How much of a trip will it be seeing 3 cores land within seconds of each other!!
Striking that they talk about landing on a floating launch pad.And if they give the next water landing a low probability of success, does that mean they are planning to trim some margins and see if they get away with it?
One implication of the news that they only plan one more ocean 'landing' before trying to land on land, is that the next ocean landing attempt (flight #13 - presumably next CRS mission) will have to demonstrate a pinpoint landing. So presumably that will be the first flight with the grid fins installed.
A pending patent doesn't have any legal force, it simply puts others on notice that a patent has been applied for. It may be accepted or rejected.
Quote from: GusTurbo on 07/22/2014 08:42 pmA pending patent doesn't have any legal force, it simply puts others on notice that a patent has been applied for. It may be accepted or rejected.This isn't my area of expertise but I believe that a patent can be accepted by the patent offfice but still not be valid in court.
If they now have pinpoint accuracy, I wonder if we could maybe see quadcopter footage of a landing in the future.
Quote from: QuantumG on 07/22/2014 08:45 pmIf they now have pinpoint accuracy, I wonder if we could maybe see quadcopter footage of a landing in the future.What makes you think that they have achieved pinpoint accuracy? Isn't that what the grid fins are about?