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SpaceX Falcon 9 Launches, Rocket Recovery Attempt Scrapped
An anonymous reader writes After scrubbing a launch Sunday because a radar glitch, and canceling one Tuesday due to high winds, SpaceX has successfully launched the Falcon 9 rocket holding the Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite. The DSCOVR will orbit between Earth and the sun, observing and providing advanced warning of particles and magnetic fields emitted by the sun. The planned attempt to recover the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket via autonomous drone ship was scrapped due to huge waves in the Atlantic.
And we will see landings once the method is perfected. We've already seen videos of past failed landings, simply not live. Sometimes this is because the video feed has to be retrieved manually from the hardware or because they simply don't wish to show an unpredictable video and damage their market worth. SpaceX might not be publicly traded, but they do have investors who might balk at such a public failure. Waiting to release the video with the right spin helps allay fears and lets SpaceX control the message, instead of letting the Internet write the headlines.
I initially wondered "if the weathers so bad how did they ocean land it" then I stumbled across some of the ocean wave height maps. Apparently there is a LARGE area of ~20 ft seas off of most of the eastern sea board. You have to go a third of the way to Africa in order to get out of it. While I am sure that the rocket could get that far in no time at all I'd wager the barge is a bit slower.
http://www.wunderground.com/MA...
http://www.oceanweather.com/da...