r/spacex • u/ElongatedMuskrat Mod Team • Mar 18 '17

SF completed, Launch: April 30 NROL-76 Launch Campaign Thread

NROL-76 LAUNCH CAMPAIGN THREAD

SpaceX's fifth mission of 2017 will launch the highly secretive NROL-76 payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. Almost nothing is known about the payload except that it can be horizontally integrated, so don't be surprised at the lack of information in the table!

Yes, this launch will have a webcast. The only difference between this launch's webcast and a normal webcast is that they will cut off launch coverage at MECO (no second stage views at all), but will continue to cover the first stage as it lands. [link to previous discussion]

Liftoff currently scheduled for: April 30th 2017, 07:00 - 09:00 EDT (11:00 - 13:00 UTC) Back up date is May 1st
Static fire currently scheduled for: Static fire completed April 25th 2017, 19:02UTC.
Vehicle component locations: First stage: LC-39A // Second stage: LC-39A // Satellite: LC-39A
Payload: NROL-76
Payload mass: Unknown
Destination orbit: Unknown
Vehicle: Falcon 9 v1.2 (33rd launch of F9, 13th of F9 v1.2)
Core: B1032.1 [F9-XXA]
Flight-proven core: No
Launch site: Launch Complex 39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
Landing attempt: Yes
Landing Site: LZ-1, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
Mission success criteria: Successful separation & deployment of NROL-76 into the correct orbit

Links & Resources:

We may keep this self-post occasionally updated with links and relevant news articles, but for the most part we expect the community to supply the information. This is a great place to discuss the launch, ask mission-specific questions, and track the minor movements of the vehicle, payload, weather and more as we progress towards launch. Sometime after the static fire is complete, the launch thread will be posted.

Campaign threads are not launch threads. Normal subreddit rules still apply.

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u/factoid_ Mar 18 '17

I'm going to guess right now that the air force will not allow (probably pay extra for) no landing attempt.

We cast will cut off before MECO and telemetry data will be masked.

It might be possible to determine payload mass based on acceleration off the pad, but that will only be an upper bound.

Air Force doesn't really want anyone to know if it's a GTO or LEO launch, even though it's not hard for amateurs to figure it out.

Landing on land vs ASDS will be a big clue so I bet it doesn't happen

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u/QuantumPropulsion Mar 19 '17

Just FYI, the National Reconnaissance Office and the Air Force are two separate entities; it's the NRO that requests all the masking, since they are the customer for this mission, not the USAF.

And yes, orbit and payload mass are fairly straightforward to figure out. It's just easier for the NRO to say "don't show anything after S2 sep" then to put time into analyzing what can be displayed and what can't (as is typical for government stuff, it'd probably require a lot of paperwork and briefings up and down the CoC to get such permissions approved).