4 ms·

I'm willing to bet that this is what everyone is most curious about. During the post launch news conference (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G2pRVQ1JhA https:

I'm willing to bet that this is what everyone is most curious about. During the post launch news conference (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G2pRVQ1JhA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G2pRVQ1JhA) Elon said he was pessimistic about a successful recovery of the stage for this launch. However, he said SpaceX is "connecting the dots" and seemed optimistic that they are making good progress (for example, they successfully canceled the roll this time). The rough timeline he mentioned was that they will probably recover a stage sometimes this year, with fully successful recoveries (i.e. capture, refuel, and ready to launch again within hours) sometime early 2015.

rst 12y ago
The main reason he was worried about recovery at that point was that the booster had splashed down into something like 20-foot waves. That's high enough to be real trouble for some of the recovery boats they wanted to have out there (which may be one reason why we haven't heard much about how it finally wound up). And it could also very well sink a rocket stage that wasn't built to handle this particular kind of buffeting, and is made to be pretty lightweight. As to longer term plans, it's not clear they will relaunch the first booster they get back, even if seawater exposure weren't an issue. More likely, they'll disassemble it, and see how the parts handled the stress of a full launch and re-entry, looking for wear that could endanger a second launch of the same booster. If there are any unpleasant surprises like that lurking, it's a lot cheaper to find out this way than in a launch with a payload at risk.
- tsotha 12y ago
  Oh, I doubt they ever intended to relaunch this one. At that point you have to pretty much rebuild everything, so you may as well just trash it and build a brand new one. But they would sure like to know that it behaved properly after they lost contact, and they'd like to know if anything was damaged before it hit the water.
  - rst 12y ago
    They have telemetry until it went into the water --- see tweets quoted immediately below. The last few seconds' worth of that were delayed because the rocket was over the horizon from the launch site, but they got it from chase planes.
    - tsotha 12y ago
      Oh, I didn't realize that. But still, they really would be better off if they had it to pull apart.

rst 12y ago

The main reason he was worried about recovery at that point was that the booster had splashed down into something like 20-foot waves. That's high enough to be real trouble for some of the recovery boats they wanted to have out there (which may be one reason why we haven't heard much about how it finally wound up). And it could also very well sink a rocket stage that wasn't built to handle this particular kind of buffeting, and is made to be pretty lightweight. As to longer term plans, it's not clear they will relaunch the first booster they get back, even if seawater exposure weren't an issue. More likely, they'll disassemble it, and see how the parts handled the stress of a full launch and re-entry, looking for wear that could endanger a second launch of the same booster. If there are any unpleasant surprises like that lurking, it's a lot cheaper to find out this way than in a launch with a payload at risk.

tsotha 12y ago
Oh, I doubt they ever intended to relaunch this one. At that point you have to pretty much rebuild everything, so you may as well just trash it and build a brand new one. But they would sure like to know that it behaved properly after they lost contact, and they'd like to know if anything was damaged before it hit the water.
- rst 12y ago
  They have telemetry until it went into the water --- see tweets quoted immediately below. The last few seconds' worth of that were delayed because the rocket was over the horizon from the launch site, but they got it from chase planes.
  - tsotha 12y ago
    Oh, I didn't realize that. But still, they really would be better off if they had it to pull apart.