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

[vcp]

Launch late late TONIGHT, or EARLY tomorrow (early July 25th) - 4:39 AM PDT (6:39 AM EDT) from Vandenberg

Isn't that 7:39 AM EDT...

 

[Sooner Boomer]

Launch through ground fog was very interesting...

Couldn't really see landing of booster either.

 

[Sooner Boomer]

Today was actually a two-fer. There was an Ariane 5 shot that went up just before the Falcon 9.

Ariane -

Falcon -

 

[Mushtang]

No luck catching the fairing yet.

SpaceX was not able to specify at launch when it would know whether Mr. Steven was successful, but a later update confirmed the weather was too harsh for the maneuver. "They did see the payload fairing coming down, but they were not able to catch it in the net," Insprucker announced shortly after 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT).

 

[markkoelsch]

I sincerely doubt they will be able to catch the fairing with regularity. It would seem to me that the flight path would be too unpredictable to be in the correct position except for some odd lucky shot.

Seems to me they would be better off try to put chutes on them and some type of inflatable floatation device. Not sure what that would do to the weight and payload volume though.

 

[Peartree]

I sincerely doubt they will be able to catch the fairing with regularity. It would seem to me that the flight path would be too unpredictable to be in the correct position except for some odd lucky shot.

Seems to me they would be better off try to put chutes on them and some type of inflatable floatation device. Not sure what that would do to the weight and payload volume though.

They have recovered them from the sea as they often "float" much like a boat does. Unfortunately, much like the first stage itself, exposure to sea water ruins the fairing and in that case, they are not reusable.

 

[markkoelsch]

They have recovered them from the sea as they often "float" much like a boat does. Unfortunately, much like the first stage itself, exposure to sea water ruins the fairing and in that case, they are not reusable.

Considering it all I think recovering the fairings is likely a waste of time and money.

 

[NAR29996]

This is probably a stupid question, but instead of a net, why couldn't they put a deck on Mr Steven and carry a small helicopter to capture the fairing with a hook and bring it back to the ship? It seems to me that this is a proven method and should be more reliable than what they're trying to do now.

 

[rharshberger]

This is probably a stupid question, but instead of a net, why couldn't they put a deck on Mr Steven and carry a small helicopter to capture the fairing with a hook and bring it back to the ship? It seems to me that this is a proven method and should be more reliable than what they're trying to do now.

Similar to the early recon-sat film canister recoveries.

 

[georgegassaway]

Fairing halves weight about 10,000 pounds each. A Sikorksy Skycrane MIGHT be able to handle a mid-air snag. it has been done at a smaller scale. But a Skycrane does not have the fuel range to even fly alone to most of the downrange landing zones. So, it would have to go out aboard a ship/barge, waiting for days. Then if it caught a fairing, it would have to put the fairing on deck, then the Skycrane would have to land somewhere else and ride back to port (or ride close enough to shore to be able to fly the rest of the way after refueling on deck). It would be a lot more complex and expensive to do all that (and risking a couple of lives onboard each Skycrane in case of disaster). Also for that matter, Skycranes were never built for the US Navy to use, so I'm not so sure how well they would fare at sea with salt water spray and all that.

Of course the first few tries at landing a Falcon-9 did not work either. But perhaps they van work this out "well enough" that if they succeed 50% of the time it'll be well worth it. I was not ware how bad the weather/ocean conditions were, the webcast mentioned the Falcon booster was trying to land in the worst weather attempted for a landing (and it did land safely).

Info from Chris Bergin at NSF :

Mr. Steven didn't catch the fairing. Saw it coming down, but the wind shear was too much.

Of course there is still MY idea of the vehicle to use to catch the fairings, and they'd be able to fly right on back to shore.....

 

[Charles_McG]

George, where did you get the 20,000 lb figure. Spaceflight101 lists 1900kg / 4200 lbs. so 2100 lbs per half. That would be a lot easier to lift, though space for landing still would be a problem for capture heli or drone.

 

[georgegassaway]

Whoops. Either I had a bad source from long ago or misremembered the mass.
(UPDATE - I later realized the 10,000 pound figure was from a totally different rocket with a discussion of using a helicopter to snag it, when I looked up the specs for a Skycrane and found the relatively limited range. Not an F9 fairing but ULA's upcoming Vulcan rocket. It is going to detach the tail section (with the engines) from the main tank, and they are going to try to get the engine section back for reuse.)

Yes, around 2100 pounds per half, speculated to be a bit less with the 2.0 fairing. There is a custom built "drone" with lifting thrust of 1200 pounds - apparently 1200 pounds in addition to lifting its own mass (biggest claim to fame so far is that it carried a human underneath it.... at low altitude over deep snow). It's a serious small company, not a "Hey y'all watch this" type of group of yahoos. And definitely some being developed, or flying already, that carry people.

So if the Mr Steven catch testing does not pan out, they could consider working with one of those drone companies (if not make their own), to develop one that would be big enough to be able to handle the mass, swaying, and the aerodynamic mess of a fairing dangling underneath. And that is the sort of thing that could be semi-automated or fully automated. Best things, unlike manned helicopters, no risk of life, less cost if the drone crashes, and much easier logistics to take one (or two) onboard the same ship as will be bringing the fairings back. The one I referred to that has 1200 pounds of thrust, does not mean doubling it would do it. Multicopters need to have thrust to weight ratios of about 2 times or better to maneuver well, so a big custom fairing-snag drone would need around 4,000-5,000 pounds of thrust beyond its own mass.

