SpaceX Falcon 9 Live Landing Attempt
That is bl00dy impressive!
Is it just me getting old or do they all look so young?
The Apollo era rocket scientists seemed ancient in comparison.
Is it just me getting old or do they all look so young?
The Apollo era rocket scientists seemed ancient in comparison.
So when can I buy a tourist ticket to the ISS for a sensible prices, say ten grand?
I kid, I kid...the monkeys were busy that day.
Plan "B"
The 400km distance to the International Space Station could also be scaled by stacking the 375,000 advance orders of the Tesla model 3 on top of each other 
Mickjoebill
Mickjoebill
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Thread Starter
What's the meaning of the message on the landing platform?
Someone been spending all his time and money playing with his toys?
Someone been spending all his time and money playing with his toys?
TURIN
Perhaps.....OTOH some of the Apollo controllers (the systems guys who we used to see on TV sat at their consoles in what was usually described as "Mission Control") were recruited straight from Uni and a few were working at the consoles by the age of 23-24. The legendary (in space flight circles) John Aaron saved Apollo 12 at the tender age of 26.
Their bosses, the Flight Directors (Krantz, Lunney et.al.) were a bit older..mid 30's. Their boss, Chris Kraft, was an old man at the age of 45 when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon.
In any event there's no doubt many of them certainly looked young, even wearing what was fashionable for a young engineer at the time - take a look at John Aaron's picture in the wiki link below...looks to me like he should still be doing his homework.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aaron
Is it just me getting old or do they all look so young?
The Apollo era rocket scientists seemed ancient in comparison.
The Apollo era rocket scientists seemed ancient in comparison.
Their bosses, the Flight Directors (Krantz, Lunney et.al.) were a bit older..mid 30's. Their boss, Chris Kraft, was an old man at the age of 45 when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon.
In any event there's no doubt many of them certainly looked young, even wearing what was fashionable for a young engineer at the time - take a look at John Aaron's picture in the wiki link below...looks to me like he should still be doing his homework.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aaron
Last edited by wiggy; 13th Apr 2016 at 17:12.
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Did it again. Getting to the stage (sic) when it will only be reported when they don't manage to recover the stage.
SpaceX lands fourth booster after successful Falcon 9 launch
SpaceX lands fourth booster after successful Falcon 9 launch
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However, landing on the barge is always going to be relatively high risk because it moves so much and the Falcon engine can't throttle low enough to hover. So I'd expect to see a persistent low level of crashes for the forseeable future.
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And they just reflew this stage and landed it on a drone ship again.
Congratulations!!!!!!
SpaceX Just Landed a Rocket on a Drone Ship
"Minutes after a smooth launch of its Dragon spacecraft to the ISS this afternoon, SpaceX hit a long-standing, elusive goal: It landed the Falcon 9 rocket that had launched the spaceship neatly down on an ocean barge like it was nothing at all.........."
SpaceX Just Landed a Rocket on a Drone Ship
"Minutes after a smooth launch of its Dragon spacecraft to the ISS this afternoon, SpaceX hit a long-standing, elusive goal: It landed the Falcon 9 rocket that had launched the spaceship neatly down on an ocean barge like it was nothing at all.........."
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SpaceX picking up the pace......
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/05/1...hed-by-spacex/
A Boeing-built satellite on the way to join Inmarsat’s globe-spanning network geared to beam Internet and data transmission capacity to airline passengers, maritime crews and military personnel flew into orbit Monday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard an expendable Falcon 9 rocke. The satellite is the fourth member of Inmarsat’s broadband communications fleet, a $1.6 billion initiative named Global Xpress conceived to connect aircraft, ships at sea, and mobile users on land with through an umbrella of worldwide Ka-band beams.
The two-stage rocket, towering 229 feet (70 meters) tall, was stripped of recovery hardware to give the 6.7-ton Inmarsat 5 F4 payload the boost it needed toward an eventual circular geostationary orbit 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers) over the equator.......
