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Fourth SpaceX Rocket Successfully Landed on A Drone Ship (theverge.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the reusable-rockets dept.

Saturday a SpaceX rocket completed the company's fourth successful landing at sea (watched by over 100,000 viewers on YouTube and Flickr). Saturday's landing means Elon Musk's company has now recovered more than half the rockets they've launched. An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes Saturday's report from The Verge: Tonight's landing was particularly challenging for SpaceX... The Falcon 9 had to carry its onboard satellite -- called JCSAT-16 -- into...a highly elliptical orbit that takes the satellite 20,000 miles out beyond Earth's surface. Getting to GTO requires a lot of speed and uses up a lot of fuel during take off, more so than getting to lower Earth orbit. That makes things difficult for the rocket landing afterward...there's less fuel leftover for the vehicle to reignite its engines and perform the necessary landing maneuvers.

CEO Elon Musk said the company is aiming to launch its first landed rocket sometime this fall...SpaceX's president, Gwynne Shotwell, estimates that reusing these landed Falcon 9 vehicles will lead to a 30 percent reduction in launch costs.
SpaceX named their drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You."

71 comments

  1. Pushing industry forward by kaalon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Once SpaceX starts flying those "used" cores it will push the whole industry of space flight to the same level of reuse. We are going to see some great advances in engineering coming from all over the world as others start to catch up to SpaceX.

    1. Re: Pushing industry forward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      Why would people race to build something that isn't profitable in the slightest?

      The only reason space programs have money is because gives throw funny money at it...but how long can that keep up without any economic benefits?

    2. Re: Pushing industry forward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Usual exit plan for startup -- get bought by someone who sees you eating their lunch

    3. Re: Pushing industry forward by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      Are you arguing that there is no commercial market for space? Because that is insane - there are roughly 30 launches per year.

      And like most things, as cost comes down demand is likely to go up.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    4. Re: Pushing industry forward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      When a commercial company pays another commercial company to build a commercial satellite and pays to have that satellite launched by yet another commercial company it involves "funny money" and there is no economic benefit?

      All three of those commercial companies are profitable.

      Space-X raced to build a better launch system because there is substantial demand for launching satellites and by building a better launch system they are able to lower costs, charge less and increase demand.

    5. Re: Pushing industry forward by Gavagai80 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The majority of SpaceX missions, including this one, have been for communications companies. It's safe to say they're seeing economic benefits.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    6. Re:Pushing industry forward by segedunum · · Score: 1

      Once SpaceX starts flying those "used" cores it will push the whole industry of space flight to the same level of reuse. We are going to see some great advances in engineering coming from all over the world as others start to catch up to SpaceX.

      No, I'm afraid it isn't. Getting into space isn't going to move forwards meaningfully until we get a single stage to orbit vehicle. SpaceX don't even have the closed cycle rocket engines the Russians have had for years, and are trying to get banned by the way, but this isn't going to be done with rockets in the form we have had for decades.

    7. Re:Pushing industry forward by segedunum · · Score: 1

      No, I'm afraid it isn't. Getting into space isn't going to move forwards meaningfully until we get a single stage to orbit vehicle.

      To qualify this a bit further, any vehicle that tries to continue to carry expensively heavy liquid oxygen around when there is an abundance of oxygen in the atmosphere just isn't going to be viable for single stage to orbit. It has to breathe air for as long as it can.

    8. Re: Pushing industry forward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      ... Says the idiot who uses half a dozen devices that rely on satellites and other space based intrastructure.

      Moron

    9. Re: Pushing industry forward by DanielRavenNest · · Score: 3, Informative

      Space industry amounted to $335 billion last year. Most of that is commercial satellites, which are quite profitable. Do you think AT&T bought DirecTV so they could lose money?

    10. Re:Pushing industry forward by eth1 · · Score: 1

      Once SpaceX starts flying those "used" cores it will push the whole industry of space flight to the same level of reuse. We are going to see some great advances in engineering coming from all over the world as others start to catch up to SpaceX.

