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SpaceX launch webcast: Orbcomm-2 Mission [video]
- greglindahl 11y agoOn the agenda: First flight since the failure on June 28 Attempt to land 1st stage on land near the launch site First flight of an upgraded rocket
- toomuchtodo 11y agoDon't forget second stage engine restart test. Launch infographic https://i.imgur.com/D9BdO86.png https://i.imgur.com/D9BdO86.png by /u/zlsa on reddit. /r/SpaceX Orbcomm OG2 Launch 2 Official Launch Discussion & Updates Thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3xnoz5/rspacex_orbcomm_og2_launch_2_official_launch/ https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3xnoz5/rspacex_orbc...
- c-slice 11y agoAn image of the landing pad. https://imgur.com/4tjcdRM https://imgur.com/4tjcdRM What's interesting too is that the descent path of the rocket has an engine failure trajectory that will ensure the rocket will fall into the ocean if a failure occurs during the powered descent.
- fixermark 11y agoThat's a function as much of physics and geography as planning, and one of the reasons Cape Canaveral exists---there's a lot of Atlantic Ocean in which to ditch a failing spacecraft on either the launch or landing vectors. There's a reason the United States' launch facilities are primarily along the east coast of the country.
- revelation 11y agoThis is the first launch since the SpaceX rocket went kaboom [1] and they will be attempting a landing. 1: https://youtu.be/PuNymhcTtSQ?t=3m15s https://youtu.be/PuNymhcTtSQ?t=3m15s
- Animats 11y agoThis time, with a much bigger landing area. The maneuvering to land on their landing barge was kind of extreme the last time they tried it.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- revelation 11y agoThank you, I didn't know they had upgraded. I still remember the tiny RCS thruster trying to get the rocket upright from the last landing...
- TeMPOraL 11y agoIt was really Scott Manley landing it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRsufOoNOIQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRsufOoNOIQ ;).
- jacquesm 11y agoLots of eggs in this basket.
- Intermernet 11y agoYay! Successful egg deployment, as well as perfect basket landing :-) I can't stop smiling!
- jacquesm 11y agoHehe, me neither. This will be with me for days if not longer. I feel really terribly lucky. When I was 4 my dad got me out of bed to watch the moonshot and the landing, now many years later I get to watch the next real step in the humans-in-space saga.
- msandford 11y agoThanks very, very much to whoever posted this!
- InclinedPlane 11y agoDirect youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bTbVbe4e4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bTbVbe4e4
- WJW 11y agoThey really poured on the PR, lots of people going "Hi, I'm lead mechanical engineer for this or that" and then delivering a perfect speech that would have taken a lot of prectice to deliver to a camera as smoothly like that. It's nice to see a lot of the lessons from media training. :D
- MicroBerto 11y agoIf you're referring to Trip's speech (guy with sunglasses and beard), that's one of my buddies and that's exactly what he's like. He's extremely personable and likely did that with very few takes. I used to sell test equipment and software to SpaceX's launch ops, avionics, and calibration crews, starting between launches 2 and 3. It was touch and go back in those days. These guys have worked their tails off for over a decade and deserve every bit of congratulations they receive. Walking into the SpaceX facility in Hawthorne was always a humbling experience. Instant "I am the dumbest person in this room" syndrome. Congrats guys!!
- kobayashi 11y agoEarlier today Tim Urban mentioned in his post that there were a few dry runs, even including high-fives.
- xvf33 11y agoWhat's with all the fluff videos? Can we have a channel with just a comms feed? T-4 minutes and still zero actual mission audio...
- AdamTReineke 11y agoI really appreciate it. If I had kids, this would be a great feed to watch with them, because it covers a lot of the how and why of what happens.
- xvf33 11y agoGive people a choice maybe? Nothing wrong having the mainstream feed but I would appreciate an alternative.
- nickhalfasleep 11y agoI watched it with my four year old daughter on my lap, and then we made a rocket out of a paper towel roll. So it's good outreach and great to see a variety of faces of people who put such an amazing accomplishment together.
- manaskarekar 11y agoYoutube link for people for whom livestream videos won't work. (I believe the embedded player is livestream). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bTbVbe4e4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bTbVbe4e4
- ctdonath 11y agoThanks! Got a link to the replay for those of us tuning in late?
