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

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Another video by US Launch Report, CRS-8 booster on the road.

[video=youtube;YCv31VFk1Lg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCv31VFk1Lg[/video]

A photo by Julian Leek.

LEdDmp0.jpg


And..... this twitter pic by Elon Musk. https://twitter.com/elonmusk?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author

"By Land and Sea"

BlM2B2e.jpg
Click to expand...

Yes, on the left is the ORBCOMM-2 booster that did the RTLS landing in December. Don't ask me where the missing engines are..... :)

That photo is inside the Horizontal Integration Facility near Pad 39A, where Falcon-Heavy and manned NASA Dragon spacecraft missions will be launched. Also some unmanned missions. Musk said they plan to do ten test firings of the CRS-8 booster (apparently test fire on Pad 39A if they get the pad ready soon) , and if things go well it will launch again this summer. The SES-9 booster will be trucked back to California and will be vertically displayed outside of SpaceX Headquarters in Hawthorne.
 
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georgegassaway said:
Truck would jack-knife WAY before then. Trucks with trailers are meant to pull, not be pushed.

That why when pulling a trailer, you have to slow carefully. And keep it straight as much as possible while braking.

Ideally the trailer has brakes, and those brakes decelerates the trailer more than the truck brakes decelerate the truck.

Wait, I took this as a serious possibility.... without even getting into how the Falcon booster would collapse under its own weight if fully fueled and only supported near the ends as it is when horizontal..... :)
Click to expand...

Just for folks information, the truck is towing a whats commonly called a Goldhofer or a wheeled mobile platform, the truck is known as a ballast tractor due to the heavy weights sitting over the rear axles. The trailer is pulled/connected to the truck via a draw bar, when ascending or descending steep grades additional tractors can be added front and rear to assist with braking or pulling. We have 3 commonly used to move naval reactors into the burial ground where I work, a converted Melroe M-880 eight wheel skid steer dozer, and two Hendrickson ballast tractors ( the only two ever built) owned by Lampson Crane they are named Beauty and, The Beast. Barnhardt crane also uses a Pacific P12WR ballast tractor and mobile platform to move irradiated hot cells into the disposal landfill. Mobile platforms move fairly slowly under their own power which is part of the reason ballast tractors are used, typically the trailing pilot car is able to help steer the platform via remote control.
 
dhbarr said:
Mushtang said:
Anyone else wondering exactly how fast that truck could go if that bad boy was started as it rolled down the road?
Click to expand...

6,806kN at sea level , 162s burn time. Assuming they could keep it attached and they had enough runway, I think the bearings would burst into flames just before the rubber flew apart.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but... wouldn't that be AWESOME????!!!!! YYYYYYYYYYYEEEOOWWWWWW!!!!

Especially if nobody told the truck driver it was about to happen and we got to see his face as it started.
 
I thought this was an interesting perspective as the Falcon 9 first stage passes a tour bus at KSC.

[video=youtube;uC3Szb5raXE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC3Szb5raXE[/video]
 
I just read that the next launch and landing attempt will be early May for a Japanese satellite JCSAT-14. The launch window is 1:22-3:22 AM.

If that holds I guess I'll just have to read about it the next morning.

Also, the launch will leave less fuel in the first stage than last time so the landing will be one of the risky ones. Coming in fast and braking hard.
 
I count 12 axles on each end of the trailer for a total of 24, each has 4 wheels so it's 96 in the trailer. Of those only half are down, the rest are raised off the road. The the towing vehicle has another 14 wheels if you want to count them.
 
Mushtang said:
I just read that the next launch and landing attempt will be early May for a Japanese satellite JCSAT-14. The launch window is 1:22-3:22 AM.

If that holds I guess I'll just have to read about it the next morning.

Also, the launch will leave less fuel in the first stage than last time so the landing will be one of the risky ones. Coming in fast and braking hard.
Click to expand...

mpitfield said:
C'mon George dig up some Falcon info, it's been a week since an update and some of us are going through SpaceX withdrawal.
Click to expand...

giphy.gif
 
OK, some news.

