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

[mpitfield]

That's crazy how the heck are those people not falling down.

 

[mpitfield]

I just checked the sunset time, 7:42, so it looks like this one will be in the dark.

 

[Rex R]

didn't know they were launching from down under .
Rex

 

[Ravenex]

Lol, the photos look normal on my phone

 

[boatgeek]

They make you stand on your head at KSC? ;-)

It's actually at the Rocketlab launch site (Kiwi Space Center) in NZ.

 

[Marc_G]

Looks to be 11:32 PM Eastern launch now

 

[Ravenex]

Yup, they just announced an instantaneous launch window

 

[georgegassaway]

Launch DELAYED to Thursday the 11th.

Window opens at 6:35 PM, EDT.

 

[Marc_G]

Now showing 9:35 pm EDT launch timing

 

[Marc_G]

Now back to 6:35 PM!

 

[georgegassaway]

Launch Window opens at 6:35 PM (or 6:36 PM) EDT today.

Fuel Load underway.

Webcast usually begins at least 15 minutes before launch time.



A LIVE broadcast by "Space & Universe", good for now, but SpaceX's should be better once it goes live.


And the Everyday Astronaut's live feed:

 

[boatgeek]

Aaaand they stuck three landings! The crowd goes wild!

But only a 7.6 from the Russian judge.

 

[NAR29996]

It was cloudy to the east, so I didn't see much of the launch.

 

[tim cubbedge]

Perfect view from the south.

 

[Mugs914]

No view from Texas, but the live feed was great!

I will never get tired of watching those things land, but two at once just has to be one of the coolest things I have seen in my life. Absolutely amazing...

 

[Mugs914]

Aaaand they stuck three landings! The crowd goes wild!

But only a 7.6 from the Russian judge.

Hahahahahahahaha!!!!! Almost sprayed tea all over the screen!!

 

[Huxter]

>> But only a 7.6 from the Russian judge.

You made me blow my drink out my nose!! Now that's funny!

Congrats SpaceX - this is how access to space should be (not many explosions!). NASA should take note. It does not take huge amounts of money to accomplish.

Coolest rocket landings ever!

 

[boatgeek]

>> But only a 7.6 from the Russian judge.

You made me blow my drink out my nose!! Now that's funny!

Congrats SpaceX - this is how access to space should be (not many explosions!). NASA should take note. It does not take huge amounts of money to accomplish.

Coolest rocket landings ever!

Right now, it seems like the only reason to buy a launch from ULA is to keep two US-based providers in the system. I'm curious what will happen to ULA/LockMart when Blue Origin finally gets New Glenn through Gradatim Ferociter and flying. With two systems using wildly different technology flying and re-using boosters, it'll be awfully hard to compete.

And on the explosions front, I'm looking forward to the Crew Dragon abort test. That's the only time you get to cheer for a fireball on a serious launch.

 

[cbrarick]

the live feed was awesome and congrats to spaceX for landing all 3

 

[farsidius]

No view from Texas, but the live feed was great!

I will never get tired of watching those things land, but two at once just has to be one of the coolest things I have seen in my life. Absolutely amazing...

I'll agree with that. The double landing is the stuff of sci-fi come to life for me.

 

[WFWalby]

Wasn't sure I'd live to see vertical landing-reusable spacecraft. Pure magic.

 

[dhbarr]

Now we just need a bunch of telescopes in a huge ring to create an enormous synthetic aperture. One of the things I'm most excited about the various satellite internet proposals for.

 

[Cl(VII)]

just awesome

 

[dhkaiser]

Fairing recovery... https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-falcon-heavy-fairing-recovery-starlink/

 

[BDB]

Very cool. So in a single launch, SpaceX recovered 5 components that can be reused.

The article you cited makes a big deal about cleaning the fairings after being in the ocean. If NASA could do it decades ago to reuse portions of the Shuttle SRBs, I don't see why this would be difficult for SpaceX to do.

 

[Charles_McG]

Very cool. So in a single launch, SpaceX recovered 5 components that can be reused.

The article you cited makes a big deal about cleaning the fairings after being in the ocean. If NASA could do it decades ago to reuse portions of the Shuttle SRBs, I don't see why this would be difficult for SpaceX to do.

I think the complication is that the fairings form a mini clean room (or nearly so) for the satellite while out on the pad, and during launch. If they get wet and salty, can they ever be clean enough again? SRBs could be dirtier. So they'll try it and see.

 

[boatgeek]

I think the complication is that the fairings form a mini clean room (or nearly so) for the satellite while out on the pad, and during launch. If they get wet and salty, can they ever be clean enough again? SRBs could be dirtier. So they'll try it and see.

Does it matter if the salt water all stays on the outside of the fairing? From what I saw of previous catch attempts, the fairings floated pretty high. In theory* they would have to scrub the fairings down pretty well after manufacturing to get them into "mini clean room" state, so if the inside works were designed to be easily cleaned (ie watertight), it might not be so hard to repeat the process. One benefit of it being salt water is that salt is soluble so they should be able to clean it up well with a good water wash.

Alternatively, maybe they are re-using the fairing shell but not the electronics. If the electronics are trashed anyway, that opens up a whole new realm of ways to clean the fairing.

* In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice.

 

[georgegassaway]

Use this twitter link to see the booster landing video from the screenshot of SpaceX twitter post below (can't embed it to play)
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1116553298176118784

Here's one image of FH's launch from SpaceX's Flickr site. Check this link to see more.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/spacex/

Twin booster landing photo posted by the 45th Space Wing:

 

[Winston]

Love it. Here's another view of 27 burnin' Merlins:

 

[Winston]

From a blip in SpaceX's video coverage of the F9H launch when someone selected the wrong camera feed, the 2nd stage LOX tank camera (animated GIF):

https://i.imgur.com/GMDIdDp.gifv