- rmccue 11y agoThe YouTube link should be a replay now; working for me :)
- bla2 11y agoThat YouTube link is a replay too.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoIf you look carefully at the YouTube live streams, you'll notice you can scroll them back all the way to the beginning - the "live" part is always at the very end :). EDIT: and here's just the landing itself: http://www.gfycat.com/WeepyCelebratedAfricanaugurbuzzard http://www.gfycat.com/WeepyCelebratedAfricanaugurbuzzard.
- electriclove 11y agoThanks! Here's the link about 9 minutes in when it begins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bTbVbe4e4#t=9m20s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bTbVbe4e4#t=9m20s
- Adam_O 11y agothanks, that was enthralling to watch
- manaskarekar 11y agoYoutube link for people for whom livestream videos won't work. (I believe the embedded player is livestream). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bTbVbe4e4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bTbVbe4e4
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ORioN63 11y agoIt's landing!!!
- ORioN63 11y agoIt landed!!
- lvs 11y agoStuck the landing! Congratulations! 10/10. Would land again.
- rfrank 11y agoamazing
- kibwen 11y agoCompletely amazing! I'm sure I heard a "holy shit" or two there in the audience. :) EDIT: One question for the rocket scientists here: exactly how reusable do they expect these returned first stage rockets to be? What is the process of certifying that a returned rocket is fit to fly, and what components are most likely to need repairing/replacing with each launch?
- dmoy 11y agoA follow-up question to that would be - how much $$ do you save per launch by reusing the first stage?
- jacquesm 11y agohttp://www.space.com/21386-spacex-reusable-rockets-cost.html http://www.space.com/21386-spacex-reusable-rockets-cost.html ~75%.
- bryanh 11y agoThe money quote: > Musk said that a rocket's first stage accounts for three-quarters of its total price tag, so a vehicle with a reusable first stage can be produced at far less cost — assuming the hardware is fully and rapidly reusable. ~75% savings seems like a "best case scenario" number.
- jacquesm 11y agoGood enough for me. Even if it is only 25% in practice they'll own the market.
- fbbbbb 11y agoThey landed it!!
- jacquesm 11y agoAMAZING THEY DID IT :) hah! Tears in my eyes here this is absolutely incredible to watch. I stayed up for this, I hope I didn't wake up the neighbours and it will take days to wipe the grin of my face.
- enraged_camel 11y agoWe just witnessed a major moment in history. Unbelievable. edit: haha, nice downvote, whoever it was. :)
- jacquesm 11y agoBiggest step since man on the moon for me. Really, the cost of access to space just went down the biggest step since we started making rockets.
- MaulingMonkey 11y agoWe've reached some amazing heights since then - the flyby of Pluto, intercepting 67P/C-G - but I have to agree. It might not be the biggest step up - but it sure seems like the biggest step forwards. Government space missions are limited by taxpayer interest/funding, and the high cost of access to space has mostly limited commercial interest to things like communication and surveying satellites. I'm really looking forward to what new opportunities open up in both spaces when we can do so much more for the same cost.
- mikeash 11y agoI called this arguably the biggest thing in space travel since 1969. I was thinking about those remarkable missions to Pluto and such, and I really think this is a whole different level. It's a multiplier. Those missions are remarkable partly because they're amazing firsts, and partly because of what they've been able to accomplish with huge limitations and cost restrictions. They're amazing because of finesse, and if this whole reusability thing works out, you'll be able to brute force them instead. Visiting a comet is amazing. Making launches so cheap that it becomes practical to visit fifty comets would be astounding. It's a bit like the invention of the steamship. It doesn't take you anywhere new. Sailing ships got the job done. But it transformed the world just the same.
- slem 11y agoAwesome!
- port6667 11y agowow holyshit that booster thing just landed perfectly!
- ColinWright 11y agoThey landed the first stage!
- aidos 11y agoCongratulations to team at SpaceX! There are going to be a lot of happy people in that building tonight.
- nate_martin 11y agoNot sure if the "USA" chant after the first stage landed was warranted.
- andyl 11y agoUSA! USA!
- lolwutf 11y agoIt's a private company based in the USA, contributing to the advancement of USA's technology (largely, NASA). I think it was warranted.
- tensor 11y agoMany of us in other countries wouldn't think of chanting our countries name. I know I generally think of my work as "part of humanity" not for my country necessarily. The US is particularly nationalistic compared to others, which can be off putting for non-americans.
