LIVE: SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 - CRS-3 Dragon - ATTEMPT 2 UPDATES

[sdsds]

Good solar array deploy.

and from the SpaceX webcast: "The live event has ended"

[chad1011]

Congradulations SpaceX!!!

[Targeteer]

balloons left over from the He leak

[cesarparent]

Ohh, excellent video of the 1st stage re-entry, first burn is done.  From SpaceX webcast.

Darn, missed that. Anyone have pics?

They said they were getting excellent video, but haven't shown anything yet.  Also said they were getting good video from the chase plane, or was it a tracking station?

No.. the excellent video was referring to second stage burn video, and a smooth handover to the next tracking station. However, they did mention that the first stage did the re-entry burn..

(Btw, RE-entry? I didn't think the first stage ever leaves the atmosphere?)

I think it leaves the lower, thicker layers of the atmosphere (the separation occurs, if I heard right, quite high above 100km altitude), so I suppose they get to call that a reentry

[Targeteer]

CAPCOM passes the good news and Koichi is already practicing

[The_Ronin]

Never seen a sooty launch like that before.  Made my eyes go wide!

[Chris Bergin]

Site seems better now. We were fine through to S/C Sep, then we gained a whole load of people from somewhere. Pulled guests as our predetermined plan. Will restore guests when it all calms down.

[yatpay]

Never seen a sooty launch like that before.  Made my eyes go wide!

Yeah! I've never seen anything like that. Any word on what happened? Was it as dangerous as it looked?

[dglow]

Never seen a sooty launch like that before.  Made my eyes go wide!

Yeah... for a few seconds there it looked like Something Very Bad was taking place.

So relieved to have been deceived!

[starsilk]

Talulah Riley ‏@TalulahRiley  2m
Not sure what happened to main stage. Trying to confirm a visual, I think.

[pagheca]

as my (and a lot of foreigners subscribers, I guess) english is way from being perfect, I would appreciate if someone could publish here some data from the audio (timing, staging altitude, sepeed, etc.) and any other interesting comment during the ascent.

Thanks for sharing (and to Chris for the wonderful updates).
 

[TSomers]

Photos of the soot from NASA replays

[AJW]

Two observations.... I hadn't seen a plume shoot vertical during previous Falcon launches, it went nearly as high as the rocket itself.

Watching the NASA replays, there was also significant venting that appeared to be igniting outside the stage from some views.

[Pheogh]

Never seen a sooty launch like that before.  Made my eyes go wide!

Yeah! I've never seen anything like that. Any word on what happened? Was it as dangerous as it looked?

Almost looked like blowback from something in the flame trench?

[ArbitraryConstant]

Does the plume seem lopsided to anyone?

[Wetmelon]

Did it rain in Florida recently?  Could have just been dirty water in the trench.

[ClaytonBirchenough]

At T+ 8:25 "Still getting excellent video of the first-stage, having performed its entry burn..."

[Swatch]

Never seen a sooty launch like that before.  Made my eyes go wide!

Conjecture:  Rain+pools of water inside sooty flame trench+rocket thrust blasting upwards = sooty water deposition.

[Chris Bergin]

Guests back on. Mark is watching the servers. We did get hit by a huge peak. Site stayed up, but with an intermittent 502 and sluggish. Lasted two minutes until I managed to pull the guests, then all was fine again.

Blimey SpaceX, you popular!

[marshal]

any news about CubeSats ?