      Another interesting thing that might result from reuse: I keep hearing people say, "who would risk their expensive cargo on a used booster?" I wonder if it won't actually turn out that the second, and maybe even third flights of a given booster prove to be more reliable than the first. (basically natural selection rocket-style)

    11. Re:Pushing industry forward by tsotha · · Score: 1

      That's really the $68,000 question. I wouldn't fly on the first test flight of a brand new commercial airliner, and that's essentially what satellite makers are doing with disposable rockets. But airliners don't take the same punishment as rocket boosters. Nobody really knows if we can build a booster that can fly over and over reliably enough to be, well, relied upon. Maybe SpaceX has already done it with Falcon 9. Maybe the amount of inspection and refurb necessary between flights makes the whole thing not worth the trouble. We shall see.

    12. Re:Pushing industry forward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is only useful air for breathing for about about 10 miles up, 15 miles max. The rest of the 200 miles or so to low orbit you have to carry your own oxidizer. And as long is there is air then there is air resistance and aerodynamic heating. That's why orbital rockets (the machines that actually work and get to orbit) all try to get up and out of the air as quickly as possible.

    13. Re:Pushing industry forward by khallow · · Score: 1

      Getting into space isn't going to move forwards meaningfully until we get a single stage to orbit vehicle.

      I strongly disagree. On a single stage to orbit (SSTO) you have to carry everything with you. Your engines have to operate near optimally in atmosphere and vacuum (while a staged rocket can use different nozzle designs for the first and later stages, and get near optimal performance without requiring a complex system for changing the nozzle and inlet geometries and/or burn characteristics on the fly).

      You further elaborated in a reply:

      To qualify this a bit further, any vehicle that tries to continue to carry expensively heavy liquid oxygen around when there is an abundance of oxygen in the atmosphere just isn't going to be viable for single stage to orbit. It has to breathe air for as long as it can.

      That means greatly increased air resistance right when you're trying to use that air to help generate thrust. The primary alternative is a kerosene-LOX two stage rocket which can already achieve costs under $3k per kg, is far less complex a system to operate, and may have better performance due to following a more aggressive trajectory which both gets out of the atmosphere ASAP and has lower gravity losses.

    14. Re:Pushing industry forward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Nobody really knows if we can build a booster that can fly over and over

      There's a lot of data from the returned Falcon stages which adds to the existing understanding of the engineering task. The airframes are designed for multiple stresses, and the engines have been performing and relighting admirably.

      > Maybe the amount of inspection and refurb necessary between flights makes the whole thing not worth the trouble

      This is pretty much the design brief from the start: "Don't be the Shuttle".

    15. Re: Pushing industry forward by notpaul · · Score: 1

      This is completely ignorant. A fully-reusable multi-stage system (which is essentially the goal of SpaceX) expends nothing but fuel and oxidizer ... and your SSTO is better than that HOW?

      Functional SSTO will probably eventually happen, but for anyone who knows anything, the most likely scenario is that improvements in engineering and materials science will render most use cases for SSTO moot. With better (lighter, stronger) materials, efficiency and lift capabilities for reusable multi-stage vehicles skyrocket (pun intended) ... and cost-per-pound drops to close to consumer levels. At that time, the only use cases for SSTO that will make economic sense will be high-end military and specialized commercial applications ... a good analogy would be the requirement for a supersonic jet versus the everyday application of a 757 (for things like freight transport).

      Another analogy ... we still transport by truck and rail ... WHY? I mean, when we have fighter jets that can do Mach 2, why not deliver my packet of coffee creamers from Amazon Prime using those F-22's?

      As the kids like to say ... SMDH.

      --
      See you space cowboy ...
    16. Re: Pushing industry forward by segedunum · · Score: 1

      This is completely ignorant. A fully-reusable multi-stage system (which is essentially the goal of SpaceX) expends nothing but fuel and oxidizer ... and your SSTO is better than that HOW?

      You haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about..........as most don't. Multi-stages are always going to require more maintenance and complexity.......and carrying around heavy oxygen is expensive, which I'd explained........if you'd bothered to read and comprehend. You just aren't going to hack it with rockets I'm afraid, and anyone faffing about with them still after fifty plus years just isn't doing anything interesting I'm afraid, despite the whooping and hollering.

