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

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Crew 2 launch is Early Friday morning. 5:49 AM, EDT

"SpaceX and NASA are targeting Friday, April 23 for Falcon 9’s launch of Dragon’s second six-month operational crew mission (Crew-2) to the International Space Station (ISS) from historic Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The instantaneous launch window opens at 5:49 a.m. EDT, 9:49 UTC, with a backup opportunity available on Monday, April 26 at 4:38 a.m. EDT, 8:38 UTC."

 
grabbed from above screen...
The checkout crew uses tablets. Looks like a specialized, rugged tablet.

tab.jpg

tab2.jpg

while waiting for capsule leak test, the crew plays rock-paper-scissors

rps.jpg
 
And another StarLink launch scheduled for tomorrow at 2:01 CDT.
 
As for SN 15, might fly Wednesday. But weather sucks.

Thursday, weather sucks.

Friday looks better.

Weekend...weather sucks.

But what do I know...... I never thought they’d fly SS-11 in total dense fog, or NASA would launch Challenger with massive icicles on the pad. :(

Regarding the Falcon-9 launch, wow, that was pretty much a perfect bull’s eye landing within the circles. Do not recall seeing one looking so dead-center like that (the F-9’s onboard camera helps show how centered it is, and that view is not visible after landing on a lot of flights). Always have to keep in mind, the booster is not aiming at the barge. It is aiming at pre-set GPS coordinates, and the ASDS barge’s job is to keep itself centered at those GPS coordinates. For all I know, the ASDS might have been 6 feet west of the coordinates, and the booster might have missed the coordinates by 6 feet to the west. :)

Back to SN-15, some interesting footage of the flaps being tested, mostly in fast motion. Surprised the skin of the flaps is still so wrinkle-buckled looking, while the body no longer is as with SN-1. That does not give me warm fuzzies for TPS tiles staying on for re-entry....they need to fix that.

 
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No flames > Flames > Splodey

That's my technical analysis. :D I would sure like to have seen that fire out before they turned off the water cannon.
 
This landing looked so much more controlled than any other, including the one when it “landed” on the skirt and later exploded. It seems like the engine relight worked correctly this time. Very cool!

I didn’t like seeing the fire, but I wonder how serious that is. I wonder if this one will fly again. Can’t wait to see what comes next!
 
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