SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 - Dragon - CRS-5/SpX-5 -Jan. 10, 2015 - DISCUSSION

[Mader Levap]

The engine has significantly more thrust than the weight of the stage - they cannot hover.

Huh?  If the vehicle has more thrust than weight, then it follows that it WOULD be able to hover.

Wrong. To hover, you have to have thrust that is EQUAL to weight. If you have MORE thrust than weight, you will go up. And what comes up (and not get to orbit) must go down. Hard.

Considering the "pieces" statement and Elon's penchant for understatement, I expect it was quite hard. If not hard enough to punch right through the deck plating.

Doubtful. I interpret "barge is fine" statement as "do not require months of repairs".

[cscott]

We saw quite a lot of the S2 LOX tank after Dragon sep.  I wonder if they were doing some S2 reuse experiments as well?

[dgates]

I wonder if we'll get to see video from the onboard camera.

Probably not a lot to see with it being dark and all.

[Mader Levap]

We saw quite a lot of the S2 LOX tank after Dragon sep.  I wonder if they were doing some S2 reuse experiments as well?

For me, it is more likely that they want to have data for better estimations of fuel left. In space, gauging fuel level is surprisingly hard problem.

[SoulWager]

We saw quite a lot of the S2 LOX tank after Dragon sep.  I wonder if they were doing some S2 reuse experiments as well?

probably not, they just left the stream on longer than normal due to the possibility of landing video.

[hrissan]

I wonder if we'll get to see video from the onboard camera.

Probably not a lot to see with it being dark and all.

The ship itself should be very bright at least from some altitude .

[mmeijeri]

The ship itself should be very bright at least from some altitude .

Musk said that darkness and fog meant the video they got wasn't very good. That shouldn't have been a problem with infrared cameras, so I hope someone asks about that at the press conference.

[meekGee]

Ok, next poll:  what pieces did they get?

Engines?
Thrust structure?
A primary tank?
2 square feet of skin?

Even one engine would be awesome.

[enkarha]

I feel the legs themselves would be more or less okay.

[gin455res]

I actually think that what they find out when they get the pieces home will be what determines whether they try for a landing on the next launch or not. Elon/Space X certainly isn't concerned about the money for rushing barge parts in to fix any damage, but if they think there was some error in the code that is supposed to land the first stage successfully they won't make another attempt until they think they've fixed the problem. r.

Telementry is IMO more likely to give a prompt answer.
The fact it's on the deck in bits is inarguable, nor is the speed it hit.
Telemetry can tell you why.

Wind of 30mph would lead to the stage needing to be canted about 15 degrees.
Fighting a crosswind on landing is - I think - new.

I thought it was 30kph, not that 20mph isn't pretty windy for something so fluffy.

[Raj2014]

What I want to know is what has Elon Musk got planned next? Congratulations to SpaceX for a successful launch and almost landing on the drone spaceport ship. Still an amazing achievement for getting that close to the drone spaceport ship.

[Semmel]

During ascend at around 1:45 into the flight, the launch radio said "Landing platform received aquisition signal" or something along that lines. What does that mean? Do they have a data link between the rocket and the ASDS? If so, what data are they transmitting?

[cambrianera]

Hitting the barge is an important accomplishment.

I would expect much more experience in hoverslams to be gained once F9R-D2 start to fly at Spaceport America, practicing high speed braking burns (Grasshopper and F9R-D1 braking burns were always low speed).

[mikes]

During ascend at around 1:45 into the flight, the launch radio said "Landing platform received aquisition signal" or something along that lines. What does that mean? Do they have a data link between the rocket and the ASDS? If so, what data are they transmitting?

Differential GPS?

[kevinof]

Fantastic achievement by Space X. Managing to impact the barge (aka drone ship) is great progress and I've no doubt they will get it right and nail it. Love that they are asking the questions and seeing if they can make it work..

Great flight and look forward to the next one.

[dsky]

Do we have any information about the sensors used for vertical landing guidance? Hitting hard could be a combination of bad timing in engine cutoff while the barge was drifting up or down due to long waves, as it is already being hinted.

I read something around about D-GPS "probably" being used, but that's good only for getting to the target, not to touch down lightly. Also determining the real-time space position of a point at sea is not easy, particularly in altitude.

Apologies if this has been discussed already. I tried a search but without success.

[eriblo]

The ship itself should be very bright at least from some altitude .

Musk said that darkness and fog meant the video they got wasn't very good. That shouldn't have been a problem with infrared cameras, so I hope someone asks about that at the press conference.

Do you mean thermal infrared? Because I 'm not sure that ordinary infrared would have helped much, it's still as dark, it will still see some fog and the stage would still be much brighter than anything else. I think the end result would be much the same, especially if what Elon was talking about was video shot from the ships ~10 miles away.

[CardBoardBoxProcessor]

did the press conference get cancelled?

[eriblo]

Yes: https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacex/2015/01/10/dragon-in-flight-post-launch-news-conference-canceled/

[Oersted]

I would expect much more experience in hoverslams to be gained once F9R-D2 start to fly at Spaceport America, practicing high speed braking burns (Grasshopper and F9R-D1 braking burns were always low speed).

If they had nailed this one effortlessly then the whole operation at Spaceport America would suddenly have looked a tiny bit superfluous...  :-)     (I know, not really, since it is useful for research and testing, but still..)