- noir-york 11y ago> Many of us in other countries wouldn't think of chanting our countries name Unless you're German, than that statement is almost certainly false. And even Germany is changing. Your statement most likely reveals more about your political leanings then the levels of nationalistic fervour in different countries.
- chrismartin 11y agoSaw it in the sky from Northern FL! Glad the first stage came back down.
- Perceptes 11y agoAmazing! Also an incredible joy to watch is the recent rocket landing from Blue Origin, and the reaction of the engineers who built it as they watch it happen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igEWYbnoHc4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igEWYbnoHc4
- XorNot 11y agoNext big milestone will be when they launch with a reused first stage.
- lance26 11y agoThey did it!
- lance26 11y agoThey did it!!
- lovelettr 11y agoI live on the south end of Merritt Island, FL (~25 miles from the launch complex) and the sudden noise reminded me I wanted to watch this! For a second, based on the sound, I thought it may have catastrophically failed until I caught the live stream and people cheering. Are there any replay videos?
- kobayashi 11y agoIt's absolutely insane how loud the rockets are. Spend about 15 minutes of your time and just search YouTube for test firings - you won't regret it.
- yincrash 11y agoReplay of just the landing, the HN link has the full video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B6oiLNyKKI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B6oiLNyKKI
- cmsmith 11y agoI must have missed it, but can anyone explain why Orbcomm wants 11 satellites in the same orbit? The stage 2 engine isn't firing in between letting the satellites go.
- gregr401 11y agoYes, it absolutely was firing continuously around 17,000 MPH. Doesn't take long at that speed to get some distance between sats.
- jacquesm 11y agoLeo, they are so low they don't cover a whole lot of territory. The oribits may be at slightly different altitudes simply because of the inertia of the second stage, I really should have monitored that altitude indicator during the releases, were they identical?
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- adomanico 11y agoReally impressive More interesting stuff on the Falcon 9 rocket: http://www.spacex.com/falcon9 http://www.spacex.com/falcon9
- gansai56 11y agoIn case you missed, this is the background on tonight's launch: http://www.spacex.com/news/2015/12/21/background-tonights-launch http://www.spacex.com/news/2015/12/21/background-tonights-la...
- dantheman 11y agoAMAZING! CONGRATS SPACEX!
- planckscnst 11y ago"Congrats @SpaceX on landing Falcon's suborbital booster stage. Welcome to the club!" Oy... someone needs to tell Bezos it's a whole different scale than what he did. https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/679116636310360067 https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/679116636310360067
- CamperBob2 11y ago"Welcome to the club"? Wow, that was classless. What Blue Origin did was impressive, but it was utterly trivial compared to what just happened with this flight.
- notjustanymike 11y agoSomeone should return the favor whenever he gets into orbit
- grkvlt 11y agoReally, 'classless'? The achievement is landing a space-capable booster vertically, after an actual mission above 100km, which can then be reused. And, Blue Origin managed that first, no two ways about it. I think it's probably pretty classless to imply that what Blue Origin managed to do was 'trivial'. Just because SpaceX is the current hacker's favourite, doesn't mean you have to downplay everyone else. I think Musk's tweet about the difference between 'space' and 'orbit' was actually pretty pointless hair-splitting. Now, you can get technical and say that the achievement is landing a booster that is part of an orbital launch system but really, what the rest of the system does has no real part to play in the landing of the rocket stage, and I think everyone else understands that.
- jacquesm 11y agoI think you underestimate the degree of difficulty between these two achievements. They are both very impressive but what SpaceX just did is many times more difficult than what Blue Origin did.
- 11y ago
- mstade 11y agoAwesome, now do it again. And again. And again...
- manaskarekar 11y agoWho would have thought landing on Earth could be as exciting, if not more, than landing elsewhere in the Universe?
- drudru11 11y agoGreat engineering!!!!
- vankap 11y agoCongratulations to everyone at SpaceX. This is a proud moment for all of you. And thank you for giving us the chance to watch this LIVE.
- jostmey 11y agoAmazing. So how high does the first stage fly?
- Animats 11y agoSo now how do they secure the booster they landed? Do they have some kind of truck mounted gantry they move into position? There didn't seem to be anything like that near the landing pad. They may want to let the engines cool and any excess propellant boil off before they move in, but they have to have something to hold it, tilt it down to horizontal, and carry it off.
