Moderators: richierich, ua900, PanAm_DC10, hOMSaR
| Quoting Tugger (Reply 48): (maybe they should just read the instructions....) |
| Quoting angad84 (Reply 50): ISWYDT |
| Quoting Oroka (Reply 49): Yup, minor failure caused loss of a rocket that was paid for and disposable. I dont think they want to spend money doing rework... |
| Quoting Tugger (Reply 48): Then it fell over.... |
| Quoting Oroka (Reply 51): both are from a scifi book series. |
| Quoting francoflier (Reply 53): That may well be, but there is a cost to losing a booster after landing when they almost as easily could have kept it for post flight analysis and moved a bit closer to actual reusability, which is the ultimate goal. |
| Quoting francoflier (Reply 53): Then there is the somewhat damaging PR value of the entire planet watching your rocket go up in flames. |
| Quoting Tugger (Reply 54): It is interesting to see the pitch of the ship in the landing video. I am sure the greater minds at SpaceX have already considered this but I have to wonder how that motion affects the moment of inertia at the top of the booster. That's 100 plus feet and just a little pitching must have a pretty decent effect. I had actually wondered about that issue overall for the drone ship landings. How stable is it? How do they get safely on board and secure the booster to the deck? Do they immediately hoist it up and lay it on the support ship? |
| Quoting moo (Reply 55): Or alternatively there is the positive PR for making loads of people be interested in what you are doing...? SpaceX is a lot better known to the general public than United Launch Alliance, SeaLaunch etc and thats because SpaceX are a lot more open about what they are doing - even Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin doesn't catch as much public attention as SpaceX does, and thats because they don't talk about their launches and tests until after they have happened. |
| Quoting ZaphodHarkonnen (Reply 56): The ship is big semi submersible platform with a positioning system. The sort that would be used to do offshore drilling. So it's very stable when ballasted. |
| Quoting Tugger (Reply 57): Actually that is not correct, the ships are modified standard barges. They are of the "MARMAC" type, with a relatively shallow draft (I believe they flood the ballast to provide some 14' of draft for the landings). |
| Quoting francoflier (Reply 53): That may well be, but there is a cost to losing a booster after landing when they almost as easily could have kept it for post flight analysis and moved a bit closer to actual reusability, which is the ultimate goal. |
| Quoting francoflier (Reply 53): Then there is the somewhat damaging PR value of the entire planet watching your rocket go up in flames. |
 |
| Boca Chica SpaceX launch pad, the early days. |
| Quoting zanl188 (Reply 62): Not sure what the point of this Dragon 2 test is, throttleability perhaps, but it's cool to see Dragon 2 hover.... http://youtu.be/07Pm8ZY0XJI |
| Quoting nomadd22 (Reply 63): Since all 8 motors were running, they must have been throttled to about 10%, even if Dragon was heavily ballasted. Together those suckers can generate 120,000 pounds of thrust at 100%. I can see why they'd want to test stability that low. |
| Quoting nomadd22 (Reply 63): Since all 8 motors were running, they must have been throttled to about 10%, even if Dragon was heavily ballasted. Together those suckers can generate 120,000 pounds of thrust at 100%. I can see why they'd want to test stability that low. |
| Quoting francoflier (Reply 70): It seems they're really downplaying the landing attempt this time. Even more so than usual. It will be a high energy launch and dumping all that speed and landing the first stage that far off range on that tiny barge will prove very difficult it seems. Not that it is easy even in the best circumstances. |
| Quoting moo (Reply 71): Yes, they are downplaying it because the window for the satellite reaching its geostationary transfer orbit is rapidly diminishing, meaning that unless its delayed for a year or so it will take more energy to get the payload into the right transfer orbit, which means less fuel to tinker with doing other things. |
| Quoting nomadd22 (Reply 72): Not sure what you mean. That window is every day for the next several billion years. The only reason they can't launch any time is they don't want the satellite in the Earth's shadow too long. |
| Quote: SpaceX is considering a third attempt to launch a commercial communications satellite from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station as soon as Sunday evening. A forecast posted by the Air Force's 45th Weather Squadron Wing shows near-perfect conditions are expected during a more than 90-minute launch window running from 6:47 p.m. to 8:20 p.m. Sunday. The weather would also be excellent Monday, should an attempt be made then, with a 90 percent chance of acceptable weather. |
| Quoting JetBuddy (Reply 79): Yeah, that was kind of sad to see the mission scrubbed for tonight. But after two failed attempts, even though the first one had nothing to do with the rocket, I'm guessing they felt it was safest to delay. The launch window was narrowing, and they probably had a lot of telemetry to go through to figure out why the flight computers didn't let the engines ignite. |
| Quote: @SpaceX Launch aborted on low thrust alarm. Rising oxygen temps due to hold for boat and helium bubble triggered alarm. |
| Quoting nomadd22 (Reply 89): It survived an extremely energetic re-entry and managed to fly back and hit the spot. |
 |