      Functional SSTO will probably eventually happen, but for anyone who knows anything, the most likely scenario is that improvements in engineering and materials science will render most use cases for SSTO moot.

      Wow.

    17. Re:Pushing industry forward by segedunum · · Score: 1

      There is only useful air for breathing for about about 10 miles up, 15 miles max. The rest of the 200 miles or so to low orbit you have to carry your own oxidizer. And as long is there is air then there is air resistance and aerodynamic heating. That's why orbital rockets (the machines that actually work and get to orbit) all try to get up and out of the air as quickly as possible.

      That's why you have to accelerate it to mach 5+, but, the theory has been done and it can work. The work done during and since the HOTOL project has proved that. The rest is just money.

    18. Re:Pushing industry forward by tsotha · · Score: 1

      There's a lot of data from the returned Falcon stages which adds to the existing understanding of the engineering task. The airframes are designed for multiple stresses, and the engines have been performing and relighting admirably.

      I know what they're designed to do, and the fact that the tested returnees didn't blow up is a good sign. But you and I don't know what SpaceX has done in the way of inspections and refurb for the ones they've tested. A rocket that will probably work and on that's proven to be acceptably reliable are two very different things. My point is two things must be true for SpaceX to succeed: The stages must work more than once and also getting a stage ready for reflight must be inexpensive. I'm pretty comfortable with the first part, but at this point the second is a complete unknown.

  2. Less fuel. by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 2

    Getting to GTO requires a lot of speed and uses up a lot of fuel during take off, more so than getting to lower Earth orbit. That makes things difficult for the rocket landing afterward...there's less fuel leftover for the vehicle to reignite its engines and perform the necessary landing maneuvers.

    Does anyone know (or can point me to doc) about how the Falcons perform their descents. Is it powered / controlled the entire time, or parachute (or para-*somehing*) and just powered / controlled near the ground. I imagine the fuel requirements would be different.

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    1. Re: Less fuel. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      They slow down mostly through aerodynamic drag. No chute or similar device. The rockets only come on in the last 20 seconds or so to do the final braking.

      During reentry the first stage uses the rocket bells as a heat shield, and during the worst part of it they burn three engines to literally push the atmosphere out of the way "entry burn" to ease the heating until it gets down into the lower atmosphere where drag can slow it. For the ship landings, those are the only two burns, total less than 60 seconds with only 3/1 engines firing.

    2. Re:Less fuel. by queazocotal · · Score: 5, Informative

      The first stage and the second stage disconnect.
      The first stage flips around end to end, and makes a burn to kill most of its velocity.
      Then as it is entering the thicker parts of the atmosphere and it would be destroyed by drag and heating otherwise, rapidly slows at high G using the engines to around mach 1, and turns the engines off.
      It is at this time steering using fins attached to the top of the rocket.
      Once it gets ~10-20 seconds before landing, it lights an engine or three (details vary) and uses the thrust from these vectored in order to precisely land on the barge (along with the fins in the initial portion).

      http://www.spacex.com/sites/sp... is a nice diagram.

    3. Re:Less fuel. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      At the top of it's trajectory, it is out of the atmosphere. As it is about to hit the atmosphere, it burns with three engines for about 20 seconds so that hitting the atmosphere doesn't shred the rocket. It then lets atmospheric drag slow the rocket the rest of the way. It controls its direction with aerodynamic surfaces called grid fins during this phase. Finally, as it approaches the landing platform, it does a one engine burn so that its velocity hits zero at the precise moment when the legs touch down.

      The idea is to use the atmosphere to do most of the work slowing down the rocket. However, it needs to not be destroyed entering the atmosphere at velocities that are too high, nor be destroyed hitting the barge at terminal velocity. So engines are used in those two phases.

    4. Re:Less fuel. by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

      Thanks very much! The graphic was very helpful.

      Would a parachute, or more to the point, some type of steerable / controllable drag component deployed during part of the descent help or hurt?