- JshWright 11y agoThere is a crane nearby. The first stage is pretty stable though. The engines are by far the heaviest part, and they're at the very bottom. The legs are also a fairly wide base. EDIT: On rewatching the broadcast, "Procedure 11.100, section 3" is what they do (I have no idea what that is, but it's what the LD told the landing pad crew to "proceed with")
- Animats 11y agoOh, of course; it's empty now. Most of the mass was fuel, and that's gone. Now most of the mass is at the bottom.
- cma 11y agoSince the fuel and oxidizer is almost completely empty at that point, there is a much lower center of gravity.
- notjustanymike 11y agoPlanetary landing is so hot this year! We've got Space Engineers, Elite: Dangerous, Star Citizen, and now SpaceX!
- TeMPOraL 11y agoDon't forget about the Kerbal Space Program! (And if you're interested, search YouTube for many, many attempts to simulate what SpaceX did in KSP, including barge landing attempts.)
- jcadam 11y agoJust saw it -- beautiful, I love night launches. I live about 20 miles south of the Cape, so I just have to step outside onto my front lawn and face north :)
- Meerax 11y agoyoutube link for the recap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bTbVbe4e4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bTbVbe4e4
- ggonweb 11y agoTrying to land a Rocket — the SpaceX Reusable Rocket Story https://medium.com/lazy-collections/trying-to-land-a-rocket-the-story-b73fadb430ef https://medium.com/lazy-collections/trying-to-land-a-rocket-...
- hackuser 11y agoThis also shows several other attempts (and successs): Armadillo in 2010, United Launch Alliance, and Blue Orgin, plus rocket planes much earlier.
- frabcus 11y agoShort video of just the landing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B6oiLNyKKI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B6oiLNyKKI (Becomes clear 25~ seconds in)
- obilgic 11y agoso 0-60 is 10 seconds? I blame space/astronaut movies.
- tempestn 11y agoThis is so exciting. Not quite a moon landing, but still feels like watching a significant moment in history. Does anyone know what specifically changed to allow a landing attempt on land as opposed to barge? Was it just that they gained enough confidence with the barges that they would at least be able to hit the target (and not crash into a building or something), or was some regulatory clearance received or something? Or something about this launch (ie lighter payload?) made a return to land feasible?
- bkanber 11y agoYou guessed right with the lighter payload. They could afford the fuel to burn all the way back rather than landing downrange on the barge.
- ohitsdom 11y agoThe FAA did have to approve this. I'm assuming approval was much smoother since they demonstrated on the two barge attempts that they could successfully steer the rocket to a precise landing.
- gozur88 11y agoIt was three things. They had to get multiple government agencies to approve the landing pad and plan. They had to have a relatively light payload. And they had to "deep freeze" the fuel to squeeze in enough for a return. I suspect even as this becomes routine most landings will still be on the barge. Every ounce of fuel you use to reverse your direction is an ounce you could have put toward a larger payload.
- baq 11y agoOTOH sometimes the payload just isn't that big.
- ceejayoz 11y ago> Does anyone know what specifically changed to allow a landing attempt on land as opposed to barge? I believe the main concern was not putting what amounts to an ICBM into Disneyworld. Hitting the barge (even though they hit a little hard each time) proved they could hit within a few feet of where they planned reliably.
- agumonkey 11y agoIt was a pretty "hectic" second from the burn in the sky to standing still. Epic.
- gvb 11y agoInteresting - something flaming separated from the first stage as it landed. You can see it separate, hit the ground, and burn as the landing completes. https://youtu.be/O5bTbVbe4e4?t=2518 https://youtu.be/O5bTbVbe4e4?t=2518
- TeMPOraL 11y agoI join in congratulating SpaceX for this awesome achievement. It's like, holy fuck, they landed the rocket AND deployed 11 satellites, all in a single Pomodoro! I also want to commend them for a few minor things: - a real-time stream from landing (as opposed to holding it and releasing footage few days later, as before) - a real-time stream from satellite deployment, with a camera placed so that we could see everything (as opposed to the typical low-quality stream of the engine nozzle) - a launch timeline visible on the stream This mission looked an order of magnitude better than anything they did before. It's like, before they were just playing around, and now they're doing serious business. Keep it up, SpaceX!
- vermontdevil 11y agoAgreed. Loved the data feed on the video. The tension built up as the indicatior neared the "landing" hash mark.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoI had to stay longer at work and was late to the event. My first question, even as the YouTube link loaded, was... "Did they land it yet?", followed by "When are they landing?". Lo and behold, a nice progress bar saying - grab your popcorn, we're about to land now!
