SpaceX finds a way to extend the launch window for Europa Clipper
The launch window for SpaceX’s launch of NASA’s Europa Clipper to Jupiter has now been extended a full week because the company has revised the launch process and made hardware changes.
The new launch window runs from October 10th to November 6th.
Usually the two side boosters come back to land at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station so they can be reused and sometimes the core booster is recovered at sea, but not this time. All their fuel will be used to get Europa Clipper on its way to Jupiter. Piloto said SpaceX “made some hardware modifications that enable the launch vehicle to utilize all the fuel in the boosters,” but couldn’t go into detail about what they are because the information is proprietary.
[The NASA official] added that SpaceX has gained experience in flying this configuration — it’s the 11th Falcon Heavy launch — and the company has “come up with a strategy to optimize throttling of the launch vehicle to get more performance out of it.”
NASA and SpaceX have also decided to use NASA’s orbiting communications constellation during the launch instead of ground stations, which increases their flexibility and margins.
I wonder if the FAA has approved these changes. Or even if anyone there even understands them.
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The launch window for SpaceX’s launch of NASA’s Europa Clipper to Jupiter has now been extended a full week because the company has revised the launch process and made hardware changes.
The new launch window runs from October 10th to November 6th.
Usually the two side boosters come back to land at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station so they can be reused and sometimes the core booster is recovered at sea, but not this time. All their fuel will be used to get Europa Clipper on its way to Jupiter. Piloto said SpaceX “made some hardware modifications that enable the launch vehicle to utilize all the fuel in the boosters,” but couldn’t go into detail about what they are because the information is proprietary.
[The NASA official] added that SpaceX has gained experience in flying this configuration — it’s the 11th Falcon Heavy launch — and the company has “come up with a strategy to optimize throttling of the launch vehicle to get more performance out of it.”
NASA and SpaceX have also decided to use NASA’s orbiting communications constellation during the launch instead of ground stations, which increases their flexibility and margins.
I wonder if the FAA has approved these changes. Or even if anyone there even understands them.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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c/o Robert Zimmerman
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Cortaro, AZ 85652
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Any further developments in the non-radiation-hardened chips? I assume they have just decided to let’er rip! Perhaps there will be some software error-correction tweaks that that can be uploaded during the long voyage?
For this to work, NASA had better be in charge of safety. It will be the only way around the FAA.
Ray,
NASA did tests of some kind that satisfied it that the MOSFETs in question will work suitably given Europa Clipper’s plan of operation. The planned passes through the Jovian radiation belts will be of short duration and the MOSFETs will “anneal” between passes. It was never the plan that Clipper be entirely immunized against radiation effects.
About the extended launch window, the only way to extend it is to get more total delta-V from somewhere. It looks as though the source of the extra ooompf will be the expending of both side boosters as well as the center core. Removing grid fins and landing legs from all three cores also lightens the whole vehicle. I think NASA simply decided to pay SpaceX an extra $50 million to buy a completely expendable FH launch and, thereby, get that extra week of launch window. I would say that’s a good move.
The extra cost of the fully-expendable Falcon Heavy might have been a problem, but then NASA found the change under the couch cushions in the SLS office!
Or even if anyone [at the FAA] even understands them.
Rhetorical question of the day!
I think NASA simply decided to pay SpaceX an extra $50 million to buy a completely expendable FH launch and, thereby, get that extra week of launch window.
I’m not even sure they paid that much of a fee. NASA paid SpaceX $178 million for this launch, and that is not all that much more than the nominal price of a totally expended Falcon Heavy ($150 million),. Moreover, there is some special processing needed for this mission, and that surely tacked on fees, too.
I guess we’ll find out what’s what on 10-10 – or whenever Clipper actually flies. This has not been a good year for Atlantic Coastal Florida weather. If it turns out booster recovery is not going to be attempted, then at least it will only be launch site weather that matters.
Hello Dick,
I think I may have misunderstood your comment!
Europa Clipper appears to have been selected as a fully expended launch for Europa Clipper right from the start — there is no other way to get the needed delta-v for a C4 of a MEGA trajectory. You may have meant to say this, and I may have misunderstood. In any case, this launch started out at the base price of $150 million for a fully expended FH.
SpaceX has fully expended a Falcon Heavy before – they did so on ViaSat-3, and they will be doing so again on the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope in 2027 (it is going out to the Earth-Sun L2 point).
It does appear, however, that from the Marcia Smith article Bob links, that SpaceX is going above and beyond, modifying this rocket’s throttling and propellant usage beyond the norm even for an expended FH. That, along with special payload processing for Clipper, apparently accounts for the additional $28 million in charges. I’m honestly a bit surprised it is so much cheaper, even so, than Nancy Grace Roman’s launch contract ($255 million), but this may well be the case because NGRST apparently requires vertical pad integration, which is not something SpaceX has ever done before, and is not being done for Europa Clipper.
Clearly, given the dicey weather in the North Atlantic at this time of year, SpaceX and NASA wanted to maximize their chances of making this launch window. 27 days sounds like a lot, but throw in a couple ill-timed tropical storms brushing Florida, and they might well need it.
STARSHIP –the website
http://thestarshipstory.com/
I will boycott these guys
https://www.space.com/cards-against-humanity-sues-spacex
@Jeff…
I’m not sure who you plan on boycotting… SpaceX or CAH…. But hit em where it hurts fella! :-o
I will boycott these guys
https://www.space.com/cards-against-humanity-sues-spacex
Cards Against Humanity bought that land on a crowdfund (2017) solely for the purpose of trying to block Trump from building a border wall along that part of the Rio Grande, which tells you something about the people we’re talking about.
They never got to use the plot in lawfare against the Trump Administration, but they suddenly discovered they had the chance to use it for lawfare against someone they presumably hate just as much: Elon Musk.
It does seem like they have kind of a case here, just the same. But given the layout of the properties in question — SpaceX bought the lots surrounding it in en masse — it looks like an honest (maybe reckless) mistake, and it only had to be made once, if the owners (CAH) were not monitoring it, or at least choosing not to act on that monitoring, if you catch my drift. I am by no means a specialist in property law, but based on what I know, I think they are not going to get $15 million out of SpaceX. Likely this gets settled out with SpaceX removing whatever they still have on the plot, and making it “good” (i.e., restoring it to its original condition), without any penalty beyond that.
Still, I’m sure the whole thing will give a nice warm satisfied feeling to the Cards Against Humanity cohort. This will end up being a marketing campaign for a game that peaked a long time ago.
Anyhow, I think we are getting far afield of anything to do with Europa Clipper, so I’ll bow it now.
Radiation mitigation
https://phys.org/news/2024-08-missions-jupiter-moon-europa.html
In terms of what Musk might be trying to do…
I think he superchills the LOX, but Zenits had kerosene fuel chilled for higher density.
I think Delta II kerosene was pre-heated for higher energy.
That’s all I can think of, besides a trajectory change or something.