12 ms·

SpaceX Rocket Survives Experimental High-Thrust Landing at Sea

106 points by shahocean 9y ago

ChuckMcM 9y ago
Well that answers the question of why they were following the first stage and why it seemed like it still had its legs (you can see one sticking up in the tweeted photo). Since I have to guess, I'm guessing it stayed closed up most of the way down, avoiding perhaps even grid fin erosion during high re-entry speeds. It is fun to see a company that has rockets it can expend for experiments like this because it is so far ahead of its nearest launch competitor in terms of costs.
- greenhouse_gas 9y ago
  They're not expanding it for experiments. It's just an old model that costs too much to refurbish, and they've got a new one coming up which will be a lot cheaper and easier to refurbish than the current (which is one model ahead of the just-launched rocket). And once you're throwing it out, might as well do some experiments.
  - jsolson 9y ago
    > And once you're throwing it out, might as well do some experiments. I understand what you're saying here, but the extent to which the aerospace industry just does not work this way is staggering. This is a fairly unique quality of SpaceX.
    - mmjaa 9y ago
      .. not to mention the fact that "once you're throwing it out, might as well do some experiments" is not how the incumbent space companies was operating, before SpaceX came along. For them, it was more like "we've got a near-infinite supply of cash from the government, lets just submit another PO for the next round of experiments" ..
- njarboe 9y ago
  Gwynne Shotwell (CEO of SpaceX) stated near the end of this video[1] that the reason they had such good video coverage is that they usually follow the second stage, but in this case it was a classified mission and were forbidden to do so. The cameras followed the first stage return instead. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjTHJzWPTnU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjTHJzWPTnU
  - ChuckMcM 9y ago
    Those are great videos, in this case I was talking about the launch of GovSat-1 (non classified) which was a launch to GEO so a high delta-v launch. SpaceX has generally defined these as 'unrecoverable' for at least two reasons; the first stage is going too fast making reentry quite 'hot', and they have used all the fuel to boost mass rather than save some for landing. So when they stood up the rocket and it had landing feet attached I was curious (why waste the weight of those feet if you aren't going to land it?). My guesses were that either it was too much work to remove them (it was a pre-flown booster) or some other experiment. It turns out they were experimenting with a different return profile that could allow them to land this type of mission's booster.
    - njarboe 9y ago
      Your "following the first stage" made me think of the Zuma launch footage and I forgot this was about GovSat-1. Nice there are so many going on that it is easy to mix them up.
      - njarboe 9y ago
        On further research I think it was the NROL-76 launch with a classified payload in spring 2017 that she was talking about.
Animats 9y ago
Falcon Heavy launch now scheduled for next Tuesday.
- jlgaddis 9y ago
  I can't wait. I am so tempted to go watch it in person.
  - mmjaa 9y ago
    I'm on the other side of the world and even I want to go watch Falcon Heavy launch live ..
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    Come join us at Jetty Park!
baq 9y ago
that's the first rocket in history that was recovered but it wasn't planned to.
- dotancohen 9y ago
  Being billed in the media as a failure: "SpaceX Expendable Rocket Fails" https://perens.com/2018/02/01/spacex-expendible-rocket-fails/ https://perens.com/2018/02/01/spacex-expendible-rocket-fails... cbrf ynj vf tbvat gb uvg zr
  - rplnt 9y ago
    "media"
  - kbenson 9y ago
    Eh, you might deserve that hit. ;)
  - simonh 9y ago
    It's a joke on a guy's blog. The rocket "failed to be expended".
    - dotancohen 9y ago
      Decode the ROT13 at the bottom of your parent post.
- kybernetikos 9y ago
  I think we should save this for one that can actually fly again after being 'recovered'.
Yetanfou 9y ago
I wondered why my somewhat oldish but still quite usable Thinkpad T42p was stuttering when opening the linked space.com article so I had a look at what it tried to load. Here is the list of domains it loads stuff from followed by the number of requests it makes for different types of resources. All this for a page which should realistically have been a few KB of HTML, some CSS and a few images. Read and weep: c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24a9x2eilnwzux2evmb.g00.space.com 3 2 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24aatx2eowwotm-ivitgbqkax2ekwu.g00.space.com 2 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24aatx2ex78x2erex78klvx2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 11 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24aax2eapizmbpqax2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24abibax2eox2elwcjtmktqksx2evmb.g00.space.com 5 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24abibqkx2ekzqbmwx2evmb.