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- TeMPOraL 11y agoI'm not implying that they were holding back on purpose, but I did not expect the quality of the whole streaming event to go up so highly. It feels different than before.
- weaksauce 11y agoIt does definitely... though they really drop the ball after the main event is over at least from a perspective of the news. the news would beat this to death and then after 3 days stop covering it. This was maybe 5 min after the mission was a success that they cut the feed. milk it for all it's worth and show some of the other successes and failures from past missions. It definitely feels like the mission pr was handled by engineers. (not trying to be a jerk as I am an engineer) Really such a groundbreaking thing like this should be glorified in the media and put on loop for a while. simply amazing.
- foxylad 11y agoAnyone know how accurate the first-stage landing was? Obviously delta v is most important, but hitting the bullseye would just top off the accomplishment.
- Narishma 11y agoThis accurate: https://vine.co/v/iKPTghqF0LA https://vine.co/v/iKPTghqF0LA
- InclinedPlane 11y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCBE8ocOkAQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCBE8ocOkAQ Looks pretty close.
- andygates 11y agoGPS-limit type accurate on the X on the centre of the pad. 5-10m off.
- PhilWright 11y agoIf SpaceX is so much cheaper than everyone else, how come they launch so infrequently. Seems like they should be launching every month but they are nowhere near that.
- FeepingCreature 11y agoThey actually used to be near that, but the accident grounded them for half a year. Ultimately they're limited by available manpower and production capacity.
- JabavuAdams 11y agoIn the video of the fairing adapter deploying the satellites, there's some kind of white highlight or light-source in the upper-left part of the frame. What was that? Also, what happens to the mass-adapter (i.e. the balancing 12th non-satellite)?
- lutorm 11y agoThe entire second stage, including the payload adapter, did a deorbit burn after deployment, to avoid creating space debris.
- nickhalfasleep 11y agoI think that was some sort of reflection on the camera housing. And I think the mass-adapter would stay with the 2nd stage for deorbit, they would rather not add to the space junk problem.
- jrobn 11y agoCollective nerdgasm at 31:00 minutes into the video. The energy in the room is crazy. A lot of proud people at that moment.
- hackuser 11y agoI came here to learn something about the mission, but sadly there is almost no content in this discussion.
- deadowl 11y agoI guess now the question is whether they can do it the majority of the time.
- jchoong 11y agoyeah.. the beauty of the rocket cost asymmetry means they only need to do it 'sometimes' and not all the time to drastically reduce launch costs. (75% of cost is in the first stage, fuel costs are 0.3%)
- kevinqi 11y agoYup, that's what I'm wondering too. How much variance is there from launch to launch, and to what degree is this reproducible?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- sneak 11y agoPrediction: this is the most important milestone in the development of the Earth's IP network since I was born in the early 80s. I can't wait for this to fuck over Comcast and every other last-mile monopoly acting like jerks to their customers.
- tempestn 11y agoI would love to see that happen. Low earth orbit solves the latency problem with satellites, and reusable first stages (as well as potentially piggy-backing on other launches) may solve the cost problem. What about space on the wireless spectrum though? My understanding is that it's pretty full. It seems like SpaceX will either need to use something completely different (like laser transmission) or make a deal for use of some of the spectrum.
- iamcreasy 11y agoElon Musk posted an article "BACKGROUND ON TONIGHT'S LAUNCH" on SpaceX's website 15 minutes before the launch. Link : http://www.spacex.com/news/2015/12/21/background-tonights-launch http://www.spacex.com/news/2015/12/21/background-tonights-la...
- hackuser 11y agoWhat changed that made this cost-effective? 1) The companies pursuing this, SpaceX, Blue Orgin, etc., can't be the first to think of it. If the first stage accounts for 75% of the cost of a launch, as one article I read says, I'm sure many have considered, going back to the first launches decades ago, how to reuse it. 2) The technology to land rockets vertically has existed for a long time, going back to the lunar lander at least.
- codeulike 11y ago2) The technology to land rockets vertically has existed for a long time, going back to the lunar lander at least. Landing the Lunar Lander on the moon is completely different to landing a tall, thin high-centre of gravity rocket full of explosive fuel, using AI because there's no crew onboard. Or did you mean something else? I'm pretty sure the first vertical landing of a rocket was only achieved in the last few years.
