That assumes the stage isn't riding so low that they can't get the jacks under.
I suspect that rather than invent new hardware they will just refine the procedures which seemed to work adequately in this case. And optimize the landing software/hardware to ensure the situation doesn't arise again.After all, that's what SpaceX did when we were busy inventing new barge hardware since landing on barges could never work without XYZ. It turns out they didn't build XYZ they just fixed the rocket so they didn't need it.
This has probably been discussed previously but I'll ask anyways. One of the legs was crushed during landing of the first stage. The fact that the leg crushed instead of breaking (like what happened previously) is an improvement in the design of the legs since it allows the landing to be less than perfect. Is that the gist of it?
The leg is designed with crushable honeycomb "filler" so that in the event of a harder than intended landing, the energy would go into crushing the leg honeycomb rather than deforming the stage itself. Legs are cheap and can be easily replaced, so sacrificing one to save the stage makes good financial sense.
Quote from: Mongo62 on 06/03/2016 01:23 pmThe leg is designed with crushable honeycomb "filler" so that in the event of a harder than intended landing, the energy would go into crushing the leg honeycomb rather than deforming the stage itself. Legs are cheap and can be easily replaced, so sacrificing one to save the stage makes good financial sense.The honeycomb "crush core" is designed to be replaced so the leg is not sacrificed. Just the "crush core" and refurb costs.
I agree with cscott's thought... that there is room to work on the terminal phase to avoid repeating the landing angle incident that seems (at first glance) to be root issue...However... My opinion... I'm thinking that changing from a crush type suspension (single acting) to a compliant one (double acting) would be a worthwhile upgrade as insurance to the next 'woops moment'...A suspension that can absorb the impact, then rebound to a nominal height would solve the leaning tower (with walking wobble) problem seen today...The issue is... how to do that without adding much (if any) more weight... I'm undecided how best to do that at this time... On edit...http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40255.msg1543914#msg1543914Based on this L2 posting today from 'someone who would know" what changes are planned for F9...I'm going to hope they are thinking the same thing and have a clever, lightweight solution...
I think this is all at hand, and repays itself quickly, at this or higher rate og flights.
Quote from: garidan on 06/03/2016 06:18 pmI think this is all at hand, and repays itself quickly, at this or higher rate og flights.Not really. How can it save money? You are only incurring more costs. Bigger barge, larger crew to accommodate. There is no need to speed up the process. The existing system works, there is no need to move the work out on to the barge. The barge can go out just as fast.
In my opinion, the most usefull aspect to work on is to speed up recovery operations. A "traditional" and faster (long) support ship with an high enough crane could meet the recovery drone ship while still far