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

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That was the third launch and third landing for that Block-5 booster.

CRS-16 launch TOMORROW (Tuesday) at 1:38 PM EST from the Cape. Since it is a mission for NASA, it should also be shown on NASA TV, with other camera views (often quite great camera views of the booster coming back for landing). This should be an RTLS Landing.

"SpaceX is targeting Tuesday, December 4 for the launch of its sixteenth Commercial Resupply Services mission (CRS-16) to the International Space Station. Liftoff is targeted for 1:38 p.m. EST, or 18:38 UTC, from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. A backup launch opportunity is available on Wednesday, December 5 at 1:16 p.m. EST, or 18:16 UTC.

Dragon will be filled with more than 5,600 pounds of supplies and payloads, including critical materials to directly support more than 250 science and research investigations that will occur onboard the orbiting laboratory. The Dragon spacecraft that will support the CRS-16 mission previously supported the CRS-10 mission in February 2017. Following stage separation, SpaceX will attempt to recover Falcon 9’s first stage on Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

You can watch the live launch webcast below and find out more about the mission in our press kit.
https://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/crs16_press_kit_12_3.pdf"

 
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This experiment is to see if 40 mice is enough to fully infest a space station and make it completely uninhabitable by humans.
 
I wonder why those experiments can't be done on the humans that already inhabit the space station? Maybe they plan on dissecting them, and the astronauts would protest.
 
When I read the article about holding the launch for some moldy mouse food I envisioned a bunch of SpaceX/NASA scientists in white coats seeing if they had enough pocket change to raid the candy machine for suitable replacements. I suggest sending the bill for the launch delay to the group that didn't properly monitor their mouse experiment.
 

"Falcon fairing halves missed the net, but touched down softly in the water. Mr Steven is picking them up. Plan is to dry them out & launch again. Nothing wrong with a little swim."

Now I'm deeply confused. I thought the whole point of catching them on Mr. Steven's monstrous net was that if the fairing halves touched salt water, they were no longer usable. Is that no longer true? If they can be re-used after hitting the water, what's the point of the net?
 
I wonder why those experiments can't be done on the humans that already inhabit the space station? Maybe they plan on dissecting them, and the astronauts would protest.

As always, Douglas Adams beat us to it:
"I thought you said you could just read his brain electronically,'' protested Ford.
"Oh yes,'' said Frankie, "but we'd have to get it out first. It's got to be prepared.''
"Treated,'' said Benji.
"Diced.''
 
"Falcon fairing halves missed the net, but touched down softly in the water. Mr Steven is picking them up. Plan is to dry them out & launch again. Nothing wrong with a little swim."

Now I'm deeply confused. I thought the whole point of catching them on Mr. Steven's monstrous net was that if the fairing halves touched salt water, they were no longer usable. Is that no longer true? If they can be re-used after hitting the water, what's the point of the net?
I thought the same thing, but maybe the problem is extended exposure to the salt water? If they float in the water for days or hours until recovered they're no good but if they can be removed within minutes and then hosed off with fresh water on the ship maybe they're good to go.
 
....or at least they will see if that's the case. That was what I was wondering as well. I expect there's a continuum between "change the logos on the outside and fly it again" and "ruined by salt water exposure." It's probably not binary.....
 
I thought the same thing, but maybe the problem is extended exposure to the salt water? If they float in the water for days or hours until recovered they're no good but if they can be removed within minutes and then hosed off with fresh water on the ship maybe they're good to go.

....or at least they will see if that's the case. That was what I was wondering as well. I expect there's a continuum between "change the logos on the outside and fly it again" and "ruined by salt water exposure." It's probably not binary.....

