1. This is the instant of stage separation. You can see the tiny space between the booster and rocket.
Those who read my last post — assuming they were paying any attention at all — will have noticed that ChatGPT (and indirectly, Spacex itself) claims that in a Falcon 9 orbital injection mission neither the spacecraft itself nor its booster (the first stage) at any time flies in a westward direction, which is strange to say the least, given that the booster is said to return to Cape Kennedy to land (at the landing pad) close to the launch pad from which it took off. (Yes, the above is actually… impossible.)
Here we will use a Spacex video recommended by ‘brian’, a commenter who disagrees with GPT, saying that the booster indeed returns westward to the Cape after stage separation, a maneuver that, according to both GPT and Spacex, takes place many miles to the east of the launch site (the exact distance depending on the parameters of the mission).
2. The ‘flip’ maneuver begins, which is supposed to turn the booster around before the boost back burn begins.
Let’s look at the flight via screen shots from brian’s recommended video and see how a ‘boost back burn’ really works.
In frame #2 we see the booster start to turn around after separation. At this time both the booster and the second stage are flying eastward at about 4,000 mph.
3. The flip continues. This is only a couple seconds after #1.
They are in a true vacuum, which means there is no air resistance to slow either section down, although the booster is no longer firing its Merlin engines, so it is not accelerating.
4. Still only a few seconds after separation the booster is still pointing up and has now lit one third of its nine Merlin engines.
In frame #3 the flip continues and the two sections separate further, the booster pointing upwards, gaining altitude but still traveling east at slightly less than 4,000, since there is no air resistance to slow it down.
5. Notice the vertical attitude of the booster: it is actually titled a bit back east.
In frame 4 the boost back burn has begun but as GPT told us in the previous post, the booster is still hauling ass eastward, since there is nothing to slow it down. What little thrust the three engines have are not doing much so far, since the booster is not pointing back west to toward the Cape. Notice we can still see the second stage and nose section in this frame; as GPT repeated many times, there is nothing propelling the booster back west, so the two stages are still close.
6. This is another cut but the angle is the same.
Frame #5 is an interesting cut, coming about three seconds after #4. This is a live stream, meaning that we have not missed anything. This is continuous action; there has been no thrust from the booster’s engines that would bring the booster westward toward the landing pad. As GPT told us, there is no westward direction to the booster’s flight from the takeoff to landing. One should be wondering at this point how the booster could possibly wind up back at the Cape.
7.
Frame #6 shows the boost back burn continuing but the tilt of the booster is the wrong way if the plan is to fly back west to the landing pad at the Cape. The air would be thickening now, which would slow its descent, but the 4,000 mph eastward direction/speed has not reversed, so it’s still headed east. What’s going on here?
8.
In frame 7 the boost back burn is shut down after a 40 second burn (since frame #4). The booster is now falling straight down, as GPT told us, not having made any westward progress at all. In fact, since the stage separation it can only have traveled further east, given the already mentioned 4,000 mph speed in that direction.
9.
A minute or so later the entry burn starts. Keep in mind that since the boost back burn there has been no means to altering trajectory at all; the fins and cold thrusters are only to keep the booster upright. From stage separation to here the flight has been ‘ballistic,’ i.e., falling like a brick, with whatever eastward momentum it still has.
Frame 9 is the entry burn, which, as GPT and Spacex tell us, is only to slow the descent; there can be no noticeable effect on trajectory.
10. How did it get here? Or, rather, what is this we are looking at?
Although GPT and Spacex tell us that stage separation can occur anywhere from 60 to 1,000 miles to the east of the launch pad (depending on the mission), since the booster has not ever turned around or made any westward progress at all, I fail to see how the last image here (#10) can be anything but a fraud.
One thing this post does is verify that GPT was correct yesterday in saying that the booster never travels westward. (That it also says that the booster somehow lands at the Cape anyway is another matter, one that OpenAI should look into.)
The following is from yesterday’s post and sums up what we have seen as succinctly as possible:
My prompt:
As anyone can clearly see from this Spacex diagram, the booster ‘lands’ (ends up) way farther east than it started. Any actual questions?
So at the beginning of the entry burn, the booster stage is actually farther east than it was at stage separation, right?
ChatGPT
1 / 1
Yes, that is correct.
I assume that anyone who still believes in Elon Musk’s space missions must do so based on ‘seeing them on a smartphone,’ or the like.
Ditto the screaming mobs they intercut to.
This is the problem.
Allan
From the stars streaks this is at least a 10 minute time lapse. Where is the flame trail of the booster that is supposed to come back and land?
Ooops!
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