The stage can hover not at all. Minimum thrust from one engine will be more than the weight of the stage, so an attempt to hover would see the stage gain altitude. The stage will have to cancel it's velocity at the same moment it touches the barge.
anyone has the picture of the barge leaving ?
During previous attempts, we could only expect a landing accuracy of within 10km.
For this attempt, we’re targeting a landing accuracy of within 10 meters."
New question, if there is only one shot at landing, does that mean the barge landing abort mode is to throttle up and fly away?
With the Yellow wrap around low wall, maybe they plan to flood the deck 0.5m deep in sea water just before touchdown?
Just for fun I have attempted to remove the fisheye distortion from the photo and realigned the lower side of the platform to be horizontal (also cropped). The painted targets are pretty good circles, so the image is amenable to dimensional analysis anyone cares to make.
985 px Length325 px Width495 px Winged Width550 px Winged width + work platform985 * X = 300X = 0.30456852791878172588832487309645300.0 ft Length98.98 ft Width150.76 ft Winged Width167.51 ft Winged width + work platform985 * X = 288X = 0.29238578680203045685279187817259288.0 ft Length95.02 ft Width144.73 ft Winged Width160.81 ft Winged width + work platform
Quote from: Kabloona on 12/17/2014 03:07 amQuote from: sghill on 12/17/2014 02:52 amBTW, what's the big divot in the deck near the "x", a burn mark from testing? It looks like a small impact crater!Looks to me like a pipe coming up from under the deck at an angle, making an elliptical intersection with the deck. Maybe a drain, or maybe they will pump seawater onto the deck through the pipe.I happened to read that comment then look at this pic:http://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/barge03.jpgThey appear to be pumping something into it. I am guessing they want to use freshwater not seawater.
Quote from: sghill on 12/17/2014 02:52 amBTW, what's the big divot in the deck near the "x", a burn mark from testing? It looks like a small impact crater!Looks to me like a pipe coming up from under the deck at an angle, making an elliptical intersection with the deck. Maybe a drain, or maybe they will pump seawater onto the deck through the pipe.
BTW, what's the big divot in the deck near the "x", a burn mark from testing? It looks like a small impact crater!
Quote from: AnalogMan on 12/17/2014 11:11 amJust for fun I have attempted to remove the fisheye distortion from the photo and realigned the lower side of the platform to be horizontal (also cropped). The painted targets are pretty good circles, so the image is amenable to dimensional analysis anyone cares to make.Great work! Thanks for removing that distortion and giving us all this photo.Now, anyone want to speculate on where the azimuth thruster booms are? I would think they would be stowed horizontal while at the dock in port (and for transport while under tugboat power). I'm not seeing them. If we really are seeing bits of the barge and/or water through some sort of a deck grid, I would think we might be able to make out where the four large thrusters are in their stowed position.
Trench coat and glasses? Your eyes are better than mine. Nice work on the captions to identify bits.
I'm not sure that the structures off the port and starboard edges are "loading ramps". They look like extra "wings" to me, that would normally be angled slightly upward to catch an off-target (or toppling?) stage. I think they are folded down in port to allow the gangway access. If my guess is right, I'd guess that the stage would approach the barge in the port-starboard direction, so that overshoots or skids will take it into the "wings", not into the equipment containers.
The side ramps may not be load bearing at all, they may just be foldable safety fencing that sticks out further, but drops down for side access to the barge.