- dbh937 11y ago"New-space" aerospace companies are operating on a different funding framework from the old aerospace juggernauts. Instead of cost-plus funding that came almost solely from the government and which allowed rockets like ULA's Delta IV and Atlas V to stay competitive in the $300-400 million range without having to find ways to cut costs. SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Orbital Sciences, as well as other new companies, have to innovate in order to make their businesses feasible. Additionally, Blue Origin and SpaceX have different goals from traditional aerospace firms that requires them to drive costs down below what a government would require. Blue Origin want to offer rides to space to tourists; for that, their costs need to be low enough for a person to buy a ticket. SpaceX wants to land their rockets on Mars, and then take off again. Being able to land the first stage of the Falcon 9 allows them to perfect the landing and reuse of rockets on Earth, before taking that knowledge to Mars.
- hackuser 11y agoThanks. I've heard the story but I haven't seen evidence of it, it smells too much like a marketing story (we're young and exciting, those old people are boring and stuck in the past), and it seems very unlikely: I don't buy that the 'old' companies wouldn't want to reduce their costs by 75%, greatly increasing demand for their very expensive service, greatly increasing their bottom line - even in a cost-plus arrangement. Usually changes like this result from a technical or economic development.
- Rezo 11y agoI think it's really impressive how SpaceX continues to iterate on the engine and rocket designs. This is the third major revision of the Falcon 9 engine since 2010, each time increasing the thrust and payload to orbit significantly even while operating a commercial launch service. I feel that this kind of willingness to continuously improve and push the envelope is what really sets SpaceX apart from the incumbents. Speed of iteration beats quality of iteration and all that. It's quite interesting that their biggest competitor ULA is having to rely on tiny Blue Origin to develop a replacement for the Russian RD-180 that ULA uses on their big money maker Atlas V.
- sqldba 11y agoI just wanted to ask, what kind of technology or science understanding do they have now which was required to make this happen now rather than X years ago? (Also, is it fair to say that while this is an achievement, it is only more-so when they can reliably repeat it; I mean it's not exactly safe yet for people, who knows what a gust of wind could do?)
- chiph 11y agoNot a rocket scientist, but I expect it was the increase in cheap computing power, and 3-D printing of space-flight rated metal parts.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- DavidSJ 11y agoPhoto just prior to landing: https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/679150903371304960 https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/679150903371304960
- FiatLuxDave 11y agoSo, I've lived within earshot of the Cape since 1985, and I'm pretty used to hearing launches. Tonight, I had a new experience. I was working on a signal distortion problem with a colleague when I heard the rumble of the launch. "Rocket just launched", I said. He was on Google chat with me and said, "It did?". He lives a few miles south of me and so he gets the sound waves a few seconds later ;). A couple of minutes later I did a double-take. "THAT's a new sound!". I've heard rockets blow before, but I've never heard one come back to land. Then I checked the internet to confirm what my ears had already told me. Congrats to SpaceX and thank you for not landing it on my house!
- crystalmeph 11y agoAre they planning on using this recovered first stage for a reusability test, or are they going to destructively examine it to see how all the components held up?
- sillysaurus3 11y agoIt might be possible to deconstruct it to examine it, then put it back together and reuse what's reusable.
- ggreer 11y agoAccording to someone who was on a press call, Musk says he's going to keep this one on the ground[1]. They'll disassemble and examine it, but it'll probably go in a museum afterwards. 1. https://twitter.com/NASAWatch/status/679129749105459200 https://twitter.com/NASAWatch/status/679129749105459200
- danielvf 11y agoThey have stated that the plan is to take it apart and learn. All previous large rockets boosters that have been recovered, have been recovered after either crashing, or crashing and then being immersed in sea water. Both of these do a lot of damage.
- ChuckMcM 11y agoFirst they get to recover all the video that they didn't get in the other stages :-) This one lands with its cameras and flash chips intact. If I were them I would tear it apart, learn from it, reassemble it, and then display it. Interest question about safeing it once it is landed. You can't just dump excess liquid oxygen are you'll end up starting fires. Fortunately it isn't like the shuttle which had Hydrazine in the OMS tanks that had to be managed post landing. I can't wait until they land one in the daylight, and on the west coast so I can watch in person.
- zardo 11y agoI think they just let the O2 boil off. But they do have some hypergolic ignition fluids to deal with.
