SpaceX Falcon 9 Live Landing Attempt
 

SpaceX Falcon 9 cargo launch to the ISS. After payload separation they will attempt to start the motor on re-entry and do a controlled descent and landing onto a barge in the Atlantic. Launch approx 1120 UTC.

Live video here.

Launch abort at T-90 seconds. Actuator drift. Next launch attempt Friday at 0509, (presumably East Coast Time.), 1009 UTC.

Delayed to Friday.
Per

SpaceX's fifth official cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station is now targeted to launch on Saturday Jan 10th at 0947 UTC

X MARKS THE SPOT: FALCON 9 ATTEMPTS OCEAN PLATFORM LANDING | SpaceX

NASA NTV-1 Sat 8.30 am - 10.30 am GMT

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv

Thanks Elon, real nice of you to schedule this for ol' henry's birthday. :ok:
.

Launch less than one hour away. Watching on UStream....

Approximately how long does it take to get to and dock with the ISS?

Will we get to see anyhing in the night sky later?

I think it normally takes a few days. It's to do do with trajectories and velocity. Some fairly precision parking is required, and you don't want to rear end the thing. Recently, though the Russians got up there in about six hours. They must know a short cut.

Is Ladbrokes or someone running a book on this robot ship landing?

Landing attempt can also be viewed here:

Watch this: SpaceX's Falcon 9 barge landing is underway | The Verge

SpaceX update on landing attempt:

Landing Update: Rocket made it to drone spaceport ship, but landed hard.

Close, but no cigar this time. Bodes well for the future though.

Still impressive.

Little Jim tells me he has run a wire all the way from SpaceX HQ to Castle Crun and a bell willl ring in our main R&R area when the first stage landing is on their television channel.

"whisper, whisper"

Ah, no, not quite, Little Jim tells me it's not an actual wire, and it's not an actual bell. He has 'subscribed' to 'youtube' and they will send an 'email' which puts an 'alert' on his 'tablet' and just sounds like a bell.

Same thing, really. :8

Elon Musk ✔ @elonmusk
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Rocket made it to drone spaceport ship, but landed hard. Close, but no cigar this time. Bodes well for the future tho.
10:05 AM - 10 Jan 2015

Elon Musk ✔ @elonmusk
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Ship itself is fine. Some of the support equipment on the deck will need to be replaced...
10:10 AM - 10 Jan 2015

Elon Musk ✔ @elonmusk
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Didn't get good landing/impact video. Pitch dark and foggy. Will piece it together from telemetry and ... actual pieces.
10:15 AM - 10 Jan 2015

Growing up in the sixties all the blurb from NASA and the media showing us that space travel would be a normal everyday occurrence by now. It's taken a bit longer getting there, but things are getting more like Thunderbirds every day. I wonder how long it will take them to get it accurate enough to land through the summer house!

The onboard shots were interesting if a bit smudgy due to the ice. Shame they had no footage from the barge. Be interesting to see the landing from the ground so to speak.

Better luck next time chaps!

Still no vid of the stage 1 landing, I guess they are finding it difficult to put anything together.

There is a vid of the July test landing, that's the one with all the ice.

Approximately how long does it take to get to and dock with the ISS?

As a general rule if you watch the ISS overhead (look at Heavens-Above

You will see a point of light preceeding the ISS in the same orbit* for a few hours, maybe days before docking and a few hours/days after undocking.

* Not really, it's in a slower and higher orbit before docking and a faster and lower orbit when leaving, but you can't tell that with the naked eye.

Landing through a summer house is nothing...I will be impressed when they can land under the swimming pool.

NASA says two days to catch up with ISS, so that's sometime tomorrow.

As someone who doubted that they would be able to balance a telegraph pole on a rocket exhaust, I was VERY impressed to watch this test flight - and doubt no more.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t15vP1PyoA

Er, yes, and here's a frenchman doing the same thing......in 1957

L'ATAR VOLANT : A.F du 29/05/1957. - Vidéo Dailymotion

Meanwhile, back in the 21st Century - does anyone know how the telegraph pole is kept upright? Presumably extending steerable cruciform fins at the top deployed for the freefall, but is it thrusters or gimballing exhaust for the delicate bit?

