuse

Monday night's mission also marks the first time the US Air Force has allowed any of its payloads to fly on previously used rockets. The two side-mounted Falcon 9 cores for Monday's mission previously flew on the Arabsat-6A Falcon Heavy launch in April. The center core for Monday's Air Force flight is new. The two side-mounted cores will attempt to return to a landing site along the Florida coast shortly after launch, and the center core will attempt to land on a drone ship more than 1,200km down range.

 

The rocket will carry some interesting payloads for several government agencies, including NOAA, NASA, Department of Defense research laboratories, and university research projects. The Air Force's "Space Test Program" organizes launches that "directly enhance the space capabilities of the US and its allies and partners." One of the more intriguing satellites for this launch  is a solar sail for The Planetary Society that will seek to demonstrate capabilities first popularized by Carl Sagan.

 

Liftoff is scheduled for 11:30pm ET Monday night (03:30 UTC Tuesday) from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with a four-hour launch window. The forecast calls for a 70 percent chance of favorable launch conditions. The webcast below should begin about 15 minutes before launch.

STP-2 launch.

 

Listing image by SpaceX

 

 

 

Source: Falcon Heavy rocket set to attempt SpaceX’s “most difficult launch ever” (Ars Technica)

 

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