12 ms·
SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage has landed at LZ-1 [video]
- digitalnalogika 9y agoWatch the whole stream, it was beautiful. There was a view from ground all the way from separation to landing.
- wand3r 9y agoYou almost forget that it was an NRO spy sat payload.
- criley2 9y agoNo, they didn't forget to add that extra detail which adds nothing to their post.
- mmjaa 9y agoBut, wouldn't it be interesting if one of the reasons we had such great ground coverage was somehow related to the NRO being a customer?
- ragebol 9y agoThey couldn't/wouldn't show footage of the 2nd stage, so more attention for the 1st stage. Fine by me, it was amazing to watch
- rtkwe 9y agoCouldn't, it's a NRO launch which are very secretive. Usually the most description you get out of an NRO launch is that it's for the NRO and a video from the ground of the launch.
- valuearb 9y agoThe first stage is such an attention whore. It usually gets most of it anyways, this time it punted the first stage entirely off the show.
- gus_massa 9y agoI guess the better coverage of the first stage is that they landed in land and not in a small ship in the middle of the sea. It's more difficult to put cameras in the sea and keep a good connection. I think it's indirectly related. Probably, the satellite has a low orbit to have a better sight, and they don't expect to have the satellite for too long so care about some drag. So the rocket has more fuel to a return to land maneuver. Also, it was very strange that they cut the transmission so soon. Usually they continue with the second stage and they highlight many times that the main mission is the satellite and they transmit as much of the satellite as possible in case they have an RUD. This time they closed the transmission as soon as the first stage landed. Anyway, an amazing transmission.
- rohit89 9y ago> Also, it was very strange that they cut the transmission so soon. That's an NRO requirement.
- Symmetry 9y agoYes, to keep the position secret in theory. Though I bet Russian and Chinese space surveillance radars will pick up it's orbit the first time it passes over their territory and amateurs will find out where it is eventually too.
- ceejayoz 9y agoYep. Same reason the cheering crowd at SpaceX was much smaller than a usual launch - only folks with clearance allowed in.
- dtparr 9y agoI wonder how much was that, and how much was the fact the launch window opened at 4am.
- joezydeco 9y agoPretty sure the NRO wasn't want anyone to know which direction and how high up that satellite was heading.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- rtkwe 9y agoI wouldn't be too surprised if that view was something they'd had before but didn't use because you had the more interesting second stage feed during a normal launch. Today they couldn't show anything from stage 2 because it was an NRO launch and there's a lot of secrecy around what those even look like.
- wand3r 9y agoThis is the first military payload but they have landed and recovered the first stage several times. I guess the NSA should do more technical demos because no one seems to find this NRO tech unethical if it's coupled with an amazing technical display. Wonder if they took the octopus of the patches
- ceejayoz 9y agoDo you feel that Google Maps imagery is similarly unethical?
- dtparr 9y agoYou don't have to wonder: https://twitter.com/NatReconOfc/status/857619425373167618 https://twitter.com/NatReconOfc/status/857619425373167618 For all the patches, wiki has us covered of course: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_Launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_Launches Looks like only NROL-39 had the octopus.
- dwaltrip 9y agoPeople can very much dislike NRO spy satellites and, at the same time, be excited about Musk's end goals for SpaceX. Life is complex and paradoxical. We do the best we can.
- tsomctl 9y agoI thought it was a pretty important detail. It shows that the government thinks they are competent enough and competitive enough to succeed at this. Since this launch was successful, they've sent spacecraft to the ISS, and they are launching a GPS satellite pretty soon, the government is going to have them do more launches. The government is a huge customer with lots of satellites and lots of money.
- sctb 9y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14237002 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14237002 and marked it off-topic.
- RyanMathewson 9y agoAmazing video from the ground this time. Link to the webcast at the time of separation. https://youtu.be/EzQpkQ1etdA?t=1211 https://youtu.be/EzQpkQ1etdA?t=1211
- sctb 9y agoThanks! We updated the link from https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/859006000136769536 https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/859006000136769536.
- 10dpd 9y agoWhat is truly amazing is that this is becoming normal.
- raldi 9y agoThe more boring these "rocket successfully lands" stories get, the more exciting they paradoxically become.
- apaprocki 9y agoI said it on Twitter.. F9 stuck the landing 1 minute before I had to walk out the door with my 5yo daughter and she was really happy to see it. Then through the bus window as it was pulling away, she made rocket-taking-off hands that went up to space... and then came back down and landed again. I'll be able to tell her about how nice that was to see someday :)
- jacquesm 9y agoBookmark this comment for her!
- rdruxn 9y agoGot a lot of frisson reading this comment. I just can't understand the people who love to criticize Musk as a charlatan and PR mastermind because either way, true or untrue, he and his engineers are doing undeniable good in inspiring the next generation of scientists.
- suliman23 9y agoCan't be both or what? History is littered with people who did good while being top class shitheads. Elon Musk is such a character. It's a choice who you choose to respect. Because history is also littered with people who did great things without being douchebags.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- lordelph 9y agoThe booster footage was amazing. Incredible to see just how much it flies through its own exhaust on the re-entry burn!
