SpaceX Falcon 9 historic landing thread (1st landing attempt & most recent missions)

[scadaman29325]

I've been casually following SpaceX and most certainly overwhelmed to tears by their success, but hearing of the ambitious schedule and the pressure to develop at incredible speed, I am nervous of the anxiousness of Musk getting men into space.

For those that follow closely, am I being overly concerned or is crew safety being held paramount?

 

[Mushtang]

incredible speed... of Musk.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Oh, that was a good one. Thanks for the chuckle.

No, he's announced dates for things in the past and they'd actually happen 1-2 years, or more, after the original dates. He's postponed things left and right and I'm sure will continue to do so. If he says the astronauts will fly as soon as May, expect them to fly in the Fall, or perhaps next Spring.

I'd love to be wrong about this. If astronauts fly in May I'll be thrilled and will watch the entire thing, cheering Musk the whole time. But I wouldn't bet $1 it will actually happen on time.

I'm sure the reason for all the postponements are for safety, which is a good thing for sure. I'd rather not see the worst that could happen obviously. So if postponement happens it's for the best. It's also predictable.

No, he's not moving at incredible speed that I've seen.

 

[RocketGeekInFL]

He is moving faster than Boeing though. And It looks like Boeing is going to be delayed for some time now. I wouldn't expect Boeing to make a human flight attempt until later half of 2021, and I would bet they will do a full un-manned flight test before that even though that was never planned.

 

[SpaceManMat]

He is moving faster than Boeing though. And It looks like Boeing is going to be delayed for some time now. I wouldn't expect Boeing to make a human flight attempt until later half of 2021, and I would bet they will do a full un-manned flight test before that even though that was never planned.

Yeah there’s some serious gaps in Boeing’s testing methodology for not discover the multiple issues they had on their test flight. I’d be pretty nervous flying on that one ATM.

 

[Charles_McG]

Having just reread Feynman’s appendix to the Challenger report, it looks like they (the unidentified Royal ‘they’) gave in to the requests to make software changes easier / less contested.

 

[Sooner Boomer]

SpaceX's next Starlink delayed from Saturday, to 9:25 am (Central) Sunday. Bad weather in recovery zone given as cause.

 

[Sooner Boomer]

Postponed *again* until Monday morning, about 9:25 (Central). Cause said to be a valve component in the second stage.

https://www.space.com/spacex-delays-starlink-internet-satellite-launch-february-2020.html

 

[shreadvector]

Where did that booster go.....?

 

[Marc_G]

Brief shot of the barge, some vibration, signal lost (not unusual) but didn't see the view come back. Hmmm....

 

[crossfire]

Space X said booster made a soft landing next to the landing ship.

 

[Sooner Boomer]

I think that puff of steam? vapor? was the booster missing the barge. I hope it wasn't a feet/meters mixup, or a Sat/Sun/Mon mixup. But this is still space *exploration*, no matter how commonplace the launches seem.

 

[Marc_G]

Space X said booster made a soft landing next to the landing ship.

Oops

 

[cerving]

Did you see the booster going by a piece of space junk right after the entry burn? Looked like a cable or hose... probably didn't miss it by more than 20 meters.

 

[Marc_G]

Speculation on Twitter with pics that it looks like something detached from the booster prior to entry burn.

 

[cerving]

Yup, that's it. At about t+06:00 you can see it coming off the left side of the booster.

 

[shreadvector]

"thrice-flown first stage booster"

3...no more...no less.

 

[davel]

Do I understand correctly that there is no active link between the landing booster and the barge - that it is strictly a GPS location? Is so, did the booster miss or was the barge out of place?

 

[shreadvector]

 

[SpaceManMat]

Do I understand correctly that there is no active link between the landing booster and the barge - that it is strictly a GPS location? Is so, did the booster miss or was the barge out of place?

Initially it would use inertial navigation, may be GPS is used as a backup / check. Barge would be positioned by GPS. As it approaches however, the F9 uses radar to get an exact location. The flight path is designed in such a way that if something goes wrong with attitude control or the motor does not lite then it will miss the barge. Given the soft landing it would appear to be an attitude control issue. Ie the rocket was not able to aim itself to land on the barge.

 

[Marc_G]

Initially it would use inertial navigation, may be GPS is used as a backup / check. Barge would be positioned by GPS. As it approaches however, the F9 uses radar to get an exact location. The flight path is designed in such a way that if something goes wrong with attitude control or the motor does not lite then it will miss the barge. Given the soft landing it would appear to be an attitude control issue. Ie the rocket was not able to aim itself to land on the barge.

+1.
This reminds me of the time in 2018one of the boosters was supposed to do a RTLS landing, but I think there was a problem with a grid fin hydraulic pump, so the booster landed just a bit off shore, softly onto the water. Truly remarkable to watch it try to stabilize itself from a spin on the way down, and it actually did right at the last moment, but the trajectory was intentionally "safed" so that without full guidance in play it wouldn't crash into the landing zone and demolish it.

https://www.space.com/42648-spacex-failed-rocket-landing-attempt-video.html

 

[SpaceManMat]

Speculation on Twitter with pics that it looks like something detached from the booster prior to entry burn.

First I see it at 5:10, falls off 5:57, don’t think it is ice as it is springy.



This could be bad if damage happened before staging depending on what it is. Might see a F9 being grounded.

 

[Sooner Boomer]

Did they catch any fairing halves?

 

[Marc_G]

Looks like a giant question mark...

 

[davel]

No.

 

[Mushtang]

CRS-20 Mission

From spaceflightnow.com: The final flight of SpaceX’s first-generation Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station is set to begin Friday night with liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral at 11:50 p.m. EST (0450 GMT Saturday) aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. The Falcon 9’s first stage will return to Cape Canaveral for landing around eight minutes later, marking the first booster return to an onshore landing on Florida’s Space Coast since last July.

T minus 45 minutes

 

[davel]

Looks like all went well. If you look closely at stage separation, you can see the Falcon 9 engines relight at the start of the boostback burn.

Now back to the previous flight and landing attempt.... Was there even any report as to why the booster missed (or diverted from) OCISLY?

 

[Mushtang]

Another launch tomorrow morning at 9:22am eastern.

From spaceflightnow.com:
“The Falcon 9’s first stage booster assigned to Sunday’s mission will be making its fifth flight, SpaceX said Friday. The boosters are designed for 10 flights before a major overhaul, but SpaceX’s first stages have flown no more than four times to date.”

Also the second time reused fairings will be used.

First stage will land on a barge and they’ll try and catch the fairings.

 

[cbrarick]

scrub at 0 bummer...

 

[Mushtang]

"... 3... 2... 1... 0... ignition..." (rocket shuts down) "lift ahhhfff... disregard. We have an abort."

 

[Mushtang]

Now scheduled for tomorrow morning, 3/18/2020 at 8:16 am eastern.