EDIT Update - Launch slipped to May 6th

Next launch is JCSAT-14, a Com Sat for Japan. very early FRIDAY May 6th, 1:22 AM EDT (think of it more like launching late Thursday night after midnight). It will try to land on the ASDs Barge, OCISLY. But it will not have as much fuel to use for the landing so the chances of success are reduced (still, this does to sound like the SES-9 “not expected to succeed” hot landing that crashed and caused a lot of damage in early March)

https://www.floridatoday.com/story/...-falcon-9-rocket-launch-early-may-4/83591784/

SpaceX is targeting a 1:22 a.m. launch next Wednesday, May 4, of a Falcon 9 rocket and Japanese communications satellite.

SKY Perfect JSAT, Japan's largest satellite operator, and the Air Force's 45th Space Wing confirmed the launch date.

Liftoff is targeted for the opening of a two-hour window at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40.

The mission aims to send the company's JCSAT-14 spacecraft, built by Space Systems Loral, to an orbit 22,300 miles above the equator.

The satellite is designed to provide TV programming and broadband services in Japan, Asia, Oceania, Russia and the Pacific region for at least 15 years, replacing an older satellite called JCSAT-2A.
The mission is the first of two that SKY Perfect JSAT has booked on*SpaceX's Falcon 9, to be followed by JCSAT-16.

The launch comes nearly a month after a SpaceX for the first time landed a Falcon 9 rocket's*first stage on a ship down range in the Atlantic Ocean, during a successful launch of supplies to the International Space Station.

SpaceX will again try for a landing at sea, although the company has said this mission to a higher orbit will pose a bigger challenge than last month's trip to a low orbit.
Click to expand...

Patch for the mission:

loBuxxe.png



index.php


And back to the last flight, an article with some news about the reuse testing of the recently landed booster (Falcon-9 core #23)

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/04/falcon-9-booster-reuse-testing-ksc/
 
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Here is a video that compiles a lot of landing tests, from the first "hop", to the CRS-8 landing at sea:

[video=youtube;tU1b1H2EWU4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU1b1H2EWU4[/video]

And this video of a trip out to LZ-1:

[video=youtube;dIzLMjiyBog]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIzLMjiyBog[/video]
 
Elon would correct you, it is a "ship" since it has engines! Haha, I though itwas funny that he made that very clear at the post-landing news conference.

I hope they stick the "hot" landing.

What I'm really chomping at the bit to see is the Falcon Heavy. I sure hope it flies this year.
 
marcusSRG said:
Elon would correct you, it is a "ship" since it has engines! Haha, I though itwas funny that he made that very clear at the post-landing news conference.

I hope they stick the "hot" landing.

What I'm really chomping at the bit to see is the Falcon Heavy. I sure hope it flies this year.
Click to expand...

Yeah..... this is why there is a website with the name StuffElonSays (except the first word is not stuff). Remember this is the guy who described the CRS-5 high-speed diagonal crash, exploding into bits on impact, and most of it skidding overboard, as a "hard" landing.

Anyway, if it is barge with thrusters but is TOWED back and forth, only using the thrusters to hold position..... it ain't a ship. It's a barge, with thrusters. Just like say a Canoe with a trolling motor that could make it run at 1 mph for 1/2 mile before the battery died, does not make the canoe a "speedboat". Or a ship......

The landing for this may not be a "hot" one, not like SES-9. Just won't have as much extra to make use of as CRS-8 did.

Falcon Heavy... I'm looking forward ot it too. But it seems to perpetually be 6 months away. A YEAR ago, it was 6 months away. Last Fall, it was 6 months away. Last I checked it was due for late September..... 5 months away... but that last time I checked was 1-2 months ago. But at least the LC-39A pad is getting more and more ready... albeit at a relatively slow pace considering yet again how a year ago they expected FH to fly from it last Fall..... and it still isn't ready. But they need to get it ready to at least hold a single Falcon-9 booster, so they can do static firing testing with the F-9 booster that landed on the barge, if not also some more testing of the Orbcomm boosted that did the RTLS landing in December (It's missing some engines now, though). For Musk to have said that the CRS-8 booster would probably fly in 3-4 months (I now translate that into 6 months, had already pre-translated his earlier statement of reflight in May or June into "before end of summer), then they need to really get that pad complete enough to do the ten test firings he said they'd do (Again, more Stuff Elon Says.....)