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    5. Re:Less fuel. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Since SpaceX wants to land its rockets on Mars eventually, which has a thin atmosphere, they prefer to practice with landing by rocket-engine.

    6. Re: Less fuel. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The stage has 8 steerable grid fins originally developed for ballistic missiles. Those do a better job of attitude control/steering than a chute would.

      They have said they do plan on putting steerable chutes on the fairing halves though, at some point, to try to recover those too.

    7. Re:Less fuel. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      It has 4 (not 8) grid fins, small cold gas thrusters, and gimbaled engines, all controlling the rocket. They experimented with parachutes (dropping in the ocean instead of of landing on a ship) but never managed to slow down enough to make them work. It's hitting the outer atmosphere at about 2km/second! The has several problems, for example the rocket spinning up in the airflow centrifuging the remaining fuel to the side of the tank, so engines would stop, the steering find moving more than expected and running out of hydraulic fluid just before landing, etc. Even when practicing powered "landing" on the ocean surface before they had a landing ship, the did not even recover small parts because the rocket would be destroyed by waves and sink before they could get to it. The nearly empty first stage is also lighter than the minimum thrust of one of the 9 engines, so if the landing burn is started too early, it will be going back up before reaching zero altitude. Too late, and it will not have stopped before reaching zero altitude. There also has been a problem with one leg not locking into place and toppling over after landing. They now cool the RP-1 (kerosene) to -6C and the liquid oxygen to 50 degrees above absolute zero to make them denser, to get more performance out of the rocket without making the tanks bigger. This makes launch timing very critical since fuel needs to be pumped into the rocket very fast just before launch, without freezing pipes and quickly heads up while in the rocket where it can't be cooled and can't fit in the tank if warmed up. (boil-off only cools it to the boiling point of oxygen which is already to warm to fit in the tank). beginning 2017 SpaceX will start testing a version with 3 of these rockets connected, with all 3 cores landing separately, 2 on land, and the middle on on the ship in the ocean. Next month, SpaceX will present there plans for an even bigger rocket, that will fly to will fly to Mars, land on Mars, re-fuel, fly back to earth and land again, and also be fully reusable.

    8. Re:Less fuel. by tomhath · · Score: 1

      At high altitude a parachute or something similar would burn up. At lower altitudes the terminal velocity is such that it's not needed.

    9. Re:Less fuel. by Gavagai80 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      More importantly, parachutes have no precision and are subject to the wind.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    10. Re:Less fuel. by cjameshuff · · Score: 1

      Their earliest recovery attempts involved parachuting stages into the ocean unpowered. All those attempts apparently resulted in the vehicle breaking up during reentry. Large supersonic parachutes are very non-trivial to design and deploy, not terribly reliable at the best of times, and are actually rather heavy, and they needed to do powered reentry and landing anyway to get the vehicle down intact. Since they're already doing that, reserving a bit more propellant is simpler than pretty much any other option, plus it gives them experience they'll need for Mars.

    11. Re:Less fuel. by Ocker3 · · Score: 1

      The problem with Mars is actually that the atmosphere is too thin to use parachuts, no matter how large, to land anything of size enough to be useful to use for serious exploration or human visits. The Mars Landers pushed the limits of what we could put on the surface without using retrorockets.

    12. Re:Less fuel. by idji · · Score: 1

      You can watch a landing from the lander perspective and see yourself when the burns happen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    13. Re:Less fuel. by idji · · Score: 1

      This is why we need anonymous cowards :-)

  3. I see they have some Iain M Banks fans.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ....working there and naming the ships.

    Good show !

  4. humbug by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was playing lunar lander on a mainframe 40 years ago.

  5. More than half? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    Let's see 28 Falcon 9 launches...6 recovered. Yup, sounds like more than half. Nope. How about 6 out of 11 *attempted* recoveries? Plenty of other problems with the summary and some of the replies...

