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To be fair, if you look at the video, you will see that they landed on the moving barge just fine. It was standing still on the platform, stable, with engine di
by iofj 11y ago
To be fair, if you look at the video, you will see that they landed on the moving barge just fine. It was standing still on the platform, stable, with engine disabled.
Of the locks keeping the landing gear in place, 3 out of 4 succeeded. Whoops. Maybe they should simply switch to 5 or 6 landing gears. After all, they went for 9 engines and can boast multiple launches where one or two engines failed (including this latest one. One of the engines shit itself while the rocket was returning to the barge according to the twitter feed).
- moron4hire 11y agoNo, staying standing up is a part of landing. We don't know if that gear failed because of shock forces in landing. "Figure out landing" means "make the rocket survive" not "get the toes touching the ground". I think SpaceX is doing more advanced work, has many more impressive successes than Blue Origin, but ignoring Blue Origin completely, I'm also not going to give SpaceX a pass on their objective failings.
- facetube 11y agoSpaceX is reporting that one of the leg locks failed to deploy, IIRC due to ice buildup while passing through low-atmosphere moisture after reentry. From everything I've read, the landing had a more or less expected touchdown velocity and would have been successful had all four locks functioned as expected.
- avmich 11y agoTo be fair, "learned to land" and "did successful landing once" aren't the same things. Similarly, "USA landed on the moon" and "USA now has a capability to land on the Moon" are different things. And SpaceX will get from here to there faster than the government.