8 ms·

SpaceX CRS-6 Hard Landing – Tracking Cam

127 points by antoviaque 11y ago

mmastrac 11y ago
> before it reached our drone ship, “Just Read the Instructions” Glad to see the Iain M Banks inspiration here.
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  The other ship is the "Of Course I Still Love You", too.
  - FrameRate24 11y ago
    Which Debut's on Sunday!! JRTI is retired :(
- wiredfool 11y ago
  I've always wondered -- is that read as in 'go read', or read as in past tense?
  - arethuza 11y ago
    You probably need to ask the GCU Just Read The Instructions I'm just hoping that his first ship to land on Mars is called The Ends of Invention
    - ceejayoz 11y ago
      I just hope it doesn't have to be the You'll Clean That Up Before You Leave.
  - brock_r 11y ago
    They are meant to be a play on words, with several different possible meanings. In the books, the original AI's would get to name themselves after much reflection.
    - comex 11y ago
      But the "actual" names of the AIs would be in Marain, not English and thus likely wouldn't have the same syntactic ambiguity...
- AceJohnny2 11y ago
  Looks like I missed the newsbit in January when Musk did that to honor Banks: http://www.tor.com/2015/01/23/elon-musk-iain-m-banks-just-read-the-instructions/ http://www.tor.com/2015/01/23/elon-musk-iain-m-banks-just-re...
ohitsdom 11y ago
Awesome new video of the second landing attempt. Glad they identified the issue, can't wait to watch the next attempt! Also looking forward to them trying this on land. I live in the Cape Canaveral area, so it'd be pretty cool to be able to track a rocket coming in for a landing.
- mholt 11y ago
  I'm also excited about the on-land landing attempt. Should be August 9: http://spacexstats.com/mission.php?launch=25 http://spacexstats.com/mission.php?launch=25
  - greglindahl 11y ago
    I haven't seen any recent comment that they actually received permission to land on land.
    - FrameRate24 11y ago
      There has been a few mentions of it over the past month or so that have made it to reddit.com/r/spacex(Gwynne Shotwell was the first to mention it) for the JASON-3 mission in august the jist so far is the barge will be off the coast (but relatively close) and a decision for RTLS or Barge Landing will take place just before launch
  - ohitsdom 11y ago
    Didn't know it was that soon- awesome! I do wonder how much PR is motivating these blog posts. I'm sure an incoming rocket (basically, a missile) would scare local citizens, so it won't hurt to get these positive tests and lessons learned out in front of people.
  - teleclimber 11y ago
    I live in LA, if they are actually going to attempt a return to land, it's going to be hard to resist going up there to try to catch a glimpse of it.
arman0 11y ago
I wonder if you could use an air "force field" to capture the rocket. e.g. a circular arrangement of air turbines, dynamically adjusted to smoothly capture and land the rocket. Has something like this been tried?
- cryptoz 11y ago
  I'm not sure if that's ever been tried, but it certainly won't work for SpaceX. The landing system has to be able to work on any solid, flat surface in the solar system, such as the surface of Mars. There are no force fields on Mars. Edit: Every thread on HN or reddit usually has people suggesting other methods of landing rockets that require huge, specialized infrastructure. The primary goal here is to land on Mars without large or complex infrastructure. So even if you think you can devise a cheaper or 'better' system, if it doesn't work on Mars, it doesn't work at all.
- shiftpgdn 11y ago
  The amount of CFM of air needed to lift a rocket booster would be immense. Back of the envelope math suggests somewhere around a football stadiums worth of air per second.
- phkahler 11y ago
  It seems to me that they'll have to use the rocket engine to slow the rocket down regardless of how it is recovered. Once that's being done it is just a matter of increasing precision in order to set it down with no additional complexity. That said, there is complexity in having higher performance valves and such to get a fast system response, but still that's improved performance of existing equipment as opposed to adding more stuff.
- oh_sigh 11y ago
  No.
stcredzero 11y ago
It seems like they could replace the landing legs with a parachute, which they could catch in mid-air, as intended for the Genesis probe. Bringing the 1st stage nearly to a stop at some point mid-air should be way easier than landing it on the ground. For that matter, could a balloon be used as a recovery method? Another alternative: Land in an artificial pond. The lake could be filled with a liquid specifically formulated to be kind to the rocket parts. (Perhaps just reservoir quality water?) The design could again dispense with the landing gear. Perhaps sturdy heat-resistant ballutes could inflate to take the water-impact and hold the rockets up and out of the water? EDIT: Wow, so much anger! For one thing, all the above schemes involve first coming to an almost-hover mid-air. Also, why is everyone imagining such an amazing tone from my post? Please produce a quote that justifies this assumption. (Hint, it's irrational. Just take my brainstorming at face value.)
