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SpaceX Successfully Lands Its Rocket On A Floating Drone Ship Again (theverge.com)
Early Friday morning, SpaceX successfully landed its Falcon 9 rocket on a drone ship at sea for the second time. The company has recovered the post-launch vehicle a total of three times, two of which involved the rocket landing on a floating drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. Before the launch, the landing was deemed unlikely as the rocket would be "subject to extreme velocities and re-entry heating" in its attempt to launch a Japanese communications satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit high above Earth. Elon Musk tweeted: "Rocket reentry is a lot faster and hotter than last time, so odds of making it are maybe even, but we should learn a lot either way." As a result of the successful mission, Musk followed up with, "May need to increase size of rocket storage hangar." The first successful launch was in December, when the rocket landed at a ground-based spaceport in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The second landing occurred in April on a floating drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
You, sir, have limited imagination.
It effects you the way early sea exploration did. Without that, I would be living in some other country, if I was living at all.
Bruce Perens.
They just published a 71% increase of the mass fraction. See this.
Not having a boost-back burn means the barge is 660 km out to sea instead of 270 km. They'd better get really good at their at-sea operations if they want to do a lot of those.
Bruce Perens.
Fuel isn't a big part of the cost. It's around $200K for the entire load.
We have yet to find out about the refurbishment costs, they haven't even done the test burns on the second returned booster yet, but they are trying for essentially no refurbishment.
This latest rocket came in at twice the speed (2 km/sec through the atmosphere) and had a 12-G burn at the end, and there might have been damage that wasn't on the other two recovered boosters.
Bruce Perens.
The landing is at about 9:10 here but there isn't very much to see: it was a night landing from a nearby camera - the moment of landing is invisible in glare. You get to see the glare, then it fades to reveal the landed rocket.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
I had to watch the SES-9 & CRS-8 missions to check that out*. For GTO, MECO is at 8,300km/h & 65km. For LEO, MECO is at 6600km/h & 74km. So they managed to recover a stage travelling 25% faster. The lateral velocity would have been greater too, because the launch profile is flatter.
* Not really to check it out, but to compare the actual numbers. It'll obviously have to go faster to get to GTO.
It also paves the way for solar satellites to harvest solar power and send it to non-polluting power stations on Earth, which can provide far more energy than is available from fossil fuels or fusion, and far more safely than fission.
Uh, solar power is simply redirected fusion. That is, after all, how the sun works.