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Two Big Rockets Launched Early Wednesday -- Then One Landed In High Seas (arstechnica.com)
Arianespace and SpaceX both launched rockets this morning between 7:25am ET (11:25 UTC) and 7:39am ET (11:39 UTC). The Ariane 5 ES rocket sent four Galileo satellites into medium Earth orbit (at an altitude of 22,922km) for the European Commission. "These satellites will form part of Europe's own global navigation system constellation," reports Ars Technica. As for SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, it launched from the West Cost to deliver 10 Iridium NEXT satellites into a polar orbit 625km above the Earth. Ars reports on how the launches went: Both rockets hit their instantaneous launch windows on Wednesday morning, with the Ariane 5 booster lifting off from Kourou, French Guiana under mostly sunny skies and the Falcon 9 rocket ascending from California through a thick fog layer. The upper stages of both rockets are now in their coast phases before deployment of their satellite payloads.
After the launches, attention turned toward SpaceX's attempt to recover its first stage and payload fairing. The atmosphere offshore, where the Just Read the Instructions droneship was stationed 235km away from the launch pad, had high wind shear. This means wind speeds and directions varied at different altitudes, making it a challenge to come back to the ground in a more or less straight path. This, combined with high seas, made for the "worst" conditions SpaceX has ever tried to land a rocket in, said launch commentator John Insprucker. The cameras on board didn't capture the landing clearly, but afterward SpaceX said the rocket did, in fact, make a safe landing on the droneship. Less certain was the fate of the payload fairing amid the poor weather conditions. "This is an experimental attempt; we're still learning how to catch a fairing out of the air," Insprucker said.
After the launches, attention turned toward SpaceX's attempt to recover its first stage and payload fairing. The atmosphere offshore, where the Just Read the Instructions droneship was stationed 235km away from the launch pad, had high wind shear. This means wind speeds and directions varied at different altitudes, making it a challenge to come back to the ground in a more or less straight path. This, combined with high seas, made for the "worst" conditions SpaceX has ever tried to land a rocket in, said launch commentator John Insprucker. The cameras on board didn't capture the landing clearly, but afterward SpaceX said the rocket did, in fact, make a safe landing on the droneship. Less certain was the fate of the payload fairing amid the poor weather conditions. "This is an experimental attempt; we're still learning how to catch a fairing out of the air," Insprucker said.
It sounds like SpaceX's rocket successfully launched and they managed to recover the first stage. The Fairing is suppose to be a bonus recovery but it sounds like it was too windy to do successfully. Keep in mind the first stage actually has rocket power so it has some sort of control over where it is suppose to end up. The Fairing sounds like a huge piece of metal with a parachute. Good Luck catching that in random winds.
Both the Arianne 5 first stage and the Falcon 9 first stage landed in high seas. The Arianne sank to the bottom of the ocean to become an interesting reef for fish, as is their usual procedure. The Falcon 9 landed on a barge and will probably be reused. Yesterday's Falcon 9 recovery was pretty "hot" due to its lifting the heaviest satellite (other than space stations) there is to a substationary orbit, and it's not clear there is a 10-flight life in that booster without refurbishment. I've not yeard about the expected life of the booster in today's mission, but I'd assume 10 without refurbishment.
Bruce Perens.