- mempko 11y agoElon should thank the American people. This achievement was financed by us and wouldn't be possible without the forward looking NASA program. So before we all thank Elon for taking our money, let's pat our selves on the back. Really we should thank the amazing spacex engineers, who worked tirelessly. Not just Elon. Sure he worked hard too, but not much more than anyone else at spacex I'm just tired of the Elon worship. Nobody acknowledges the amazing people who actually made this happen. As an engineer it pisses me off. Sorry if this is an unpopular opinion.
- bcook 11y agoElon Musk has already been quoted as saying that the United States is "the greatest country that has ever existed on Earth". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Nationalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Nationalism
- mempko 11y agoI am not complaining about Elon Musk. I'm complaining about the people worship I am reading all over the internet whenever he makes the news. I am complaining about you and me.
- ChuckMcM 11y agoI don't think it is worship so much as it is respect. While its true engineers did the work there is ample evidence that the exact same team can have very different outcomes with different leadership. This is shown again and again in sports where one year the team does poorly, but a new coach or manager can get that same group of men into the playoffs. Same guys, different leader. That is true of engineers as well, I've met engineers who, under a great manager, have achieved results that they themselves didn't think they could achieve. And I've known engineers who were superstars and unable to perform well at all under poor management. The point is you need both, the talent to do the work and the leadership to inspire the talent to do their best work. Without both you don't make the playoffs and you don't advance the state of the art in rockets.
- ChuckMcM 11y agoThis is so epically awesome that I feel like we orbited a human for the first time or something. Bezos whining aside, its a huge deal to return 9 engines from a workhorse booster back to the pad to be refurbed and re-used. If the $5M each costs are correct, that is $45M in cost savings right there. But perhaps more importantly its the first "first" for SpaceX which has not been done by NASA or anyone else. Launch a payload in to orbit and recover the booster back to the launch site. The SRBs from the shuttle were essentially shell refurbs, SpaceShip 1 and Blue Origin sub-orbital hops. This was, in my estimation, the real deal. It has to be an amazing feeling being on the team that made this possible. Congratulations, that is one way to write yourself into the history books. Edit: I was so excited I couldn't even multiply 9 by 5!
- rebootthesystem 11y agoThe whole Bezos/BlueOrigin thing is kind of sad. They are nowhere near a "club" with SpaceX. One of the huge differences (and there are many) is that Falcon 9 was doing 6,000 Km/hr (~4,000 mi/hr) when the first stage separated and turned around to come back. The path was not straight up, but rather one to launch the second stage into orbital flight (which reached 26,000 Km/hr and 600 miles of altitude). Then Falcon9's first stage FLEW a curved return path; fired three engines to slow down from holy-crap miles-per-hour, shut them down and then, at exactly the right moment in time, fired one engine to land. The Bezos rocket went straight up to zero velocity and came straight back down. It's like throwing a bottle straight up in the air compared to throwing one in a parabolic path to the top of the Empire State building and having that bottle then turn around, fly that same parabolic path to return and land at your feet. Not sure why Bezos feels the need to try to imply his effort (which IS significant) is on the same league as SpaceX other than to potentially try to leverage the fabricated parity for publicity and external funding.
- quentusrex 11y agoNot only this, but the spacex grasshopper test was the first that I saw that had the rocket do a vertical takeoff, and then land. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZDkItO-0a4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZDkItO-0a4
- zaroth 11y agoIn a single moment, SpaceX earns itself more than $50 million dollars, right? That's a big bonus for everyone who made this possible and some well earned time off, and then back to work changing the world! So from what I've read, the returns are immense; the amount of learning they can do from examining their own rocket is the real initial treasure. Their rocket design should advance considerably based on this trove, and I suppose the source of many papers, publications, and public-sourced patents. Reusable rockets seems not quite a glorious enough term? There's a massive dividend any time this actually works, and imagining the future of this tech is joyous. We can guess how much this will bring down the cost. How much will it bring down the price? Say it's just following the supply/demand curve to get more customers. If landing was reliable and the rockets were durable, what would it really take to scale? If you actually got 10 of these going full-duty. How close can you back-to-back launches? The scale of that operation in terms of engineers to manage the workload... The return-on-automation (in other words, software) is immense the first few billion dollars you spend on it. That means they need to hire a fuck-ton of very good developers. Cool! But what if it's more of a binary market and the only new customers are only at a much lower price point? In that case it's just serving the existing market at much higher margin. I believe this will make space more accessible -- cost savings ultimately flow through. BTW, one of the advantages of pledging your patents for free use is you can really show off the right way to write a patent. The whole point is forcing disclosure in return for a benefit, so now make that disclosure top-notch. In theory, what if patent applications were examined by the top-of-the-field peers and only real advancements in the field which were fully and properly documented by the patent would be granted? I hope not all software patents are evil. The "provisional patent" is an interesting form of self-publication at least, but it does create a pesky 1-year ticking clock. As a talent/recruiting event this is pretty much about as good as it gets.
