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SpaceX Rocket Launch Succeeds, But Landing Test Doesn't
New submitter 0x2A writes: A Falcon 9 rocket built by SpaceX successfully launched a Dragon cargo ship toward the International Space Station early Saturday— and then returned to Earth, apparently impacting its target ocean platform during a landing test in the Atlantic.
"Rocket made it to drone spaceport ship, but landed hard. Close, but no cigar this time. Bodes well for the future tho," Elon Musk tweeted shortly after the launch. He added that they didn't get good video of the landing attempt, so they'll be piecing it together using telemetry and debris. "Ship itself is fine. Some of the support equipment on the deck will need to be replaced."
"Rocket made it to drone spaceport ship, but landed hard. Close, but no cigar this time. Bodes well for the future tho," Elon Musk tweeted shortly after the launch. He added that they didn't get good video of the landing attempt, so they'll be piecing it together using telemetry and debris. "Ship itself is fine. Some of the support equipment on the deck will need to be replaced."
The fact that it made it to the platform itself is a major milestone, correcting whatever caused it to land hard (rough seas, hardware/software issue, ran out of fuel at the last second) would seem to be childs play compared to what was required to get to that point. Reentering craft usually have landing ellipsis of dozens if not hundreds of square miles and this thing landed on a 300'x170' platform. I look forward to the next (hopefully successful) test.
Probably just a flake of ice, the rocket/spacecraft are generally covered with it on launch and if you look closely it sheds it throughout the flight.
Well, I think it's a milestone. Just getting it to land on the platform, in the dark, without any human help. That speaks a lot of the hard work that people invested. So it gets some damage, big deal.
I am glad that it was not a total success, otherwise people might get into lazy thinking and not look for bugs. I believe (not sure, cannot cite sources on this), but some airplane was not tested enough because everything happened perfect on testing, it was placed into production (1950's). Over the course of a year or 2, the planes were having issues and a few crashed. And they had to stop production. Some sort of fault in the structure.
So, in summary, He's done it!!! now to get all the bugs worked out.
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There will never be manned landings of the first stage. Or the second. For the simple reason that there is no reason to man them in the first place. As for the crew capsule - well by then they will have had lots of practice landing the first two stages, not to mention the much more similar unmanned cargo capsules which are a much easier control challenge than the booster stages - compare balancing a vertical broom in your palm to balancing a baseball. It might get a bit more exciting if the crew were allowed to wander around during landing, chaotically modifying the mass distribution, but I suspect most everyone would rather be strapped firmly in place anyway.
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According to Elon "Didn't get good landing/impact video. Pitch dark and foggy."
Another news story said it was foggy and zero visibility. The cameras on the rocket really only showed anything when it fell over into the water, where bubbles could be seen.
Considering spaceX has navigated the rocket exactly where they wanted every landing attempt, I wonder when they will finally get permission to land on, um, actual land. For all we know the ship may have pitched up increasing the velocity that the rocket touched down. Plus I'm sure the poor visibility at sea couldn't have helped either.
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Firstly, I think SpaceX were trying to get away from parachute recoveries. The Shuttle solid booster rockets used to parachute down into the ocean, but the problem with that is that they need completely cleaning out and refurbishing between each flight.
Secondly, they would need more than parachutes to recover the first stage because it is travelling so fast when it separates (not sure of the exact number, but somewhere between 2 and 4 Kilometers per second). They have to do a retrograde burn to slow down enough to safely re-enter the atmosphere.
The bubbles you're probably referring to were from a camera inside the liquid oxygen tank of the second stage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Elon Musk @elonmusk "Grid fins worked extremely well from hypersonic velocity to subsonic, but ran out of hydraulic fluid right before landing."
"Upcoming flight already has 50% more hydraulic fluid, so should have plenty of margin for landing attempt next month."
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Putting wings on something that consists of empty tanks in front and heavy engines in the tail is harder. A rocket stage has totally the wrong center of gravity to fly this way. Try to throw a dart with the heavy tip backwards and you will see why.
Yes, that's exactly what they're doing. No one has soft-landed the first stage of a rocket after using it to launch something into orbit before. That stage normally burns up on reentry or is debris in the ocean.
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Not an official reply but answered on Twitter:
Chris (Robotbeat) @Robotbeat 3h3 hours ago
@dtarsgeorge @rocketrepreneur In aerospace, hydraulics are pressurized with gas (no pump) and no return lines. Pretty standard, actually.
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You may not have been following what SpaceX is trying to do an the methodology to get there. The mission is to resupply the ISS, which looks to be a 100% success for the fifth time, pending a safe docking on Monday. They also have returned a payload of cargo to return to Earth safely four times. The Progress Raduga capsule can only return 150 kg of cargo, where Dragon can return 2500 kg, pressurized. They are doing all of this at a much lower cost than the competition. This is the mission and they have been 100% successful with Falcon 9 v1.1 every time.
They have a long-term goal of full reusability for their spacecraft, starting with the most expensive part of the launch, the first stage booster. Because every other launch in the history of rocketry has involved the destruction of the first stage, they build the cost of losing the first stage into the total launch cost. (The space shuttle's boosters parachuted back to Earth, but were not reusable - just parts of them, and only after a great deal of costly refurbishment.) Each attempt to land the booster is an experiment at this point, which has the benefit of being a freebee, as the booster has already been paid for. Attempt one spun out of control, but they got good data, understood the problem and adjusted. Attempts two and three had the booster vertical and hovering over the ocean. This was 100% success, as there was no more optimal outcome for the experiment. However, the landing point was not a precision target, but a 10 sq km range. On today's first attempt to land on a solid surface, they had to land with extreme precision, which they did successfully, but came down too hard. These are experiments, so each step forward, as long as the failures produce actionable data, can be deemed a success.