  6. Culture ship name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was going to say that ship name is beginning to sound like something from the Culture series from Ian Banks and it turns out it is a ship name from Ian Banks.
    Wikipedia list of culture sips

    1. Re:Culture ship name by CeasedCaring · · Score: 1

      Yep. SpaceX have a pair of landing drone ships. The other one is named "Just Read the Instructions".

  7. Landing that never was by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    So the landing video didn't happen. It cuts away then cuts back and the rocket is on the pad. Could have easily been faked to avoid another embarrassing failure. Not implying that's what happened it just seemed a bit convenient that they can launch a multi-stage rocket into geostationary orbit and land a booster on a tiny mobile platform but can't get video of the entire event... you know being genius rocket scientists and all.

    1. Re:Landing that never was by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is always really infuriating when watching the event live. They can beam live video from the rockets, which are constantly vibrating like a motherfucker, but vibrations on the barge render its satellite comms totally useless? It doesn't add up. Maybe they could invest in a better satellite link on the barge.

      On the plus side, they normally release video from the barge cams the next day after they've been able to go out and retrieve it.

    2. Re:Landing that never was by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "Could have easily been faked to avoid another embarrassing failure. Not implying that's what happened..."

      Yes you are implying it was faked. And you are wrongo boyo. There are so many reasons why "you know being genius rocket scientists and all" that SpaceX didn't bother to set up a system that is guaranteed to entertain you but it is almost certain that you would not understand.

    3. Re:Landing that never was by CeasedCaring · · Score: 1

      Yes, "Genius Rocket Scientists", not "Movie Producers".

    4. Re:Landing that never was by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      SpaceX has not been exactly shy about displaying the explosions, nothing embarrassing about it. Experiments like that sometimes go boom, acceptable losses.

    5. Re: Landing that never was by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe it's not the wave action but the hot fire spewing all over the barge that's interfering with communications.

      Nah. It's probably all filmed on a sound stage. Apollo 2.0.

    6. Re:Landing that never was by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No 4K footage from SD card cameras (i.e. they work regardless of satellite link 'problems')... Therefore it's FAKE. You're seriously telling us that SpaceX spent millions on this mission and didn't set up cameras that would GUARANTEE them 4K footage of the actual landing itself - the most important part of the mission? So now they have NO footage of the actual landing? And we are supposed to believe that?

  8. Numbers... by cjameshuff · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The numbers in the summary are a bit ambiguous/confused:
    This was the *sixth* rocket they've landed. They've landed four on drone ships and two on land. That's nowhere near half the rockets they've launched (this was the 28th Falcon 9), but means just over half of their landing attempts (11 total) have succeeded.

    More importantly, of the last 7 landing attempts, there were only two failures, both due to simple lack of propellant margin due to the demands of those particular launches...there weren't any failures or control problems, they just ran out of propellant. The last actual hardware failure was flight 21, the Jason-3 launch, which actually landed fine, but had an earlier version of the legs which iced up and failed to lock in the extended position. So it's looking like reliability of future landings can be expected to be quite a bit better than 50%.

    All without any nets/cables/tubes/funnels/magnets/giant catcher's mitts.

    1. Re:Numbers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Why would you count the times they didn't even try to land? They are completely irrelevant. It's like me standing on the sideline accusing you of failure because you didn't write your post in Swahili despite you having archived everything you set out to do; writing a post in intelligible English. Whether or not you have a future goal of eventually writing in Swahili is completely beside the point as far as success or failure for this one goes.

    2. Re:Numbers... by AndreiK · · Score: 2

      He's correcting the editor's comments. "Saturday's landing means Elon Musk's company has now recovered more than half the rockets they've launched."

    3. Re:Numbers... by tomhath · · Score: 5, Funny

      This was the *sixth* rocket they've landed.

      Well, they landed all of them. Some landings were harder than others.

    4. Re:Numbers... by Kjella · · Score: 1, Interesting

      More importantly, of the last 7 landing attempts, there were only two failures, (...) So it's looking like reliability of future landings can be expected to be quite a bit better than 50%.

      Most importantly, none have flown again and until they do it's expensive garbage recovery. For what it's worth I heard they did engine tests and it looks good, but it's more important they nail the launches than the landings.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    5. Re:Numbers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Now you're just spreading RUD.

