What was the purpose of a boostback and entry burn for a vehicle that was intended to be disposed of?
Did SpaceX perform some experimental landing manoeuvre since they didn't want to risk the drone ship? Maybe some high speed energy saving scheme?
In this age of recycle and environment considerations, and Blue Planet II, I find dumping a rocket that can be recovered leaving me conflicted.
One more airborne video, just for the commentary's sake.
Quote from: Stan Black on 12/23/2017 08:38 amIn this age of recycle and environment considerations, and Blue Planet II, I find dumping a rocket that can be recovered leaving me conflicted.OTOH think of all the diesel they saved by not steaming out there with an ASDS...But yeah I kind of agree with you. Single-use launch vehicles are starting to look like how we used to do this...
How far away from Vandenburg was the farthest confirmed viewing of the launch. We saw it very clearly here in San Diego, it was spectacular. But San Diego is not that far from the ground track, there is video from Phoenix. Anything farther away?
There appeared to be things separating from what I assume to be the returning booster, does anyone have any thoughts on what they are?
Quote from: RDoc on 12/23/2017 02:45 pmThere appeared to be things separating from what I assume to be the returning booster, does anyone have any thoughts on what they are?Thruster firings. So, plumes of cold nitrogen gas.
2) the fairing demonstrating the RCS bursts appears to fall much slower than the one that does not suggesting a slowed descent from chutes. It could just be perspective that creates that illusion, though.
<snip>It's hard to measure sub-meter positioning in the middle of a moving ocean.
it's a moot point regardless - as SpaceX has specifically said that without bottom mounted RCS they don't have enough control authority for that level of precision. I wouldn't anticipate that they will put any development into cradle landing on the Falcon family. They are already gearing up for the BFR family development and will engineer in that type of fine control from the outset.
Apologies, morning confident that this has been discussed but it will have been back ?? pages: what happened to booster recovery this mission?