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SpaceX F9 - CRS-20 - SLC-40

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Grendal

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Jan 31, 2012
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Launch Date: March 6/7
Launch Window: 0449:29 GMT on 7th (11:49:29 p.m. EST on 6th)
Launch site: SLC-40 Cape Canaveral
Booster Recovery: RTLS
Booster Type: B1059.2
Orbit: ISS in LEO
Dragon Return - April 7

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the 22nd Dragon spacecraft mission on its 20th operational cargo delivery flight to the International Space Station. The flight is being conducted under the Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. This is the last CRS mission using the Dragon 1 capsule. All further missions will be using the new Cargo Dragon 2 under the CRS-2 contract.

SpaceX CRS-20 - Wikipedia
 
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Flight of the last gen 1 Cargo Dragon, the last Cargo Resupply mission of the initial program. From here on out, they will fly a new second generation Cargo Dragon that will be closely related to Crew Dragon (if not re-used and re-purposed Crew Dragons).
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Whoa: SpaceX CRS-20 Launch Targeted for March 6 – SpaceX
NASA said:
During standard preflight inspections, SpaceX identified a valve motor on the second stage engine behaving not as expected and determined the safest and most expedient path to launch is to utilize the next second stage in line that was already at the Cape and ready for flight.
 
Isn’t it great that SpaceX produces so many second stages that they have a spare, full ready stage available and can slot it in? What other rocket company could do that?
No one ever! Their launch rate has something to do with it.
Considering that Gwynne Shotwell was saying second-stage production was a potential bottleneck to the 2020 plans for a record number of launches, I hope this one does not have compounded effects later on.
 
Isn’t it great that SpaceX produces so many second stages that they have a spare, full ready stage available and can slot it in? What other rocket company could do that?

Bit of a party pooper here, but...at least from time to time, most of them. Obviously the phenomenon is 100% related to launch cadence and as such SpaceX will pretty much always have SN N+1 available whereas others won't be in that position, but most of the big launchers do or at least can have multiple vehicles in various states of final assembly in their launch preparation facility. Both times I've campaigned out of Baikonur, for instance, there were 3 Protons in the final assembly hall. (There are probably none now since they've let that vehicle go to *sugar*, but I digress...). Ariane specifically built the BIF and BAF and two launch tables so they could process (not directly in parallel) two launchers at a time, and pretty much every time I've been there they've had two vehicles going. If you looked into the hanger of the Commander back in its heyday, you'd see at least 2-3 Zenits in there. Hell, I've even seen multiple Atlas 5's at the cape at the same time, and they launch that thing like twice a year if they're lucky. :confused:

All that said, swapping major components across rocket FMs is pretty uncommon in the industry. SpaceX can get away with it because they're a) the industry bully and b) have internal inventory that's easier to transfer ownership, but pretty much everyone else focuses on resolving the anomaly instead of swapping parts. That's because if you're a customer spending a ton of money on something, you want the thing that you bought, not someone else's thing.

An analogy: Someone takes their Tesla to a service center with an AFU battery. You take your Tesla to that service center for something else and tell them you're going on vacation for a week. In an effort to get the other customer on their way, Tesla takes your battery and puts it in the other car and then says to you "Don't worry, we're going to fix the AFU battery and then put it in your car. It will be good as new, trust us."
 
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Isn’t it great that SpaceX produces so many second stages that they have a spare, full ready stage available and can slot it in? What other rocket company could do that?

SpaceX supposedly grabbed the second stage from Starlink 5. I haven't heard if they are fixing the issue with this stage and using it for Starlink 5. I suppose it comes down to how big the valve issue is.
 
There was a pre-launch conference for this launch. Since this is the last launch of the original CRS contract a NASA representative gave a rundown on the achievements for SpaceX.

SpaceX and Dragon has brought 94,000 lbs of cargo to the ISS.
Dragon has returned 74,000 lbs. of cargo from the ISS.
Dragon brought the very first Mousetronaut to the ISS for research purposes.
Dragon has been berthed to the ISS for a total of 520 days.
Lots of reuse happened during this contract: both boosters and especially Dragons.

Berthing on March 9th at 7 AM EST (I think).

On to Dragon 2...
 
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