SpaceX soft lands Falcon 9 in Atlantic

[Merc14]

SpaceX soft landed the boosting stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that delivered a dragon to teh ISS. Teh booster landed in the Atlantic but a storm destroyed it before it could be recovered. The plan is to eventually soft land on hard ground.

http://mashable.com/2014/04/25/elon-musk-spacex-booster-stage-atlantic/

[+OverSword]

How can they say the succesfuly soft landed the booster when it was destroyed? How do they know that the storm and not the landing destroyed it?

[Waspie_Dwarf]

How can they say the succesfuly soft landed the booster when it was destroyed?

Because it soft landed... that should be fairly obvious.

How do they know that the storm and not the landing destroyed it?

Telemetry.

[Merc14]

How can they say the succesfuly soft landed the booster when it was destroyed? How do they know that the storm and not the landing destroyed it?

As waspie said, telemetry showed a successful landing. If you go to the link you can see Elon Musk's tweets and trust them or not, the telemetry data will be turned over for analysis I am sure. This is a business and reliability and low cost per launch is a big selling point. No politicians to answer to, just efficiency for lower costs. I hope they make this work.

Edited April 26, 2014 by Merc14

[taniwha]

I dont know why they designed it without an inflatable lifejacket in the first place. Air bag technology could easily be adapted to splashdowns. And another design to consider would be for it to propel itself back to land torpedo style.

On an interesting side note here:

Launching a rocket from sea...

There are many benefits of launching a rocket from the equator, but to get there a team of engineers from across the globe had to come together to build the first - and only - floating launch pad.

http://www.pddnet.com/articles/2014/04/launching-rocket-sea

[Peter B]

SpaceX soft landed the boosting stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that delivered a dragon to teh ISS. Teh booster landed in the Atlantic but a storm destroyed it before it could be recovered. The plan is to eventually soft land on hard ground.

http://mashable.com/...stage-atlantic/

Sheesh, what am I? Chopped liver?

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=265312entry5143181

:-)

[Peter B]

I dont know why they designed it without an inflatable lifejacket in the first place. Air bag technology could easily be adapted to splashdowns.

Good grief. What are you talking about?

This was a test only of the first stage's ability to manage a controlled descent and re-entry. The ultimate intention is for the first stage to touchdown on land for refurbishing. Hence the landing legs you commented on in another thread.

And another design to consider would be for it to propel itself back to land torpedo style.

??

Seeing as water landings aren't intended as an ongoing outcome, why bother?

On an interesting side note here:

Launching a rocket from sea...

http://www.pddnet.co...hing-rocket-sea

Yes, interesting. And completely irrelevant to the thread topic.

[taniwha]

Good grief. What are you talking about?

This was a test only of the first stage's ability to manage a controlled descent and re-entry. The ultimate intention is for the first stage to touchdown on land for refurbishing. Hence the landing legs you commented on in another thread.

I wonder how pinpoint the accuracy was for this test. Meaning did it splashdown with bullseye precision.

??

Seeing as water landings aren't intended as an ongoing outcome, why bother?

If it wasnt that important then why bother calling out the coast guard to retrieve it? Contingency plan B was ineffective because there was no plan B.

Yes, interesting. And completely irrelevant to the thread topic.

If you consider yourself such an analytical expert on what I write why did you not see my link posted as an interesting side note?

You did say you found it interesting by the way.

Needless to say whether or not you found it relevant to the topic thread is irrelevant and pathetic that you even bothered to critique.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Needless to say whether or not you found it relevant to the topic thread is irrelevant and pathetic that you even bothered to critique.

Firstly cut out the personal attacks.

Secondly whether your links are relevant to the subject being discussed is entirely relevant. Form the site rules:

3j. Thread derailment: Do not derail or 'hijack' threads with posts that are either off-topic or designed to draw attention away from what is being discussed.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Sheesh, what am I? Chopped liver?

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=265312entry5143181

:-)

Peter,

The easiest way to deal with a situation like this is to hit the report button and suggest to the moderators that the topics be merged.

HOWEVER, in this case I WAS aware of your post and decided to leave things as they are.

I could have moved your post from the SpaceX-3 Countdown topic to this one, where it would have become the first post in this topic, however as your post starts:

Whee!

And on this mission...

it would have made little sense as the first post of a new topic.

The other option would have been to merge this topic with the previous one, however then the importance of this recovery may well have been lost... as I suspect was the case with your post.

As Merc posted this after the official confirmation, several days after the event, there was new information. I decided that it was justified and made more sense to have a separate topic on the subject.

So basically, no, you aren't chopped liver (which is good because I can't stand liver).