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

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Steel shoes have been or will soon be welded over the feet of the booster on the ASDS, to help secure it to the deck (Also, jack stands put under the hard points that the rocket sits on at the pad. Those will take the vertical gravity loads, the shoes over the feet to take the horizontal and rocking loads).

Should arrive in port Sunday.

At a post-flight news conference, Elon Musk has said that this booster will be test fired 10 times at the Cape. If it checks out well, it will be REFLOWN in a few months (May or June was mentioned, i’ll translate that into “summer”).

The Orbcomm -2 booster that successfully landed in December, will be moved to Hawthrone, CA and put on outdoor display. They had to get FAA approval to do that….. not because it is a rocket but due to how tall it is for the airspace in that area.
 
I watched the live feed at my desk with my boss rather than leaving at 4:30. I didn't really expect much in the way of landing footage from past experience, but when came streaking in, then settled down and sat there, we were both exclaiming "its still upright!". I'm glad to have watched it live, history being made. It almost makes up for not having been able to watch the Apollo missions live (on account of not being born). Almost...
 
Managed to watch this live and it was way cool. Any footage from the barge?
 
Boom! (Or... lack of boom!)

[video=youtube;RPGUQySBikQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPGUQySBikQ[/video]
 
Hi Def. Looks like the engines took a fraction too long to shut down so it had a minor 'bounce':

[video=youtube;sYmQQn_ZSys]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYmQQn_ZSys[/video]
 
rocketgeek101 said:
View from the booster during the landing (posted on SpaceX's Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/p/BD9d-HEF8SD/?taken-by=spacex
Click to expand...

Really neat "Cineroc" footage. Of course, the earlier landing tests, that landed into the ocean, had onboard cameras like this that showed the descent and at least one almost to the point of landing in the water. First footage released of one trying to land on a solid surface, really didn't expect that.

Some screen grabs, rotated 180 to help make the ASDS barge name "Of Course I Still Love You" more readable. Darned ice/water/schmutz obscuring part of the view

Hd0qsWX.jpg


UrssLPe.jpg


IkC36fE.jpg


q6VmfYk.jpg




The meme I just created would be funny if it wasn’t true…..yeah, really. And he KNOWS about rockets.

67765082.jpg


IDFP.jpg
 
davel said:
But it is off center..... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

The tilt seen early as it was coming down, I thought at first it had been off course horizontally and was making trying to maneuver laterally during the descent. So I was relieved (and super excited) to see it landed safely.

Turned out that it was coming down vertically.... but is was VERY windy. Musk said 50 mph, not sure of that though SpaceX had said it could land in winds as high as 50 mph. Anyway, the tilt was needed to fly it "into the wind", so the net descent path was vertical (If the wind was say 40 mph, then it was flying 40 mph into the wind so as not to drift downwind).

But for landing it needs to be level, the legs are not designed for one to land first and support the landing loads of the whole booster. So, it had to straighten up at the last moment to land level. And in that time, the wind started to move it downwind. The off-center location seems to be pretty much aligned with the wind direction. Also, the video shows how, as it is landing, the steam (water sprayed on deck) from the exhaust moves quickly from right to left, showing how fast it was and the direction that matches the tilt the rocket was doing to fight that wind during descent.

IIRC, the Orbcomm landing in December (RTLS back to the Cape) also was "downwind" of the center of the circle. Was not as windy, was not off by much, but notably the location was downwind (Later there was a great fixed near-pad camera that showed the landing closeup, where it was visibly obvious it was descending vertically, then as it straightened up 2-3 seconds before touchdown it drifted horizontally a bit).

Maybe sometime they will tweak the landing software to "lead" the targeted landing spot to be a few feet upwind of center, so the descent will be "over" that upwind spot and try to land a few feet upwind, but when it levels out to point vertically, the wind will push it closer to the center. Of course if it really was 50 mph wind today.... then it works without the need for doing that. But inevitably there'd be some day with even higher wind, where such a landing software tweak might allow it to land safely without drifting too far and put a leg over the side, leading to it falling overboard.
 
Last edited:
There is a hilarious video, of footage of Fridays landing, with raunchy-language rap song by T-Pain that coincidentally matches so well with the landing and the "attitude" that the F9 booster would have if it had a human intellect and just did that, shutting up the nay-sayers.

Elon Musk even tweeted it. But then he deleted the tweet.

I won't post a link to the video, and neither should anyone else. But there is Google, if one knew key words to search for to find it.

why did you delete this tweet elon musk
Click to expand...

Mods, feel free to delete this if you think it's too much, after you stop laughing.... :).
 
Last edited:
georgegassaway said:
There is a hilarious video, of footage of Fridays landing, with raunchy-language rap song by T-Pain that coincidentally matches so well with the landing and the "attitude" that the F9 booster would have if it had a human intellect and just did that, shutting up the nay-sayers.

Elon Musk even tweeted it. But then he deleted the tweet.

I won't post a link to the video, and neither should anyone else. But there is Google, if one knew key words to search for to find it.



