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SpaceX Falcon 9 Launches, Rocket Recovery Attempt Scrapped

Posted by samzenpus on from the if-at-first-you-don't-succeed dept.

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.

2 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Different now by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Funny

    When I first came here, this was all just ocean. Everyone said I was daft to build a landing platform in the ocean but I built in all the same, just to show them. It blew up. So I built a second one. That sank and blew up.. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the ocean. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest landing barge in all of the Atlantic ocean.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  2. Those are some rough seas by Dereck1701 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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...