SpaceX Falcon 9 : Iridium NEXT Flight 2 (June 25, 2017) : Discussion

[fatdeeman]

Watched the landing a few times, looks to me like the engine cut out a bit above the deck and there was a short drop for the stage to land, with a bit of a bounce. Didn't seem too violent though. EDIT: As above....

My thoughts too, which is why I said it still amazes me they can pull it off when the barge is moving so much. You could see it was moving a lot from the static camera shot post landing.

[IdeallyNotOnImpact]

Long time lurker, something I haven't noticed until last two launches on S2, anyone know what the white mass accreting at the top of the bell is?

Almost definitely oxygen ice.

Thanks!

[Jeff Lerner]

Didn't see any sparkling from the new grid fins....new materials held up better.....??

[Surfdaddy]

How long before we get the first 3x flown booster?!

[rpapo]

Didn't see any sparkling from the new grid fins....new materials held up better.....??

And not as much buildup on the camera lens either.  The buildup before was perhaps from the SPAM on the grid fins?

[fatdeeman]

Great landing! Still amazes me they can pull it off with such a mobile target.

Also, is it just me or has there never been a loss during reentry, only landing?

I think every landing attempt has landed, some just fell over afterwards

Which is incredibly impressive when you consider that the reentry and landing is the brand new part that nobody had done before and is universally considered the most perilous and challenging aspect.

[Kaputnik]

Is it just me, or was the boostback burn... invisible?
Also, those are some impressive bow waves being thrown up by JRTI. Wouldn't fancy being out there today!

[Herb Schaltegger]

Didn't see any sparkling from the new grid fins....new materials held up better.....??

New materials definitely didn't ablate away and smoosh up the camera lens, or glow fiery hot that's for sure. But also, this is a lower-mass payload and lower-energy trajectory; I want to see how they hold up to a GTO mission re-entry.

[StuffOfInterest]

Very nice. New fins took re-entry like a champ.

I wonder if the new fins contributed to the onboard camera not getting covered during reentry?  I always thought it was engine soot blowing back on the camera but maybe some of it was the ablative coating from the old grid fins.  Camera gave a nice clean view all the way down this time.

Edit: Ninjad by Herb on the soot.

[Mongo62]

Nothing negative about John, but I miss Kate, Lauren and the technical webcast..

I enjoyed John having a full webcast to himself, he had been getting increasingly sidelined in recent webcasts. It's nice to see the "old hands" at work again.

[fatdeeman]

Is it just me, or was the boostback burn... invisible?
Also, those are some impressive bow waves being thrown up by JRTI. Wouldn't fancy being out there today!

I saw a little bit of a plume at one point.

[M.E.T.]

Don't know if it makes a difference, but the commentator said MECO should have occurred at 2m24s, but according to the clock it seemed to only occur at 2m25s. Could that account for the 1 second early engine cut-off during the landing burn?

[John.bender]

I didn't think there was a boost back burn as they are landing on the drone.

[yokem55]

Great landing! Still amazes me they can pull it off with such a mobile target.

Also, is it just me or has there never been a loss during reentry, only landing?

I think every landing attempt has landed, some just fell over afterwards

SES-9 kinda falcon punched the deck at high velocity.

[gongora]

I didn't think there was a boost back burn as they are landing on the drone.

Said they moved the drone ship a little because of weather at landing site.

[ThereIWas3]

I didn't think there was a boost back burn as they are landing on the drone.

They had to boost back just to make it to the ship.  There definately was a boostback burn - it was listed in the timeline across the bottom of the screen, and it was announced.

[rpapo]

I didn't think there was a boost back burn as they are landing on the drone.

They had to boost back just to make it to the ship.  There definately was a boostback burn - it was listed in the timeline across the bottom of the screen, and it was announced.

I saw it.  Up there in space it was rather wispy, though, and none of it got blown back towards the camera.

[VIY]

At some point the narator mentioned a ship close the ASDS violating the range in the morning, but was cleared. Would they delay the launch if the ASDS range is violated, or continue with the launch, but skip the landing? Or   it would depend on how critical the timing of the launch is?

[StuffOfInterest]

I didn't think there was a boost back burn as they are landing on the drone.

Said they moved the drone ship a little because of weather at landing site.

I wonder if they are able to recalculate the flight profile for a new landing site on the fly or if they have several locations already calculated and just move to a pre-determined backup location if there are issues at the primary site?

[HVM]

I just checked Iridium-1 and no glowing fins there either. So we need to wait GTO mission for that.