- ulam2 11y agoThis is awesome! Congratulations for landing the booster stage safely.
- guelo 11y agoThis makes no sense to me. If you want to recover the rockets why not use parachutes? Guiding a parachute down, maybe with the help of some propellers, has got to be easier and more reliable than this.
- bigdubs 11y agoeven with a gigantic chute you're still approaching the ground at ~20mph. not a lot can hit the ground at that speed (and be that big) without either making it prohibitively heavy to fly, or without things breaking seriously enough it would be a write off.
- taroth 11y agoPrecision landings http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/7949/why-does-the-spacex-reusable-launcher-use-vertical-rather-than-horizontal-landin http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/7949/why-does-the-s...
- zardo 11y agoExtreme speeds and loads. Parachutes don't scale.
- namlem 11y agoSpaceX tried using parachutes multiple times but they couldn't provide the necessary accuracy and velocity reduction.
- kevinqi 11y agoAwesome alternate angle: https://vine.co/v/iKPTghqF0LA https://vine.co/v/iKPTghqF0LA
- Allamaprabhu 11y agoSpaceX employee are allowed to comment on HN?
- iamwil 11y agoWhat was all the stuff shooting by when they were deploying the satellites? Was that space debris? If it is, I'm surprised how common it is, and how more satellites don't get shot down so often.
- 47 11y agoWhat happens to 2nd stage after payload separation? Does it become space junk?
- ansible 11y agoIt will be de-orbited and dropped into the Pacific ocean. Reusing it is a bigger challenge for later.
- pajop 11y agoFalcon 9 First Stage Landing - view from helicopter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCBE8ocOkAQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCBE8ocOkAQ
- lutorm 11y agoThis long-exposure image is pretty awesome too: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/12/spacex-orbital-rocket-lands-florida-elon-musk/421584/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/12/spacex...
- ranman 11y agohttp://blog.ranman.org/what-my-first-spacex-launch-felt-like/ http://blog.ranman.org/what-my-first-spacex-launch-felt-like...
- elmar 11y agoSpaceX, If NASA can do it, so can we! It ain't rocket science.
- elmar 11y agoI just love how SpaceX is disrupting probably one of the most difficult markets in the world.
- detritus 11y agoAn amazing achievement, and one I'm sorry to have missed watching live as I was AFK. However, having watched this just now, I could have really done without all the bro-nerd whooping and faux prime time personality-presentation. The latter's awkward and naff and just got in the way for me - the former was simply irritating in the extreme. Maybe I'm getting old, but I'd rather have a bit of restraint and less of the infantile gesticulation and cursing in the background where this sort of thing's concerned. grumble Anyway, onwards and upwards (and back again), SpaceX!
- harshreality 11y agoIt's not just you. This is my take on it: However nerve-racking the launch and first stage recovery were, this wasn't a sports event, and cannot support that kind of hyper-enthusiastic presentation style without looking staged and histrionic. Sports presentations like that work because there are lots of fans cheering wildly in the background, and sports might be unique in their license to evoke extreme enthusiasm without being seen as bizarre. I'm sure some people are less bothered by it than we are, though.
- simonh 11y ago'presentation style'. Are you suggesting the employee audience reaction was staged and orchestrated, and not just spontaneous?
- detritus 11y agoNo, I mean the three mugs up front yakking away distractingly. If I were to make a suggestion, it would be to house the loud employees in a large sound-proof booth, but I suspect that would only lead to yet more downvotes here...
- codecamper 11y agoHow far are we now from forming Voltron? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZZv5Z2Iz_s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZZv5Z2Iz_s I'm serious!
- k__ 11y agoI feel a bit like in this StarTrek movie, where they meet the guy who made the first warp rocket.
- hyperpallium 11y agoI bet I could even take this baby up again!
- jpt4 11y agoA FIRST Robotics Competition event writ large.