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24agvkx2eamizkpx2eax78wbfkpivomx2ekwu.g00.space.com 2 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24agvkx2eizitmowx2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24agvlqkibmx2ex78czkpx2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24agvlqkibqwvx2ebeqbbmzx2ekwu.g00.space.com 3 11 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24ajx2eakwzmkizlzmamizkpx2ekwu.g00.space.com 6 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24amkczmx2eilvfax2ekwu.g00.space.com 3 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24amkczmx2eycivbamzdmx2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24amkczmx78cjilax2eox2elwcjtmktqksx2evmb.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24amzdmljgx2entiapbitsqvox2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24ax2eiuihwv-ilagabmux2ekwu.g00.space.com 2 3 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24ax78ikmx2ewax2ebk.g00.space.com 1 1 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24ax78ikmx2ewvmaqovitx2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 1 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24azd-0896-80-89-84x2ekwvnqox2ex78izamtgx2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24azd-0896-80-89-84x2ex78qfmtx2ex78izamtgx2ekw.g00.space.com 27 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24bioax2ejszbfx2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24btox2euwwsqm9x2ekwu.g00.space.com 2 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24bx2eapizmbpqax2ekwu.g00.space.com 2 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24bx2eeigniqzx2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24bx2euwwsqm9x2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24bx78kx2eowwotmagvlqkibqwvx2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24bziksx2eilnwzux2evmb.g00.space.com 6 6 12 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24bzmvlax2ezmdkwvbmvbx2ekwu.g00.space.com 622 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24dqlmwa-nx2erex78azdx2ekwu.g00.space.com 13 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24eax2eapizmbpqax2ekwu.g00.space.com 2 6 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24eeex2ealilx2eoczc.g00.space.com 1 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c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24x78qfmtx2ezcjqkwvx78zwrmkbx2ekwu.g00.space.com 2 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24x78tibnwzux2ebeqbbmzx2ekwu.g00.space.com131 2 2 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24x78x2easquzmawczkmax2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24zctmax2eycivbkwcvbx2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24zwcbmzx2eqvnwtqvsax2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24zx2ebczvx2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 hxyzhas.g00.space.com 6 www.space.com1528 171 2 adnxs.com ib.adnxs.com 3 1 adsymptotic.com p.adsymptotic.com 1 bing.com c.bing.com 1 bluekai.com stags.bluekai.com 2 1 bootstrapcdn.com maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com 1 criteo.com dis.criteo.com 1 doubleclick.net g.doubleclick.net cm.g.doubleclick.net 1 google-analytics.com ssl.google-analytics.com 1 google.com 9 cse.google.com 1 fonts.googleapis.com 2 googlesyndication.com tpc.googlesyndication.com 1 googletagmanager.com www.googletagmanager.com 1 gstatic.com fonts.gstatic.com 2 i10c.net metric-agent.i10c.net 1 jwpcdn.com p.jwpcdn.com ssl.p.jwpcdn.com 2 mathtag.com sync.mathtag.com 1 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remarkEon 9y ago
So what was the purpose of this experiment? Will SpaceX now attempt to recover boosters from flights to more extreme orbits?
- rplnt 9y ago
  They did the landing burn with three engines instead of usual one. It's more fuel efficient (shorter), which allows for either higher orbits or bigger payloads. I think it did it over water because they were afraid it would damage the barge.
  - apearson 9y ago
    I believe the barge is also tied up with the falcon heavy launch next week.
    - njarboe 9y ago
      I think this is more likely the main reason for the water landing. They have done a least one short three engine burn before using the drone ship.
imron 9y ago
> Today's launch marked the sixth time that SpaceX has lofted a spacecraft using a pre-flown booster. Well done SpaceX!
throwaway1748 9y ago
I guess the big question is how badly is the booster damaged by being in salt water?
- simonh 9y ago
  Pretty badly, apparently. They did look into parachuting them into the sea and recovering them that way, before going to propulsive landing, but the salt water damage is just too much to deal with.
  - kungito 9y ago
    Could they land it in some huge lake?
    - jandrese 9y ago
      Freshwater is probably only marginally better and if anything goes wrong the chances that the debris falls on land is much higher. Unfortunately the Great Lakes are too far north.
    - greglindahl 9y ago
      They land them on a barge. This was an experiment that might have damaged the barge.
    - lorenzhs 9y ago
      Why would they prefer a lake to solid ground? If there was a fuel budget for return to launch site, they’d do that before flying it into a lake. Hell, they’d land it on a patch of grass before dumping it in water. There’s nothing to be gained by making the rocket wet (or a lake all rocket-y, those things are dirty with soot and stuff). They just weren’t sure that it wouldn’t punch a big fat hole in the ship (plus the ship is needed for Falcon Heavy next week), so they’d rather have the rocket get all seawatery than the ship hole-y. As long as the telemetry comes back, who needs an old rocket? Might still learn something from retrieving it but it’s not worth reflying as this booster was an older version that is rather expensive to refurbish.
    - 9y ago

