Crew-2 Mission | Launch
Why Space Exploration Stack Exchange recommends it
Space Stack Exchange users link it as primary footage of a real Falcon 9 flight when they need to show booster condition, stage separation details or in-flight speed.
Recommended by 0 people across 0 different months, 2021 to 2021.
What it is
This is the full SpaceX and NASA livestream of the Crew-2 launch on April 23, 2021, in which a flight-proven Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon carried astronauts from Launch Complex 39A to the International Space Station. The nearly five-hour webcast covers the pre-launch build-up, liftoff, stage separation and first-stage landing on the droneship.
What people said
Cites ymb1 · 2021-04 · Space Exploration Stack Exchange · on “How common is the ejection of small objects during final stage separation?”
[LINK] Source: Crew-2 launch; [this video] (timestamp link) That object seen moving right to left is the reason I ask. By playing the video frame-by-frame, it seems like it's a small object close to the camera inside the second stage, and it looks like a spinning flat spacer. How common is the release of such objects? I'm asking out of curiosity since tiny untrackable objects could pose threats I'd imagine. I initially asked about Dragon 2, but now realizing information may not be as public as for say NASA's own vehicles, I've made the question applicable to similar launches.
Cites Jörg W Mittag · 2021-05 · Space Exploration Stack Exchange · on “Do Falcon 9s get a thorough wash or a fresh coat of paint (they look clean pre-reflight)?”
It's easy to see by just looking at photos and videos of launches of re-used boosters that they don't. There are only a very few very small white lines, probably where engineers inspected some weld lines or other specific points on the vehicle. Here is an example of B1061.2 launching the Crew-2 mission [this video] . Note that this is only the second launch of this booster, and it is already pretty dirty. You can also see it on returning boosters, which are dirtier the more often they have flown, which would not be the case if they were cleaned every time. Unfortunately, it is not that easy to see it on a normal SpaceX live stream [LINK] because they only start the streams about 10 minutes before
Cites Yodaperor · 2021-07 · Space Exploration Stack Exchange · on “Modeling a rocket using Tsiolkovsky's equation and ordinary differential equations”
So I have this uni assignment to make a model out of ODEs, and my idea was to use rockets. After some research I found about Tsiolkovsky's equation and tried using it on a Falcon 9 (disconsidering gravity and drag for now). However, my calculations always return a speed smaller than the real one, which means the gravity/drag thing isn't the problem. For reference, I'm using this [LINK] for data (the Falcon 9 v1.1 bit, page 9), which gives me, at first stage separation: $$ \Delta v = 282\times9.81\times ln(\frac{439+78+6}{28+78+6})\rightarrow4383m/s $$ Which is nowhere near the speed the rocket has here [this video] near the stage separation. I know the first stage mass isn't dry by the end, but c