Flagon

There is mention here of a cold gas attitude control system:

SpaceX Grasshopper Development Updates - Spaceflight101

I believe it's cold gas thrusters outside the atmosphere, fins in the atmosphere with the engine off, and engine gimballing when the engine is running.

Landing video is up, didn't see anyone else post it yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3nMsUvakPM

Apparently the fins got stuck at a steep angle when the hydraulic fluid ran out, and the engine gimbal couldn't compensate for it and still decelerate enough to land softly.

Unfortunately, from the video, it looks like there won't be many pieces left that are large enough to determine whether it really will be reusable when they land it in one piece. Hopefully next time it will work.

Wasn't this also the first time they did a boostback manoeuvre where it turns around and heads back toward Florida? I think the previous attempts just fell into the sea wherever it was heading.

Edit: here you go, this is how it's supposed to work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfMuvsC9k2U

Despite going wrong as above, that is pretty close, demonstrates they have clearly cracked a lot of the technical challenges to get this far, and a very impressive achievement.

While we're waiting, let's go on -

Launch 11.05 pm gmt

Mission background:
SpaceX moves Falcon 9 launch with DSCOVR to Tuesday | NASASpaceFlight.com

Watch here:
http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/08/wat...r-launch-live/

SpaceX Scrubs Falcon 9's DSCOVR Launch (Again) Due to Winds
BY ALAN BOYLE

SpaceX postponed the launch of its Falcon 9 rocket with the Deep Space Climate Observatory once more on Tuesday, due to unacceptable upper-level winds.

The rocket was geared up to send the observatory, also known as DSCOVR, on its trek to a vantage point a million miles from Earth — and then make a second try to land the rocket's first stage on an oceangoing platform.

But with 13 minutes left on the countdown clock, the upper-level winds were judged to be too high for the rocket to handle.

Even before the launch was postponed, SpaceX founder Elon Musk expressed concern about Tuesday's conditions. "Extreme wind shear over Cape Canaveral," Musk said in a tweet. "Feels like a sledgehammer when supersonic in the vertical. Hoping it changes..."

SpaceX Scrubs Falcon 9's DSCOVR Launch (Again) Due to Winds - NBC News

Rescheduled to Wednesday 11.03 pm gmt

SpaceX, Air Force sign deal for landing pad at Cape

SpaceX and the Air Force have reached an agreement to use a former Atlas launch pad on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station as a landing site for returning Falcon rocket boosters.

"The way we see it, this is a classic combination of a highly successful launch past morphing into an equally promising future," Brig. Gen. Nina Armagno, commander of the 45th Space Wing, said in a statement........

Located on "Missile Row," Launch Complex 13 first supported a test of an Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile in 1958, and later launches of unmanned planetary probes for NASA and classified Air Force missions. It was deactivated in 1978 after more than 50 launches and designated part of a National Historic Landmark, according to Air Force records.

"For decades, we have been refining our procedures for getting successful launches skyward here on the Eastern Range. Now we're looking at processes on how to bring first-stage rockets back to earth at the first landing pad at the Cape," Armagno said. "We live in exciting times here on the Space Coast."

Launch tonight went well, no holds, everything nominal, DSCOVR is now in parking orbit ready for next burn to reach Lagrange point.

First stage returned to sea. Wave height 10m did not permit ships to stay in recovery location.

Yesterday's Falcon 9 launch of the DSCOVR spacecraft to the L-1 point was picture perfect.

According to Elon Musk, the booster fly-back was successful, landing vertically within ten meters of the target.

Sadly, due to 10 meter wave conditions, Just Read The Instructions was recalled prior to what became a water landing of the Falcon 9 stage one.

SpaceX will try again to make history during the launch of its robotic Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station on Monday (April 13).

The company aims to bring the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket back to Earth for a soft touchdown on an unmanned "spaceport drone ship" in the Atlantic Ocean after the booster sends Dragon on its way toward the orbiting lab. Liftoff is scheduled for 4:33 p.m. EDT (2033 GMT) Monday from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station; you can watch all the action live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV.

WATCH LIVE NOW: HD Views from the International Space Station

Live feed on NASA TV now.

Launched scrubbed due to weather, another try tomorrow..

Scrubbed due to thunderstorms.

Falcon is on the way, so far all ok. I caught a glimpse of the mission control crowd behind the windows sort of clapping and sort of looking disappointed - I wonder if stage 1 landing was a very near miss...?