They've picked up a bunch of fairings, so maybe they've done that testing already and found it's OK but less work than if they catch it dry. If it went in, likely all of the electronics would need to be replaced and possibly some aluminum mating pieces. Or perhaps they changed the materials. I can imagine that aerospace-grade aluminum might react poorly (or at least unpredictably) to a salt water dunking. They could perhaps have changed the aluminum to a marine grade that is good enough for the trip to space and a better fit for salt water exposure. I wouldn't think the carbon fiber would much care about a water landing as long as it landed softly enough not to break stuff. I'll just go demand that Elon come read this thread and tell us. :)
 
Better bet would be the guy 4 levels below him that's actually working on the issue :rolleyes:

The guy 4 levels down solving the issue won't shoot his mouth off on Twitter, though. Elon is a big enough micromanager that I'm sure he knows the details and he might just respond if poked. o_O
 
Nah, you just have to go to nasaspaceflight's paywalled section and pal around with the jackholes breaking their NDAs for the thrill of it
 
I don't get the new claim that the fairings could be re-used after landing in seawater, given all the time, effort, and $ spent to catch them dry, and the many past reasons why landing in seawater would ruin them. Musk has spouted off crap before so I won't believe this till proven to be true, or at least what has changed to solve those problems (and I don't mean speculations, but actual info from SpaceX).

Launch time for Wednesday scheduled for 1:16 PM, EST.

"SpaceX is targeting Wednesday, December 5 for the launch of its sixteenth Commercial Resupply Services mission (CRS-16) to the International Space Station. Liftoff is targeted for 1:16 p.m. EST, or 18:16 UTC, from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. A backup launch opportunity is available on Friday, December 7 at 12:28 p.m. EST, or 17:28 UTC."
 
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How does one find out ahead of launch, if the landing is to be back at the cape or out at sea? I have tried to figure this out but have been unsuccessful.
 
Usually, SpaceflightNow.com has a pretty good description of what is happening.
 
I wonder how many launches Elon attends in person anymore? Eventually he'll have to get to the point where he just gets updates about them and attends a few. Or maybe he's super involved with each launch, I would love to know.

Also, clearly they have multiple teams of people that can launch a rocket because they almost launched them back to back days in Cali and then Florida. But there's got to be some number of people that needed to be at both and were hustled to Florida as soon as Monday's flight was over. I wonder how many people are that critical and were on the private jet(s) to get them there in time for the launch? I'm thinking this number would be pretty low.
 
I use the NASAspacelfight forum.

This sticky thread in the SpaceX Missions section,”SpaceX Manifest Updates and discussion”:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=43418.0

The first message is always updated with the latest information.

Here’s one image of two screenshots. First part is the table formatting. Second part pasted under the formatting is the manifest which shows some recent missions (SSO-A being the last before the cut-off line that sums to future missions. When CRS-16 launches, then when updated the line will move down past CRS-16 and USAF GPS III will show as the next mission.

DS7kkYU.gif


Now, take note of the letters “S”, “L”, and “X”, that is between the booster serial number and the Payload name (CRS-16’s booster # is 1050, first flight. Otherwise a decimal point and number indicates a reflown booster. SSO-A’s booster was 1046.3, F9 booster 46 flying for the 3rd time).

Those letters indicate the “return” code for the booster.
S = Sea landing
L = Launch site landing (RTLS)
X = Expendable
? = Not known yet.

Also take note that under “LV”, nearly every one says “F9”, for Falcon-9. But the last one in the screenshot is “FH”, for Falcon Heavy. And its landing code is “LSL”, since the side boosters will do RTLS landings and center core will land at sea on the landing barge OCISLY.


Back to today, countdown is going OK for CRS-16 launch at 1:16 PM, EST. Again I expect NASA TV to show it, and they usually have great long range camera views of the staging, boost-back burn, re-entry burn, and landing burn of the booster (SpaceX has a closer view of the actual landing, usually, due to their own cameras at the landing zone).
 
Something sure happened. Onboard video showed a real struggle of the first stage to maintain a stable orientation. They announced it splashed into the sea instead of making it back to the landing pad.
 
“If you don’t fail once in a while you’re not pushin the envelope”
 
Agree it seemed like a loss of roll control (and maybe some "edge-of-the-envelope" twitchiness of the control software in response?).

If it was a grid fin gone hard to one end stop they no doubt got very clear video showing the problem. Hopefully we'll see something soon.
 
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