The first stage engines turned off around T+plus 2 minutes, 45 seconds, and the booster stage detached to fall into the Atlantic Ocean on a destructive plunge. The heavy weight of the Inmarsat 5 F4 satellite, which weighed 13,417 pounds (6,086 kilograms) at liftoff, required all of the Falcon 9’s energy, leaving no propellant left over for the first stage to slow down for a landing........
The on-target deployment gave SpaceX its second successful launch in two weeks, after a Falcon 9 rocketed into orbit with a top secret U.S. government spy payload May 1*......
Monday’s launch debuted an upgrade to the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage intended to speed up fueling during launch countdowns, allowing liquid oxygen and helium pressurant to be simultaneously loaded into the launcher.
Investigators blamed a Falcon 9 rocket explosion at Cape Canaveral’s pad 40 last September on voids in the skin of high-pressure helium tanks immersed in super-cold liquid oxygen inside the launcher’s second stage. Liquid oxygen became trapped, and perhaps froze, in the openings, leading to friction that eventually caused the rocket to explode, destroying an Israeli-owned communications satellite during a countdown rehearsal. After an engineering inquiry settled on a probable cause for the mishap, SpaceX said future countdown sequences would change to load helium into the rocket before liquid oxygen, a modification the company said would avoid the problem. At the same time, SpaceX said it would make hardware changes to the rocket to permanently fix the helium tank concern.
Those unspecified safety upgrades made their way into the Falcon 9 that launched Monday. A SpaceX official said the next two Falcon 9 flights in June will not have the helium tank modification, but then all future rockets will incorporate the change.
SpaceX ground crews are preparing for four more launches by the end of June, with the next Falcon 9 flight slated for June 1 with a Dragon supply ship to ferry experiments and equipment to the International Space Station. Liftoff of the Dragon capsule — the first SpaceX cargo craft to be reused after a previous space station mission — is scheduled for approximately 5:55 p.m. EDT (2155 GMT) June 1 from pad 39A.
Another Falcon 9 rocket is being primed for blastoff from the Kennedy Space Center on June 15 with BulgariaSat 1, Bulgaria’s first communications satellite. That launcher will fly with a previously-used first stage, the second time SpaceX will have re-flown a Falcon 9 booster.
Two more Falcon 9 missions in late June will launch from the Kennedy Space Center and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
The Intelsat 35e telecom satellite, a trans-Atlantic video, data and broadband relay station, has a launch window some time between June 26 and July 2 from Florida, an Intelsat spokesperson said Monday.
The second batch of 10 next-generation satellites for Iridium’s mobile telephone and data messaging constellation is supposed to launch June 29 from California.
*1st May booster landed back at Canaveral successfully. Excellent video of recovery included below.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/05/1...hed-by-spacex/
A Boeing-built satellite on the way to join Inmarsat’s globe-spanning network geared to beam Internet and data transmission capacity to airline passengers, maritime crews and military personnel flew into orbit Monday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard an expendable Falcon 9 rocke. The satellite is the fourth member of Inmarsat’s broadband communications fleet, a $1.6 billion initiative named Global Xpress conceived to connect aircraft, ships at sea, and mobile users on land with through an umbrella of worldwide Ka-band beams.
The two-stage rocket, towering 229 feet (70 meters) tall, was stripped of recovery hardware to give the 6.7-ton Inmarsat 5 F4 payload the boost it needed toward an eventual circular geostationary orbit 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers) over the equator.......
The first stage engines turned off around T+plus 2 minutes, 45 seconds, and the booster stage detached to fall into the Atlantic Ocean on a destructive plunge. The heavy weight of the Inmarsat 5 F4 satellite, which weighed 13,417 pounds (6,086 kilograms) at liftoff, required all of the Falcon 9’s energy, leaving no propellant left over for the first stage to slow down for a landing........
The on-target deployment gave SpaceX its second successful launch in two weeks, after a Falcon 9 rocketed into orbit with a top secret U.S. government spy payload May 1*......
Monday’s launch debuted an upgrade to the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage intended to speed up fueling during launch countdowns, allowing liquid oxygen and helium pressurant to be simultaneously loaded into the launcher.