Update - Scheduling announcement in February says "late 2016", which is even worse, that was 9-11 months away. And very easy slippage from late 2016 into 2017, launches planned from mid-November onwards very often get delayed into the next year due to the Holidays.

- George Gassaway
 
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Oh I am akin to his verbiage. He is quite the unique character. But thank you for the clarification on watercraft;)

Yes there does seem to be a perpetual delay with the heavy. They are known for their ambitious schedules but I think that lends to their overall success. Hope the flight happens this year.

...I have my eyes on those static firings too. And the 2nd flight, whenever that happens.

Would also like to see an update on the status/solid plans for the RLTS booster. I feel like I read/heard speculation it would eventually go on display front in Hawthorne, but I cant remember where. I'm sure they have plans before that happens.
 
georgegassaway said:
The landing for this may not be a "hot" one, not like SES-9. Just won't have as much extra to make use of as CRS-8 did.
Click to expand...

They're still using fuel as a hydraulic fluid, in a total-loss system, right? So if it runs out of fuel, it's not just that thrust is lost, ALL CONTROL is lost as well (I guess that control really isn't much without thrust against gravity, these things glide about as well as I do).
 
SpaceX has released a video of the CRS-8 landing, shot from the ASDS Barge “Of Course I Still Love You”.

But….. it’s more than that.

K5bH5Xy.jpg


See the circle with arrows in the upper left corner of the screenshot above? For the video, put your mouse cursor over one of the arrows, then press the mouse button briefly to rotate the view up to 360 degrees.

Yeah, they shot this with a 360 degree camera (multiple cameras in a frame, shooting various directions, software stitching camera views together to look like 360)

[video=youtube;KDK5TF2BOhQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDK5TF2BOhQ[/video]
 
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I noticed that the booster slid downwind a bit after it made contact with the barge. It seems that wind is going to be a limiting factor for vertical landings. In order to counter the wind the rocket must be pointed slightly upwind, but at the moment of landing it must be perfectly vertical. Since the barge is rectangular in shape it seems like it would make sense to align the barge with the wind to provide more landing room in that direction.
 
georgegassaway said:
SpaceX has released a video of the CRS-8 landing, shot from the ASDS Barge “Of Course I Still Love You”.

But….. it’s more than that.

K5bH5Xy.jpg


See the circle with arrows in the upper left corner of the screenshot above? For the video, put your mouse cursor over one of the arrows, then press the mouse button briefly to rotate the view up to 360 degrees.

Yeah, they shot this with a 360 degree camera (multiple cameras in a frame, shooting various directions, software stitching camera views together to look like 360)

[video=youtube;KDK5TF2BOhQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDK5TF2BOhQ[/video]
Click to expand...

Love the acoustics from the stage bouncing off the hard deck.
 
Launch has slipped a day to NET May 5th.

Will update thread title and new launch time (if different) after the test firing that is likely to happen today, after which they will set an official launch date / time.
 
JCSAT-14 launch to set for very early Thursday morning, May 5th 1:22 AM EDT (Late Wednesday night for those on Mountain & Pacific time). A 2-hour launch window.

The landing attempt (at night) on the ASDS barge (OCISLY) actually will be more like the SES-9 landing attempt, a high-up and “hot” re-entry. But apparently it’ll have bit more fuel left in it this time. It has been indicated that the SES-9 landing attempt ran out of fuel before landing (they didn’t expect the SES-9 landing to succeed).

UPDATE : OK, so don't get your hopes up too high for a safe landing....

SpaceX on next landing attempt: booster "will be subject to extreme velocities and re-entry heating, making a successful landing unlikely."
Click to expand...

Webcasts will become live about 25-30 minutes before launch time, so sometime before 1 AM EDT.

Hosted Webcast:

[video=youtube;L0bMeDj76ig]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0bMeDj76ig[/video]

Technical Webcast:

[video=youtube;1lYZLxr3L4E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lYZLxr3L4E[/video]

JCSAT-14 (right) before being encapsulated by the launch fairing (left)

index.php


Apparnetly the Falcon for this launch:

index.php
 
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