4 ms·
It eats into the payload, of course. That's why they have different landing trajectories (RTLS, barge in the ocean) and sometimes don't land at all, depending o
by ygra 8y ago
It eats into the payload, of course. That's why they have different landing trajectories (RTLS, barge in the ocean) and sometimes don't land at all, depending on the payload mass. The propellant itself doesn't cost much (Elon once noted that fully fueling a Falcon 9 is about 200k, which is nothing compared to the 62M that a launch costs).
- Retric 8y agoFalcon uses air to slow down most of the way, they even use parachutes to get as slow as possible, before turning on the engine for the past possible second.