Mods, feel free to delete this if you think it's too much, after you stop laughing.... :).
Click to expand...

Well that made my morning.

Nate
 
georgegassaway said:
The tilt seen early as it was coming down, I thought at first it had been off course horizontally and was making trying to maneuver laterally during the descent. So I was relieved (and super excited) to see it landed safely.

Turned out that it was coming down vertically.... but is was VERY windy. Musk said 50 mph, not sure of that though SpaceX had said it could land in winds as high as 50 mph. Anyway, the tilt was needed to fly it "into the wind", so the net descent path was vertical (If the wind was say 40 mph, then it was flying 40 mph into the wind so as not to drift downwind).

But for landing it needs to be level, the legs are not designed for one to land first and support the landing loads of the whole booster. So, it had to straighten up at the last moment to land level. And in that time, the wind started to move it downwind. The off-center location seems to be pretty much aligned with the wind direction. Also, the video shows how, as it is landing, the steam (water sprayed on deck) from the exhaust moves quickly from right to left, showing how fast it was and the direction that matches the tilt the rocket was doing to fight that wind during descent.

IIRC, the Orbcomm landing in December (RTLS back to the Cape) also was "downwind" of the center of the circle. Was not as windy, was not off by much, but notably the location was downwind (Later there was a great fixed near-pad camera that showed the landing closeup, where it was visibly obvious it was descending vertically, then as it straightened up 2-3 seconds before touchdown it drifted horizontally a bit).

Maybe sometime they will tweak the landing software to "lead" the targeted landing spot to be a few feet upwind of center, so the descent will be "over" that upwind spot and try to land a few feet upwind, but when it levels out to point vertically, the wind will push it closer to the center. Of course if it really was 50 mph wind today.... then it works without the need for doing that. But inevitably there'd be some day with even higher wind, where such a landing software tweak might allow it to land safely without drifting too far and put a leg over the side, leading to it falling overboard.
Click to expand...
As always, THANK YOU for your detailed reports.

It seemed like whoever was choosing which pad cameras to select for the public video stream was much more aesthetically gifted this time. Also, maybe it was better lighting or weather allowing higher data rates for the vehicle mounted engineering downlink cameras, but the 2nd stage Vacuum Merlin shots seemed to be much higher res than usual.

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georgegassaway said:
There is a hilarious video, of footage of Fridays landing, with raunchy-language rap song by T-Pain that coincidentally matches so well with the landing and the "attitude" that the F9 booster would have if it had a human intellect and just did that, shutting up the nay-sayers.

Elon Musk even tweeted it. But then he deleted the tweet.

I won't post a link to the video, and neither should anyone else. But there is Google, if one knew key words to search for to find it.



Mods, feel free to delete this if you think it's too much, after you stop laughing.... :).
Click to expand...

this... is the best post I've seen in a while
 
Not sure if this has been posted. A very high resolution video of the landing, up to 4K if you have the capability to view it and DL it fast enough. Also has lower res options of course.

For this, I made use of viewing it at a slower speed, .25 speed. REALLY nice.

[video=youtube;sYmQQn_ZSys]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYmQQn_ZSys[/video]



I’m on a boat!
23c7EEa.jpg
 
Thanks for the nice pics. and video. Nice to see them land one, the weather/sea conditions were not in their favor at all.
 
georgegassaway said:
There is a hilarious video, of footage of Fridays landing, with raunchy-language rap song by T-Pain that coincidentally matches so well with the landing and the "attitude" that the F9 booster would have if it had a human intellect and just did that, shutting up the nay-sayers.

Elon Musk even tweeted it. But then he deleted the tweet.

I won't post a link to the video, and neither should anyone else. But there is Google, if one knew key words to search for to find it.

Mods, feel free to delete this if you think it's too much, after you stop laughing.... :).
Click to expand...

Here's the full sanitized version, as originally shown on SNL several years ago:

[video]https://www.hulu.com/watch/56632[/video]

James
 
NAR29996 said:
Here's a zoomed-in view of the landing. I count 3, possibly 4 bounces/

https://twitter.com/aallan/status/718851627218808832
Click to expand...

It looks like the ship was heaving downwards as the Falcon touched down. I am guessing it is a matter of timing where it had a bit too much thrust at the point of touch then the engines cut on the downward heave. It also looks like it skipped a bit. This is one thing that I have been concerned with in a drone ship landing, but I would think an upward heave would be less desirable.
 
Here's a video that has been around for awhile, but quite appropriate to replay this weekend.

https://biturl.im/KFtcj

OCISLY with the Falcon on deck may return to Cape Canaveral Sunday. No solid updates as of now as to when that may be. Possibly even a slight detour.
 
Here's a video that has been around for awhile, but quite appropriate to replay this weekend.

[video=youtube;XYUDQh2RSbw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYUDQh2RSbw[/video]

OCISLY with the Falcon on deck may return to Cape Canaveral Sunday. No solid updates as of now as to when that may be. Possibly even a slight detour.
 

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