- Klathmon 9y agoAnd I was surprised just how close to the second stage it still looked when the secondary engines started up. I can't even imagine trying to steer a rocket to turn it around, with an open top, while it's in the exhaust of another rocket! It's amazing.
- mstade 9y agoTrue story! The landing was fantastic, no doubt, but this footage is a thing of pure beauty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzQpkQ1etdA&feature=youtu.be&t=1211 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzQpkQ1etdA&feature=youtu.be...
- Shivetya 9y agoI enjoyed watching Blue Origin's landing as well (https://youtu.be/9pillaOxGCo https://youtu.be/9pillaOxGCo) and from their video it looks like engine restart is at five thousand feet with full burn at one thousand. Do we have similar numbers for Space X? I am curious what threshold differences there are between teams, both are doing amazing work. btw, this portion of the return where they did the entry level was most impressive for space x (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzQpkQ1etdA&t=1145s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzQpkQ1etdA&t=1145s)
- jacquesm 9y agoSpaceX rockets have to shed a lot more velocity the numbers are not comparable.
- lutorm 9y agoAt around T+8 minutes it's really obvious how the rocket is actually gliding at an angle as it comes down, to steer itself towards the landing site. A cylinder might not make a great glider, but it has significant lift especially at these velocities.
- madlynormal 9y agoWow! What amazing work being done by SpaceX.
- rl3 9y agoNROL-76's mission patch[0] seems rather mundane. NRO patches are normally a bit more cryptic and bizzare. I wonder how many people at SpaceX are cleared to know what the payload is. What are the finer points of payload integration in such a situation? Does Elon even know what his own company just launched? [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_launches#/media/File%3ANROL-76_mission_patch.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_launches#/media/...
- whatshisface 9y agoNRO-39's patch (the one in the wiki article) caused a small controversy - the tentacles enveloping the world seemed like pretty poor taste in light of Snowden. They probably decided that their PR team needed to see them first from then on.
- lobster_johnson 9y agoTo be fair, some of the patches for the NRO missions seem weirdly aggressive, with a bunch of different animals all clutching the earth. They've had bird claws (presumably an American eagle), a tiger, a three-headed bird monster, and even a big green dragon. It's odd that tentacles were somehow considered worse taste.
- Para2016 9y agoAfter reading up on some of the patches and their hidden meanings, the octopus could have been largely symbolic. For example, there could have been 8 components of the mission and the octopus has 8 arms. Something like that. Here's some background on why I think that might be possible: "The patches’ relative obscurity changed in 2000, with the launch of a payload known as NROL-11. The mission patch depicted what appeared to be owl eyes peering down at the Earth, where four arrow-shaped vectors, two per orbit, made their way across Africa. Three of the vectors were white, and one was dark. Based solely on studying the design, civilian satellite watcher Ted Molczan hypothesized that the patch showed a failed satellite (the dark vector), and that the newly launched satellite would take its place. Sure enough, after the launch a new satellite appeared just where Molczan predicted. Pearlman, who reported on the story at the time, says that NRO at first told him “no comment” when he contacted them. About 30 minutes later they called him back and asked him not to publish the story. Pearlman told them no dice, and in the end, the NRO spokesman told him that the patches were just morale-builders for those who work on the launches." http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/creepy-kitschy-and-geeky-patches-us-spy-satellites-180953562/ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/creepy-kitschy-...
- jacquesm 9y agoGood business: make the hard seem easy and the nigh on impossible seem merely hard. They do these landings so well now it almost seems normal that rockets land after taking off and boosting a second stage to orbital velocity.
- vkou 9y agoNit: The first stage does not boost the second stage to orbital velocity. It boosts it to ~2,000 m/s, which is one-quarter of an orbital velocity, and one-sixteenth of the energy required for orbit. I don't believe it's likely that we'll see recovery of an orbital velocity stage anytime soon.
- rohit89 9y agoMusk said that they might attempt second stage recovery late next year for the Falcon Heavy.
- trose 9y agoSlightly different but yeah. The falcon has a single pre-orbit stage. The heavy has two pre-orbit stages. So it'll end up being three falcon engines stitched together with decouplers. Part of the way to orbit, the outside two decouple and return the to launch pad. Some time after that, the center engine decouples and lands on a barge. None of those will be going at orbit velocity though.
- Robotbeat 9y agoBut Musk has now said they are going to try upper stage reuse for Falcon Heavy. Not just the boosters: http://www.space.com/36412-spacex-completely-reusable-rocket-elon-musk.html http://www.space.com/36412-spacex-completely-reusable-rocket...
- Robotbeat 9y agoIndeed. Minor nit: the Falcon Heavy demo flight (with upper stage recovery attempt) is set for late THIS year, it's just that Musk puts the odds of successful upper stage recovery fairly low: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/847882289581359104 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/847882289581359104 Musk is "fairly confident" to have upper stage reuse operational by sometime next year: http://www.space.com/36412-spacex-completely-reusable-rocket-elon-musk.html http://www.space.com/36412-spacex-completely-reusable-rocket... Musk is notorious for doubling down on bets when the first bet seems like it most likely will succeed. I would bet you we'll see upper stage recovery within 1 or 2 years, with reuse of that stage within 2 to 4 years. (Particularly if SpaceX doesn't suffer another major failure within the next 2 years... Failures are always a significant possibility in this business given enough launches.) That counts as pretty darned soon.