    6. Re:Numbers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Aren't we impatient. Its only been about 9 months since they began retrieving their stages intact, and risking an expensive payload and a several million dollar second stage on top of one of them is something that will require extensive testing to be relatively sure that there aren't any gremlins in the recovered stages from their trip back through the atmosphere. Personally if I was SpaceX I would peal one of the recovered stages apart and test all the way down to its individual bolts. However at this point it seems highly unlikely that the recovered stages won't have some use. They've done at least 4 ground firings (several of which followed the entire mission profile) with no major hiccups.

  9. Waste of money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    What is in space that they hope to find? People are suffering all around the world and the best these rocket scientists can come up with is rockets into the void?

    1. Re:Waste of money. by ewibble · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Let me see? Space is quite big, unimaginably big in fact, and it is very likely there will be insane amounts resources out there on mostly dead planets, with no ecological harm done to anyone. Not to mention we can only examine a insignificant fraction of it in any detail, i.e. not through inferring information from specs of electromagnetic radiation.

      Yes we are a long way from exploring even our solar system in any great detail or harvesting any resources, however if we do not make a start, because we keep saying whats the immediate payback? We will never get there. We also are currently benefiting space technology such as communications, GPS, and the government being able to better spy on us, oops the last one might not be a benefit.

      As for people suffering, yes there are, but it isn't through lack of resources, it is through our greed, fear and hate. In the US 40% of food produced is waste. Obesity is a problem. Obesity kills 3 times as many people as malnutrition worldwide, (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/9742960/Obesity-killing-three-times-as-many-as-malnutrition.html), OK the malnourished are probably more likely to young children, but still we clearly have enough resources. There are 7 billion people in the world, if a few thousand concentrate on building rockets, it is not going stop the rest of us coming up with a solution. In order to fix suffering we need social/political solution not a scientific one.

    2. Re:Waste of money. by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      why are you here wasting ours and your time? You have nothing intelligent to contribute to this.
      Hell, all nations around the world are working hard to follow this same path.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    3. Re:Waste of money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      "and it is very likely there will be insane amounts resources out there on mostly dead planets"

      Errr... and how, exactly, do you plan to do anything with these resources? If we had the resources to build the kind of machinery to get at these supposed resources, we wouldn't have a resource problem in the first place!!!

      "Yes we are a long way from exploring even our solar system in any great detail"

      Pictures of dead rocks are plentiful.

      "but it isn't through lack of resources, it is through our greed, fear and hate."

      So we don't need space, just a different social model. Space is a dead end. Game over. The Space Age fantasies never made any sense. Let them go, they belong in the 20th century. We in the 21st century have plenty of real problems to fix with the actual resources we actually have.

    4. Re:Waste of money. by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      Didn't bother to read the summary? This mission was a telecommunications satellite so those suffering people can talk to each other and watch TV to take their mind off their misery.

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      This space intentionally left blank
    5. Re: Waste of money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      wtf ? we send there machinery like 3d printers and they build diggers which dig out material from which thry print other machinery etc ..... then they send resources back to earth ... where u see problem ?

    6. Re:Waste of money. by cprasky · · Score: 1

      And you are writing this using a set of technologies that would not even exist if NASA had not had to figure out how to put computers into space capsules. Do you not see the irony of this?

      --
      The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds and the pessimist fears this may be true.
    7. Re:Waste of money. by PsyMan · · Score: 1

      Have you not watched the space mining documentary Avatar?

    8. Re:Waste of money. by KozmoStevnNaut · · Score: 2

      The greatest scientific advances of mankind have all come from the various space programs. No, they were not "found in space", they were developed right here on earth because the space programs created a need. Were it not for the space programs pushing science forward, many of the things you take for granted either wouldn't have been developed at all, or would have been developed much later. Stuff like velcro, food preservation, insulation, all kinds of stuff that you use every single day without even thinking about it.