Investigators blamed a Falcon 9 rocket explosion at Cape Canaveral’s pad 40 last September on voids in the skin of high-pressure helium tanks immersed in super-cold liquid oxygen inside the launcher’s second stage. Liquid oxygen became trapped, and perhaps froze, in the openings, leading to friction that eventually caused the rocket to explode, destroying an Israeli-owned communications satellite during a countdown rehearsal. After an engineering inquiry settled on a probable cause for the mishap, SpaceX said future countdown sequences would change to load helium into the rocket before liquid oxygen, a modification the company said would avoid the problem. At the same time, SpaceX said it would make hardware changes to the rocket to permanently fix the helium tank concern.
Those unspecified safety upgrades made their way into the Falcon 9 that launched Monday. A SpaceX official said the next two Falcon 9 flights in June will not have the helium tank modification, but then all future rockets will incorporate the change.
SpaceX ground crews are preparing for four more launches by the end of June, with the next Falcon 9 flight slated for June 1 with a Dragon supply ship to ferry experiments and equipment to the International Space Station. Liftoff of the Dragon capsule — the first SpaceX cargo craft to be reused after a previous space station mission — is scheduled for approximately 5:55 p.m. EDT (2155 GMT) June 1 from pad 39A.
Another Falcon 9 rocket is being primed for blastoff from the Kennedy Space Center on June 15 with BulgariaSat 1, Bulgaria’s first communications satellite. That launcher will fly with a previously-used first stage, the second time SpaceX will have re-flown a Falcon 9 booster.
Two more Falcon 9 missions in late June will launch from the Kennedy Space Center and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
The Intelsat 35e telecom satellite, a trans-Atlantic video, data and broadband relay station, has a launch window some time between June 26 and July 2 from Florida, an Intelsat spokesperson said Monday.
The second batch of 10 next-generation satellites for Iridium’s mobile telephone and data messaging constellation is supposed to launch June 29 from California.
*1st May booster landed back at Canaveral successfully. Excellent video of recovery included below.
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The most telling comments here is "as has become customary".....
SpaceX launches top-secret space shuttle before Irma hits Florida
SpaceX launched the US air force’s super-secret space shuttle on Thursday, blasting off from Kennedy space center in Florida as schools and businesses boarded up for Hurricane Irma. The crewless aircraft, a technology testing mini-shuttle capable of spending years in orbit, rode an unmanned Falcon rocket on the fifth such flight.....
As has become customary, SpaceX landed its leftover booster back at Cape Canaveral for eventual reuse.
This was the first time SpaceX has provided a lift for the experimental minishuttle. The previous missions relied on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rockets. Air force officials said they wanted to use a variety of rockets for the X-37B program, to be able to launch quickly if warranted...... At the air force’s request, SpaceX stopped providing details about the X-37B’s climb to orbit a few minutes after liftoff. The booster’s return to SpaceX’s landing zone at Cape Canaveral air force station, however, was broadcast live.
“The Falcon has safely landed,” a SpaceX launch controller announced. Cheers erupted at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. It was SpaceX’s 16th successful return of a first-stage booster......
And an absolutely f***ing awesome video....
SpaceX launches top-secret space shuttle before Irma hits Florida
SpaceX launched the US air force’s super-secret space shuttle on Thursday, blasting off from Kennedy space center in Florida as schools and businesses boarded up for Hurricane Irma. The crewless aircraft, a technology testing mini-shuttle capable of spending years in orbit, rode an unmanned Falcon rocket on the fifth such flight.....
As has become customary, SpaceX landed its leftover booster back at Cape Canaveral for eventual reuse.
This was the first time SpaceX has provided a lift for the experimental minishuttle. The previous missions relied on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rockets. Air force officials said they wanted to use a variety of rockets for the X-37B program, to be able to launch quickly if warranted...... At the air force’s request, SpaceX stopped providing details about the X-37B’s climb to orbit a few minutes after liftoff. The booster’s return to SpaceX’s landing zone at Cape Canaveral air force station, however, was broadcast live.
“The Falcon has safely landed,” a SpaceX launch controller announced. Cheers erupted at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. It was SpaceX’s 16th successful return of a first-stage booster......