106 points by shahocean 9y ago

Well that answers the question of why they were following the first stage and why it seemed like it still had its legs (you can see one sticking up in the tweeted photo). Since I have to guess, I'm guessing it stayed closed up most of the way down, avoiding perhaps even grid fin erosion during high re-entry speeds. It is fun to see a company that has rockets it can expend for experiments like this because it is so far ahead of its nearest launch competitor in terms of costs.

greenhouse_gas 9y ago
They're not expanding it for experiments. It's just an old model that costs too much to refurbish, and they've got a new one coming up which will be a lot cheaper and easier to refurbish than the current (which is one model ahead of the just-launched rocket). And once you're throwing it out, might as well do some experiments.
- jsolson 9y ago
  > And once you're throwing it out, might as well do some experiments. I understand what you're saying here, but the extent to which the aerospace industry just does not work this way is staggering. This is a fairly unique quality of SpaceX.
  - mmjaa 9y ago
    .. not to mention the fact that "once you're throwing it out, might as well do some experiments" is not how the incumbent space companies was operating, before SpaceX came along. For them, it was more like "we've got a near-infinite supply of cash from the government, lets just submit another PO for the next round of experiments" ..
njarboe 9y ago
Gwynne Shotwell (CEO of SpaceX) stated near the end of this video[1] that the reason they had such good video coverage is that they usually follow the second stage, but in this case it was a classified mission and were forbidden to do so. The cameras followed the first stage return instead. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjTHJzWPTnU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjTHJzWPTnU
- ChuckMcM 9y ago
  Those are great videos, in this case I was talking about the launch of GovSat-1 (non classified) which was a launch to GEO so a high delta-v launch. SpaceX has generally defined these as 'unrecoverable' for at least two reasons; the first stage is going too fast making reentry quite 'hot', and they have used all the fuel to boost mass rather than save some for landing. So when they stood up the rocket and it had landing feet attached I was curious (why waste the weight of those feet if you aren't going to land it?). My guesses were that either it was too much work to remove them (it was a pre-flown booster) or some other experiment. It turns out they were experimenting with a different return profile that could allow them to land this type of mission's booster.
  - njarboe 9y ago
    Your "following the first stage" made me think of the Zuma launch footage and I forgot this was about GovSat-1. Nice there are so many going on that it is easy to mix them up.
    - njarboe 9y ago
      On further research I think it was the NROL-76 launch with a classified payload in spring 2017 that she was talking about.