- TrevorJ 11y ago
  Once you realize that the end goal is to be able to fly back rockets in places with a minimum of infrastructure it makes sense. Heck we landed on the moon the same way. Also, rockets are deceptively fragile so most variations of the 'catch and drop' type recovery won't be good for the rocket.
- srdev 11y ago
  > Bringing the 1st stage nearly to a stop at some point mid-air should be way easier than landing it on the ground. One thing to note about Falcon 9 is that it's impossible for it to hover since its thrust-to-weight ratio is greater than 1 at the time of recovery, even at minimum throttle. So you have to do a suicide burn such that you zero out velocity at your target. Someone already pointed out the problem with helicopters capacity compared to the Falcon 9 weight. The idea is not without merit, However. ULA is considering a similar approach for the Vulcan. The big difference is that they plan to eject the engine core and catch only the engines with a helicopter. See http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/04/13/ula-unveils-its-future-with-the-vulcan-rocket-family/ http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/04/13/ula-unveils-its-future-... The downside of this plan is increased complexity. Falcon 9's approach requires fins, some landing struTs and software. ULAs approach requires a system to eject the core, a shield for the cores re-entry, a parachute, a helicopter, and impeccable timing. I'm guessing that catching a parachute with a helicopter is an incredibly difficult problem just by itself. I would suggest that you watch the Vulcan development to see how your thoughts play out. Regarding the pool, I would assume that the issue would be finding an inert liquid, putting it in the middle of the ocean stably and enough quantities for a landing, and then getting the rocket into the liquid without damaging it. You'd likely still have all the same problems as just landing the rocket -- you have to zero horizontal elicits or the thing tips over and impacts the liquid too hard, and you have to zero verticle velocity or your impact is too hard. Ultimately you might as well just land the damn thing, which is also more versatile.
lutorm 11y ago
I think the coolest part about that video is how the aerodynamic guidance is very noticeable. Look at the significant angle between the rocket body and the velocity vector (as indicated by the contrail) and you can see how the rocket isn't just falling ballistically but is "flying" towards its intended touchdown point.
- mkempe 11y ago
  Note that tomorrow the 28th, at 14:21 UTC, SpaceX will try again! [1] [2] [1] http://livestream.com/spacex/events/4152712 http://livestream.com/spacex/events/4152712 [2] http://qz.com/438866/spacex-has-two-important-missions-to-perform-during-elon-musks-birthday-weekend-rocket-launch/ http://qz.com/438866/spacex-has-two-important-missions-to-pe...
netfire 11y ago
Curious how they are tracking the rocket's descent to catch it on camera. It seems like they lose visual of the rocket and then are able to re-acquire it fairly quickly. Are they using some sort of infrared or other tracking beacon on the rocket that the camera can follow or using trajectory data to determine where the camera should be pointed? Also, I'd love to know when these launches are going to happen further in advance. The Launch Manifest page just shows the next launch as happening in June[1]. Is there a better place to get more exact planned launch dates further in advance? [1] http://www.spacex.com/missions http://www.spacex.com/missions
- JTon 11y ago
  I was wondering the same thing. To me, the camera work looks very confident (smooth, even panning). Almost as if they knew exactly where the rocket was behind the clouds. Infrared sounds plausible. Or maybe they just have an high-res camera that captures a large portion of the sky. Some student would then post process the video by zooming in and panning accordingly.
- AYBABTME 11y ago
  You can have their launches show up in your calendar automatically, add this to your Google Calendar for instance: http://spacexstats.com/calendar.php?launch=all http://spacexstats.com/calendar.php?launch=all
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  I would assume they use the same radar tracking cameras that NASA does.
- mpweiher 11y ago
  With the tiny embedded viewer, I also lost track, but on full screen, I was able to (barely) keep track of the rocket the entire time. I also assume they have a pre-computed flight path that's pretty accurate, maybe GPS on the vehicle and undoubtedly some radar tracking. In short, I can't imagine them not knowing precisely where that rocket is the entire time. Unless something goes wrong. Well, several things.
- lutorm 11y ago