But I think it' more likely they'll work out the bugs for something that can work at least half the time. Theres always going to be some weather where they know they are risking not recovering anything at all (booster included, like today's big risk).

Or perhaps farther down the road, have contracts allowing SpaceX to delay a launch if weather at sea will make recovery of a booster too risky (they already waved off one, perhaps two, planned booster landings at sea due to bad weather. indeed the first time was so bad that the ASDS got the crap beat out of it from the waves as it was already hundreds of miles out when the landing attempt on the ASDS was cancelled - requiring modifications to handle rough seas better. That Falcon booster ended up soft-landing into the ocean and sinking, rather than delay the launch for better landing weather)

 

[DaveHein]

As I said in post 2990 of this thread, a drone could fly under the descending fairing and latch onto it. Once it is securely attached to the fairing it could then provide power to fly the fairing using its parachute in a PPC configuration. A barge could be used to provide a landing strip for the PPC.

 

[Mushtang]

to develop one that would be big enough to be able to handle the mass...)

Better yet, develop 4 of these that fly in tandem with the net between them. They'd be MUCH more maneuverable than a ship on the water surface. They could grab the fairing and drop it gently on a barge.

Two sets of these could grab both halves, set them on the deck of a barge, and then land on the deck themselves.

 

[PropellantHead]

At the risk of sounding silly, why wouldn't they just coat the fairing with something waterproof or at least find a way to seal off the parts of the fairing that would be damaged by the sea water?

 

[georgegassaway]

JRTI returned to port, with proof that the booster really did land safely on it (since the camera didn't show anything after landing, as though the deck lights were out, or whatever).

Photo by Stephen Bates

 

[NAR29996]

At the risk of sounding silly, why wouldn't they just coat the fairing with something waterproof or at least find a way to seal off the parts of the fairing that would be damaged by the sea water?

I think it is a pretty fine line between adding things to the fairing to improve recovery, and losing up mass for the rocket due to the heavier fairings.

 

[Rex R]

live in 65 minutes;
Rex

 

[Charles_McG]

Does anyone know if this launch has all the improvements in place? Does it count toward the 'test like you fly' [Crewed Dragon] requirements?

Edit:
Let's see, this was the 1st Block 5 booster on its second flight. Wasn't the first b5 flight was only missing the new redesigned second stage helium tanks? So even if it's reflown, it might now have the updated COPVs?

 

[Marc_G]

Was the landing successful? I skimmed through and it looks like deployment mission was successful but the had the typical loss of video on landing of the booster.

 

[Charles_McG]

Spaceflight Now says it was a successful landing.

 

[BEC]

Yes, the landing was good. As usual, they lost the video feed just before it touched down but just as they were going to the break in the webcast between the first and second burns of the upper stage they got a feed back and the booster looked to be dead center on the circle on the deck of OCISLY.

During the webcast the commentator (I didn’t catch her name) said that they plan to refly this booster this year, which will make it the first one to fly three times.

 

[Peartree]

Does anyone know if this launch has all the improvements in place? Does it count toward the 'test like you fly' [Crewed Dragon] requirements?

Edit:
Let's see, this was the 1st Block 5 booster on its second flight. Wasn't the first b5 flight was only missing the new redesigned second stage helium tanks? So even if it's reflown, it might now have the updated COPVs?

I don't think they've flown the updated COPV's yet. That was one of the major issues in last week's safety report about progress of SpaceX and Boeing toward crewed flights.

 

[SpaceManMat]

Found this interesting video about the new recovery ships for austonauts.

 

[Charles_McG]

That was weird phrasing. Machine voice?

 

[georgegassaway]

Telstar 18 VANTAGE Launch TONIGHT at 11:28 PM EDT

SpaceX is targeting launch of the Telstar 18 VANTAGE satellite to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The four-hour launch window opens at 11:28 p.m. EDT on Sunday, September 9, or 3:28 UTC on Monday, September 10. The satellite will be deployed approximately 32 minutes after liftoff.

Following stage separation, SpaceX will attempt to land Falcon 9’s first stage on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

Press kit: https://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/telstar18vantagepresskit.pdf

 

[georgegassaway]

Delayed a bit, 12 midnight EDT (11 PM Central), due to weather:

All systems go for launch of Telstar 18 VANTAGE; team is monitoring weather conditions. Targeting liftoff at 12:00 a.m. EDT, 4:00 UTC. Launch webcast will go live about 15 minutes before liftoff

 

[rharshberger]

Looks like it slipped a bit further to 12:30 AM.

 

[georgegassaway]

Yep delayed at least to 12:30 AM EDT. Lightning issues, so they may keep adding 30 minute delays to see if they can find an opening before the launch window expires. All for me for tonight, I'll watch the webcast later if it does fly tonight.

 

[georgegassaway]

So, another successful launch, and booster landing. 60th successful Falcon-9 flight.

Next launch is for SAOCOM 1A, NET October 7th, from Vandenberg. This launch is expected to be the first RTLS booster landing back to Vandy.

Photo below from SpaceX's Flickr: