SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 - SpX-6/CRS-6 DRAGON - Discussion Thread

[Appable]

That video re-raises the question whether the video was captured by a quad or some other camera platform.  The article refers to a 'tracking camera' and I find it unlikely that a quad would have followed the duration of re-entry that accurately.

Why wouldn't it be a hexacopter as used for Grasshopper/F9R videos?

Compare the CRS-6 footage to the chase-plane footage taken during the Cassiope re-entry.   This is a monster telephoto lens, not one you would find even on a heavily modified quad.  Would you develop a new system using a quad or simply hire the same company that has the aircraft, cameras, and crew that captured Cassiope successfully?  Tracking a Grasshopper hop is a completely different critter than a re-entry.

Wasn't that Orbcomm OG2 Flight 1? I don't think any CASSIOPE footage was released, unfortunately.

[AJW]

Yes, Orbcomm, and you are correct, only the single image of CASSIOPE.    I was told that the same company photographed the CASSIOPE water-landing as the CRS-6 tracking footage, and this matches the Orbcomm landing as well.   Looks like there may have been two airborne cameras for CRS-6, the quad and the tracking cam.

[Ohsin]

From CASSIOPE all we got was an image and I think I saw (may be in some talk) atmospheric reentry footage from CASSIOPE as well.

I also see some parallax as mentioned by Ugordan. I tried aligning both side by side by horizon and you can see stage position is different with respect to line of horizon for same sequence of events.

Edit: Diamond DA42 MPP was used as chase plane for Orbcomm. For CRS 6 it appears one camera was tracking and other lower one was locked on drone ship.