      Go read, and learn: https://spinoff.nasa.gov/

      --
      Eat the rich.
    9. Re:Waste of money. by KozmoStevnNaut · · Score: 1

      "Space age fantasy" drives scientific progress, which makes it hugely important.

      https://spinoff.nasa.gov/

      --
      Eat the rich.
  10. mod 3own by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    parties, 3ut here BSD's codebase

  11. Propellant or Hydraulic Fluid by ytene · · Score: 1

    Have to admit I haven't followed the details too closely, but I vaguely remember reading that the two failed attempted landings came as a result of a lack of hydraulic fluid in actuators. Apparently there is no recycling of hydraulic fluid in the first stage, because calculations showed that it was more sensible to have a small tank with fluid than have a recirculating system with a pump.

    IIRC, the issue was that the 1st stage simply ran out of hydraulic fluid, resulting in a loss of ability to control the stage...

    1. Re:Propellant or Hydraulic Fluid by DanielRavenNest · · Score: 2

      It was only once that they ran out of hydraulic fluid, they fixed that the next flight. Sticky engine gimbal caused another crash. The engine pivots to help steer it for landing, but it was moving too slowly, so they landed at an angle instead of vertical. Finally, one time a landing leg failed to lock. So it landed vertical, but then fell over. They have been learning by crashing, and generally don't have the same problem twice. Since expendable rockets *always* crash, flight testing the landing system this way doesn't cost much extra.

    2. Re:Propellant or Hydraulic Fluid by cjameshuff · · Score: 2

      The very first ASDS landing attempt ran out of hydraulic fluid for the grid fins, the engine gimbaling barely managing to get it to the barge...not upright and not at zero velocity.

      The next had a sticky valve...my understanding is it was actually for throttle. The control software would command throttle changes, but the valve wouldn't respond until the commanded change was big enough to break it loose, then it'd stick at the new position. The overall effect was that the throttle was lagging behind what the control system expected, which threw things into oscillation with the rocket always overcompensating for its previous errors, always too late to fix things.

      The third failure was the Jason-3 launch, which was the last launch of the Falcon 9 v1.1 (non-Full Thrust) with the first version of the legs, and took place in particularly heavy fog. The landing looked perfect, but one leg folded up afterward.

      The remaining two failures were on flights 22 and 26, both on ASDS landings from geosynchronous launches with little margin for landing. 22 wasn't expected to make it, 26 came within meters of doing so.

      There's probably still things to learn, but they seem out of the "getting it to work" stage and well into "making it work better" stage.

    3. Re:Propellant or Hydraulic Fluid by tsotha · · Score: 1

      In the "making it work better" vein, they've been experimenting with different reentry attitudes and burns in recent flights. They said they were trying to bleed off more speed in the upper atmosphere to save fuel for the landing. Perhaps they've succeeded, too: on this flight they went back to the single engine landing, which requires more fuel but is easier on the hardware.

    4. Re:Propellant or Hydraulic Fluid by ytene · · Score: 1

      And the single most AMAZING thing about all of this is that they rarely seem to have the same problem twice. The ability of SpaceX to learn from mistakes and solve every problem, properly, is not just good for the space industry, it's remarkable in pretty much any field of endeavour. Sheesh, if the developers where I work got their software bugs ironed out after the first round of testing, they spend 11 months of the year on a beach and still be more productive...

      ;)

      I don't understand why people knock Elon Musk or SpaceX/Tesla. The traits and best practices he demonstrates on a daily basis - driving them through his companies - ought to be the envy of the western world. Instead, people line up to trash him. [ Maybe they all work for United Space Alliance or Ford/General Motors?]

  12. Just watch it happen by jfdavis668 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is the view from the rocket as it descends and lands: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    1. Re:Just watch it happen by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

      This is the view from the rocket as it descends and lands: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      Nice. Thanks.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  13. Why no 4K video? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The 'landing' is obviously fake. We are supposed to believe that they had ONLY one camera, that was linked to a satellite, rather than eight or twenty (or more) 4K SD card cameras, that cost £40 on Ebay. So they missed the most important part of the ENTIRE mission - the landing. And we are supposed to believe this? Why is there no 4K footage?