Comparing acoustical measurements from Falcon 9 launches
Makayle S. Kellison, Noah L. Pulsipher, Levi T. Moats, Mark C. Anderson, Logan T. Mathews, Carson F. Cunningham, Kent L. Gee, Megan R. McCullah-Boozer, Lucas K. Hall, Grant W. Hart- Acoustics and Ultrasonics
- Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
The Falcon 9 rocket has successfully launched nearly 300 orbital missions, providing the opportunity to study noise radiation and propagation variability. Acoustical measurements of several Falcon 9 launches have been made on and near Vandenberg Space Force Base, ranging 0.5 to 14 km from the launch pad. This paper’s purpose is to compare collocated measurements from different Falcon 9 launches to begin to understand data variability as a function of launch and environmental conditions. One far-field location, at a distance of 8.4 km, has been measured across all launches, whereas several other locations spanned subsets of launches. This comparative analysis includes time-varying levels, spectra, and waveform statistics such as the pressure derivative skewness. Time periods of particular interest are liftoff, peak noise, and late into the launch when the vehicle is significantly downrange. [Work supported in part by the NSF REU program and by USACE.]