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SpaceX Testing Landing Legs On Next Falcon9 Rocket

Posted by Unknown on from the crazy-enough-to-work dept.

astroengine writes with news of SpaceX's next step in experimenting with vertical landings for rocket stages. From the article: "Space Exploration Technologies is installing landing legs on its next Falcon 9 rocket, part of an ongoing quest to develop boosters that fly themselves back to the launch site for reuse. For the upcoming demonstration, scheduled for March 16, the Falcon 9's first stage will splash down, as usual, in the ocean after liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. This time, however, SpaceX hopes to cushion the rocket's destructive impact into the Atlantic Ocean by restarting the Falcon 9's engine and extending landing legs that will be attached to the booster's aft section. The goal is a soft touchdown on the water." The test is scheduled for their ISS resupply mission on March 16th 2014 (the mission also features the launch of the crowdfunded KickSat nano nanosatellites) .

4 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. Scooped by the upstarts again! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    SoylentNews had this story last week.

    1. Re:Scooped by the upstarts again! by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      I wrote this up a day before that at http://technocrat.net/d/2014/2/20/6. I've known about it for a month or so, I don't know why nobody else was excited until now.

      --
      Bruce Perens.
    2. Re:Scooped by the upstarts again! by cheesybagel · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      I won't post on your site because you don't allow anonymous posts and I have better stuff to do than create yet another login. Anyway:

      The commenter 'Lars' is wrong. The Russians use solid retrorockets on Soyuz before landing. You can still survive a Soyuz capsule landing with them firing, with only the parachutes, but the results aren't pleasant.

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