- sidcool 9y agoAnother great achievement. I am OK with this becoming a regular boring affair.
- sidcool 9y agoWhat was the payload?
- stilldavid 9y agoI believe it was an NRO spy satellite.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ChuckMcM 9y agoThat never gets old :-) and I thought the external views were really awesome as well. On the previous return of SES-10 which was a geosync mission, previously SpaceX had said that the booster was unrecoverable in those situations given the additional boost that it gave the payload (so started from a higher altitude) but they tried it, and got it back anyway. Watching the grid fins nearly burn off from re-entry friction was a the most interesting bit of that one.
- angstrom 9y agoAs far as I'm concerned these gravity assisted landings are technologically superior voodoo magic. The combination of materials, software and physics to accomplish the improbable.
- crispyambulance 9y agoThis is the first time, I think, we got to see the charred surface of the first stage. I wonder what kind of processing is involved to make the stage usable again? Do they just put it through a car wash and re-fill for next time? Is everything reusable on the first stage?
- safeharbourio 9y agoAnecdotal: I believe musk said that the charred outside was surprisingly only in need of a fresh coat of paint.
- angstrom 9y agoWouldn't be surprised if it's similar to the coatings placed on the launch pad stabilizers. The paint is meant to char because it acts similar to a ceramic preventing damage to the underlying metal. There's a good youtube video of this on the moon launches where the tail fin hold downs char, but don't warp.
- greglindahl 9y agoThe grid fins have paint like that, which is why they catch on fire.
- dflock 9y agoThey're aluminium underneath the paint - and that also melts a bit on a high speed GTO reentry, hence the likely switch to titanium grid fins in the future.
- goatforce5 9y agoIn a funny way, i'd be happy if it got to a point where they just sent the dirty/charred rockets back up. "It's a rocket - of course it's going to get dirty!"
- rbanffy 9y agoAgreed. We've seen lots and lots of primary missions, but the truly revolutionary thing, the booster landing, we never followed this close.
- FiatLuxDave 9y agoI see a lot of comments about how boring this is becoming. It caused a bit of excitement for me, though. The launch and landing happened around 7 am local time, and my house is only a few miles from the landing zone. So, I'm taking my morning shower, and I hear the boom. I'm thinking "Sounds like a SpaceX landing or a rapid unplanned disassembly". Then my houseguest from out-of-town yells into the bathroom: "David, I think something just hit the house!". Me: "No, hun, that's what a rocket landing sounds like. Go check the internet, I'm pretty sure we're okay." Best of luck to SpaceX, and thank you for not launching (and landing) any earlier in the morning!
- collinmanderson 9y agoThere's a map here of how loud it is and noise analysis: https://www.docdroid.net/xfNMCgz/draft-supplemental-ea-spacex-at-ccafs-lc-13-01-03-2017.pdf.html#page=104 https://www.docdroid.net/xfNMCgz/draft-supplemental-ea-space...
- ziikutv 9y agoDidn't they say it was classified? I think just before the separation of the rocket and payload, they said something about what it was. 13:38 in the video "Falcon X is delivering the, National Reconnaissance office's satellite to orbit right now"
- harshreality 9y agoThere's nothing secret about that. It's a satellite and it's for the NRO. What's secret is what it does, and what its orbit will be. (Once it gets to its final orbit, I guess there are amateur satellite trackers that will figure it out, but not until then). The webcast host may not (I'd guess he probably doesn't) know what the satellite does or its final orbit. He does mechanical design. I'd bet they keep that information compartmentalized within SpaceX so only the operations personnel who need to know would know.
- jacquesm 9y agoI'd bet nobody at SpaceX knows what it actually does even though they might take a good guess based on the orbit.
- ziikutv 9y agoIn the beginning they said that the payload is confidential too, not just the destination. Rewatch it ;)
- harshreality 9y ago"satellite" is not a description of the payload.
- collinmanderson 9y agoWe know that it's either very light or it's a low orbit, otherwise spacex would have done a water landing.
- JshWright 9y agoWhat part of that is classified? It's public knowledge that this mission was for the NRO (the payload was officially called "NRO-76"), and the fact that it's a satellite is... self-evident?
- toexitthedonut 9y agoI do like how these landings are becoming more routine. They're making it seem like a piece of cake now. I don't think I'll get as excited again until the Falcon Heavy maiden launch.
- collinmanderson 9y agoIs it just me or is this first time they've caught video of stage separation from the ground? Beautiful video in any case. It's fun to see the first stage engine cut off, separate, flip over, and the second stage accelerates away. https://youtu.be/EzQpkQ1etdA?t=857 https://youtu.be/EzQpkQ1etdA?t=857