127 points by antoviaque 11y ago

mmastrac 11y ago

> before it reached our drone ship, “Just Read the Instructions” Glad to see the Iain M Banks inspiration here.

ceejayoz 11y ago
The other ship is the "Of Course I Still Love You", too.
- FrameRate24 11y ago
  Which Debut's on Sunday!! JRTI is retired :(
wiredfool 11y ago
I've always wondered -- is that read as in 'go read', or read as in past tense?
- arethuza 11y ago
  You probably need to ask the GCU Just Read The Instructions I'm just hoping that his first ship to land on Mars is called The Ends of Invention
  - ceejayoz 11y ago
    I just hope it doesn't have to be the You'll Clean That Up Before You Leave.
- brock_r 11y ago
  They are meant to be a play on words, with several different possible meanings. In the books, the original AI's would get to name themselves after much reflection.
  - comex 11y ago
    But the "actual" names of the AIs would be in Marain, not English and thus likely wouldn't have the same syntactic ambiguity...
AceJohnny2 11y ago
Looks like I missed the newsbit in January when Musk did that to honor Banks: http://www.tor.com/2015/01/23/elon-musk-iain-m-banks-just-read-the-instructions/ http://www.tor.com/2015/01/23/elon-musk-iain-m-banks-just-re...

ohitsdom 11y ago

Awesome new video of the second landing attempt. Glad they identified the issue, can't wait to watch the next attempt! Also looking forward to them trying this on land. I live in the Cape Canaveral area, so it'd be pretty cool to be able to track a rocket coming in for a landing.

mholt 11y ago
I'm also excited about the on-land landing attempt. Should be August 9: http://spacexstats.com/mission.php?launch=25 http://spacexstats.com/mission.php?launch=25
- greglindahl 11y ago
  I haven't seen any recent comment that they actually received permission to land on land.
  - FrameRate24 11y ago
    There has been a few mentions of it over the past month or so that have made it to reddit.com/r/spacex(Gwynne Shotwell was the first to mention it) for the JASON-3 mission in august the jist so far is the barge will be off the coast (but relatively close) and a decision for RTLS or Barge Landing will take place just before launch
- ohitsdom 11y ago
  Didn't know it was that soon- awesome! I do wonder how much PR is motivating these blog posts. I'm sure an incoming rocket (basically, a missile) would scare local citizens, so it won't hurt to get these positive tests and lessons learned out in front of people.
- teleclimber 11y ago
  I live in LA, if they are actually going to attempt a return to land, it's going to be hard to resist going up there to try to catch a glimpse of it.

arman0 11y ago

I wonder if you could use an air "force field" to capture the rocket. e.g. a circular arrangement of air turbines, dynamically adjusted to smoothly capture and land the rocket. Has something like this been tried?

cryptoz 11y ago
I'm not sure if that's ever been tried, but it certainly won't work for SpaceX. The landing system has to be able to work on any solid, flat surface in the solar system, such as the surface of Mars. There are no force fields on Mars. Edit: Every thread on HN or reddit usually has people suggesting other methods of landing rockets that require huge, specialized infrastructure. The primary goal here is to land on Mars without large or complex infrastructure. So even if you think you can devise a cheaper or 'better' system, if it doesn't work on Mars, it doesn't work at all.
shiftpgdn 11y ago
The amount of CFM of air needed to lift a rocket booster would be immense. Back of the envelope math suggests somewhere around a football stadiums worth of air per second.
phkahler 11y ago
It seems to me that they'll have to use the rocket engine to slow the rocket down regardless of how it is recovered. Once that's being done it is just a matter of increasing precision in order to set it down with no additional complexity. That said, there is complexity in having higher performance valves and such to get a fast system response, but still that's improved performance of existing equipment as opposed to adding more stuff.
oh_sigh 11y ago
No.

stcredzero 11y ago

It seems like they could replace the landing legs with a parachute, which they could catch in mid-air, as intended for the Genesis probe. Bringing the 1st stage nearly to a stop at some point mid-air should be way easier than landing it on the ground. For that matter, could a balloon be used as a recovery method? Another alternative: Land in an artificial pond. The lake could be filled with a liquid specifically formulated to be kind to the rocket parts. (Perhaps just reservoir quality water?) The design could again dispense with the landing gear. Perhaps sturdy heat-resistant ballutes could inflate to take the water-impact and hold the rockets up and out of the water? EDIT: Wow, so much anger! For one thing, all the above schemes involve first coming to an almost-hover mid-air. Also, why is everyone imagining such an amazing tone from my post? Please produce a quote that justifies this assumption. (Hint, it's irrational. Just take my brainstorming at face value.)

