SpaceX Dragon Launches Successfully, But No Rocket Recovery

New submitter monkeyzoo writes: SpaceX has successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft en route to the International Space Station with supplies (including an Italian espresso machine). This was also the second attempt to land the launch rocket on a barge, but that was not successful. Elon Musk tweeted that the rocket landed on the recovery ship but too hard to be reused. Video of the launch is available on the SpaceX webcast page.

Comments

Re:Landed OK but tipped over

[cbhacking]

You know, they don't necessarily *need* to save the tank in order to save most of the cost. I bet the engines are both the most expensive and the heaviest parts, and they're at the bottom. If the stage doesn't actually hit so hard that the legs crumple and the engines contact the platform/ground, having the first stage tip over *might* still allow recovery of at least some of the octaweb. Maybe not the ones on the side that it landed on after tipping, but there's lots of engines on those stages, and I'd be shocked if they're less than 5% of the total launch cost each (the first stage, with nine engines, is about 70% of the total cost in total and there isn't a lot more to it than engines, fuel tanks, and the landing systems). Re-using even one of those would be a tremendous profit.

Obviously, it's best if they can recover and reuse literally the entire stage, just rebuild the stack, fill 'er up, and launch again. I'm pretty damn sure they'll get there eventually, too. In the meantime... here's hoping the stage left enough intact components on the barge to examine and possibly even reuse some pieces of a previous rocket. That would still be a momentous achievement.