And an absolutely f***ing awesome video....
Last edited by ORAC; 7th Sep 2017 at 20:18.
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I was always taught never to return to an apparently spent firework......
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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-...m-rebuilt-pad/
A previously-flown SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a "used" Dragon cargo ship loaded with 4,800 pounds of equipment bound for the International Space Station blasted off from Cape Canaveral Friday, the first flight off a launch pad that was virtually destroyed when another Falcon 9 booster exploded on the ground last year. In a now-familiar but still thrilling sight, the rocket's first stage, which first flew in June to help launch another station cargo flight, flew itself back to a pinpoint landing at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station seven-and-a-half minutes after launch. It was the California rocket builder's 20th successful booster recovery over the past two years and its eighth on land......
The launching Friday was the first by NASA using a previously flown booster and only the second using a "flight proven" Dragon cargo ship. Recovering, refurbishing and relaunching booster stages is a key element of SpaceX founder Elon Musk's drive to lower launch costs. Equally important to SpaceX, Friday's launch was the first off pad 40 at the Air Force station since a Falcon 9 exploded five minutes before an engine test on Sept. 1, 2016, destroying that rocket and its $200 million satellite payload and virtually wiping out the launch complex and its systems.
In the wake of the mishap, SpaceX rushed to complete modifications to historic pad 39A at the nearby Kennedy Space Center, launching 16 successful flights in a row -- 12 from the Florida spaceport and four from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., before Friday's return to launch complex 40.
SpaceX needs both East Coast launch pads to fly off a backlog of satellites in its $10 billion manifest. The company plans to use complex 40 primarily for civilian and military payloads and to launch space station crew and cargo missions from pad 39A. It also plans to use the repurposed NASA pad to launch the Falcon Heavy, made up of three Falcon 9 core stages strapped together. The booster, which will generate 5.1 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, is scheduled for its maiden flight in January.....
SpaceX holds contacts valued at more than $2 billion for 20 space station resupply flights -- this was No. 13 -- and a subsequent contract covering another six cargo missions. SpaceX is building a piloted version of its Dragon capsule to ferry astronauts to and from the station under a separate $2.6 billion contract.....
A previously-flown SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a "used" Dragon cargo ship loaded with 4,800 pounds of equipment bound for the International Space Station blasted off from Cape Canaveral Friday, the first flight off a launch pad that was virtually destroyed when another Falcon 9 booster exploded on the ground last year. In a now-familiar but still thrilling sight, the rocket's first stage, which first flew in June to help launch another station cargo flight, flew itself back to a pinpoint landing at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station seven-and-a-half minutes after launch. It was the California rocket builder's 20th successful booster recovery over the past two years and its eighth on land......
The launching Friday was the first by NASA using a previously flown booster and only the second using a "flight proven" Dragon cargo ship. Recovering, refurbishing and relaunching booster stages is a key element of SpaceX founder Elon Musk's drive to lower launch costs. Equally important to SpaceX, Friday's launch was the first off pad 40 at the Air Force station since a Falcon 9 exploded five minutes before an engine test on Sept. 1, 2016, destroying that rocket and its $200 million satellite payload and virtually wiping out the launch complex and its systems.
In the wake of the mishap, SpaceX rushed to complete modifications to historic pad 39A at the nearby Kennedy Space Center, launching 16 successful flights in a row -- 12 from the Florida spaceport and four from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., before Friday's return to launch complex 40.
SpaceX needs both East Coast launch pads to fly off a backlog of satellites in its $10 billion manifest. The company plans to use complex 40 primarily for civilian and military payloads and to launch space station crew and cargo missions from pad 39A. It also plans to use the repurposed NASA pad to launch the Falcon Heavy, made up of three Falcon 9 core stages strapped together. The booster, which will generate 5.1 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, is scheduled for its maiden flight in January.....
SpaceX holds contacts valued at more than $2 billion for 20 space station resupply flights -- this was No. 13 -- and a subsequent contract covering another six cargo missions. SpaceX is building a piloted version of its Dragon capsule to ferry astronauts to and from the station under a separate $2.6 billion contract.....