TrevorJ 11y ago
Once you realize that the end goal is to be able to fly back rockets in places with a minimum of infrastructure it makes sense. Heck we landed on the moon the same way. Also, rockets are deceptively fragile so most variations of the 'catch and drop' type recovery won't be good for the rocket.
srdev 11y ago
> Bringing the 1st stage nearly to a stop at some point mid-air should be way easier than landing it on the ground. One thing to note about Falcon 9 is that it's impossible for it to hover since its thrust-to-weight ratio is greater than 1 at the time of recovery, even at minimum throttle. So you have to do a suicide burn such that you zero out velocity at your target. Someone already pointed out the problem with helicopters capacity compared to the Falcon 9 weight. The idea is not without merit, However. ULA is considering a similar approach for the Vulcan. The big difference is that they plan to eject the engine core and catch only the engines with a helicopter. See http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/04/13/ula-unveils-its-future-with-the-vulcan-rocket-family/ http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/04/13/ula-unveils-its-future-... The downside of this plan is increased complexity. Falcon 9's approach requires fins, some landing struTs and software. ULAs approach requires a system to eject the core, a shield for the cores re-entry, a parachute, a helicopter, and impeccable timing. I'm guessing that catching a parachute with a helicopter is an incredibly difficult problem just by itself. I would suggest that you watch the Vulcan development to see how your thoughts play out. Regarding the pool, I would assume that the issue would be finding an inert liquid, putting it in the middle of the ocean stably and enough quantities for a landing, and then getting the rocket into the liquid without damaging it. You'd likely still have all the same problems as just landing the rocket -- you have to zero horizontal elicits or the thing tips over and impacts the liquid too hard, and you have to zero verticle velocity or your impact is too hard. Ultimately you might as well just land the damn thing, which is also more versatile.

lutorm 11y ago

I think the coolest part about that video is how the aerodynamic guidance is very noticeable. Look at the significant angle between the rocket body and the velocity vector (as indicated by the contrail) and you can see how the rocket isn't just falling ballistically but is "flying" towards its intended touchdown point.

mkempe 11y ago
Note that tomorrow the 28th, at 14:21 UTC, SpaceX will try again! [1] [2] [1] http://livestream.com/spacex/events/4152712 http://livestream.com/spacex/events/4152712 [2] http://qz.com/438866/spacex-has-two-important-missions-to-perform-during-elon-musks-birthday-weekend-rocket-launch/ http://qz.com/438866/spacex-has-two-important-missions-to-pe...

netfire 11y ago

Curious how they are tracking the rocket's descent to catch it on camera. It seems like they lose visual of the rocket and then are able to re-acquire it fairly quickly. Are they using some sort of infrared or other tracking beacon on the rocket that the camera can follow or using trajectory data to determine where the camera should be pointed? Also, I'd love to know when these launches are going to happen further in advance. The Launch Manifest page just shows the next launch as happening in June[1]. Is there a better place to get more exact planned launch dates further in advance? [1] http://www.spacex.com/missions http://www.spacex.com/missions

JTon 11y ago
I was wondering the same thing. To me, the camera work looks very confident (smooth, even panning). Almost as if they knew exactly where the rocket was behind the clouds. Infrared sounds plausible. Or maybe they just have an high-res camera that captures a large portion of the sky. Some student would then post process the video by zooming in and panning accordingly.
AYBABTME 11y ago
You can have their launches show up in your calendar automatically, add this to your Google Calendar for instance: http://spacexstats.com/calendar.php?launch=all http://spacexstats.com/calendar.php?launch=all
ChuckMcM 11y ago
I would assume they use the same radar tracking cameras that NASA does.
mpweiher 11y ago
With the tiny embedded viewer, I also lost track, but on full screen, I was able to (barely) keep track of the rocket the entire time. I also assume they have a pre-computed flight path that's pretty accurate, maybe GPS on the vehicle and undoubtedly some radar tracking. In short, I can't imagine them not knowing precisely where that rocket is the entire time. Unless something goes wrong. Well, several things.
lutorm 11y ago