Animats 9y ago

Falcon Heavy launch now scheduled for next Tuesday.

jlgaddis 9y ago
I can't wait. I am so tempted to go watch it in person.
- mmjaa 9y ago
  I'm on the other side of the world and even I want to go watch Falcon Heavy launch live ..
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  Come join us at Jetty Park!

baq 9y ago

that's the first rocket in history that was recovered but it wasn't planned to.

dotancohen 9y ago
Being billed in the media as a failure: "SpaceX Expendable Rocket Fails" https://perens.com/2018/02/01/spacex-expendible-rocket-fails/ https://perens.com/2018/02/01/spacex-expendible-rocket-fails... cbrf ynj vf tbvat gb uvg zr
- rplnt 9y ago
  "media"
- kbenson 9y ago
  Eh, you might deserve that hit. ;)
- simonh 9y ago
  It's a joke on a guy's blog. The rocket "failed to be expended".
  - dotancohen 9y ago
    Decode the ROT13 at the bottom of your parent post.
kybernetikos 9y ago
I think we should save this for one that can actually fly again after being 'recovered'.

Yetanfou 9y ago

I wondered why my somewhat oldish but still quite usable Thinkpad T42p was stuttering when opening the linked space.com article so I had a look at what it tried to load. Here is the list of domains it loads stuff from followed by the number of requests it makes for different types of resources. All this for a page which should realistically have been a few KB of HTML, some CSS and a few images. Read and weep: c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24a9x2eilnwzux2evmb.g00.space.com 3 2 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24aatx2eowwotm-ivitgbqkax2ekwu.g00.space.com 2 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24aatx2ex78x2erex78klvx2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 11 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24aax2eapizmbpqax2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24abibax2eox2elwcjtmktqksx2evmb.g00.space.com 5 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24abibqkx2ekzqbmwx2evmb.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24agvkx2eamizkpx2eax78wbfkpivomx2ekwu.g00.space.com 2 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24agvkx2eizitmowx2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24agvlqkibmx2ex78czkpx2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24agvlqkibqwvx2ebeqbbmzx2ekwu.g00.space.com 3 11 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24ajx2eakwzmkizlzmamizkpx2ekwu.g00.space.com 6 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24amkczmx2eilvfax2ekwu.g00.space.com 3 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24amkczmx2eycivbamzdmx2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24amkczmx78cjilax2eox2elwcjtmktqksx2evmb.g00.space.com 1 c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24amzdmljgx2entiapbitsqvox2ekwu.g00.space.com 1 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remarkEon 9y ago

So what was the purpose of this experiment? Will SpaceX now attempt to recover boosters from flights to more extreme orbits?

rplnt 9y ago
They did the landing burn with three engines instead of usual one. It's more fuel efficient (shorter), which allows for either higher orbits or bigger payloads. I think it did it over water because they were afraid it would damage the barge.
- apearson 9y ago
  I believe the barge is also tied up with the falcon heavy launch next week.
  - njarboe 9y ago
    I think this is more likely the main reason for the water landing. They have done a least one short three engine burn before using the drone ship.

imron 9y ago

> Today's launch marked the sixth time that SpaceX has lofted a spacecraft using a pre-flown booster. Well done SpaceX!

throwaway1748 9y ago

I guess the big question is how badly is the booster damaged by being in salt water?

simonh 9y ago
Pretty badly, apparently. They did look into parachuting them into the sea and recovering them that way, before going to propulsive landing, but the salt water damage is just too much to deal with.
- kungito 9y ago
  Could they land it in some huge lake?
  - jandrese 9y ago
    Freshwater is probably only marginally better and if anything goes wrong the chances that the debris falls on land is much higher. Unfortunately the Great Lakes are too far north.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    They land them on a barge. This was an experiment that might have damaged the barge.
  - lorenzhs 9y ago
    Why would they prefer a lake to solid ground? If there was a fuel budget for return to launch site, they’d do that before flying it into a lake. Hell, they’d land it on a patch of grass before dumping it in water. There’s nothing to be gained by making the rocket wet (or a lake all rocket-y, those things are dirty with soot and stuff). They just weren’t sure that it wouldn’t punch a big fat hole in the ship (plus the ship is needed for Falcon Heavy next week), so they’d rather have the rocket get all seawatery than the ship hole-y. As long as the telemetry comes back, who needs an old rocket? Might still learn something from retrieving it but it’s not worth reflying as this booster was an older version that is rather expensive to refurbish.
  - 9y ago