Water landing zone questions...

[freddo411]

SpaceX currently uses the Pacific ocean some hundreds of Km off shore for cargo landing.   Crew will be landing in the Atlantic.   Also, provisions have been made for landing in the Gulf of Mexico as a secondary option.

How accurate is landing from orbit?

How large of an area of water is required for the defined landing zone?   Would a large body of inland water (Great lake, Lake Tahoe) be reasonable?   

What other factors might affect water landing zone choices (overflight restrictions)?

[DigitalMan]

SpaceX currently uses the Pacific ocean some hundreds of Km off shore for cargo landing.   Crew will be landing in the Atlantic.   Also, provisions have been made for landing in the Gulf of Mexico as a secondary option.

How accurate is landing from orbit?

How large of an area of water is required for the defined landing zone?   Would a large body of inland water (Great lake, Lake Tahoe) be reasonable?   

What other factors might affect water landing zone choices (overflight restrictions)?

My understanding is so far Dragon landings have been accurate to less than 1Km.  I know in one instance they said 800 feet, but I haven't been following that very closely.

[Comga]

SpaceX currently uses the Pacific ocean some hundreds of Km off shore for cargo landing.   Crew will be landing in the Atlantic.   Also, provisions have been made for landing in the Gulf of Mexico as a secondary option.

How accurate is landing from orbit?

How large of an area of water is required for the defined landing zone?   Would a large body of inland water (Great lake, Lake Tahoe) be reasonable?   

What other factors might affect water landing zone choices (overflight restrictions)?

My understanding is so far Dragon landings have been accurate to less than 1Km.  I know in one instance they said 800 feet, but I haven't been following that very closely.

As far as I know, they have not released this information after the first few Dragon landings.
The first was, to my recollection, ~0.8 km from the target point.
(This is more than an order of magnitude less distance than the average Soyuz landing.)
The next few for which this data was published were of similar magnitudes.
(Digital man: Do you have a reference to that 250 meter / 800 ft value?)
As DigitalMan said, there is no reason to believe that this would get worse with practice.

[DigitalMan]

I thought I had heard that for one of the CRS landings but won’t take the time to dig it up.

Let’s assume it was mistaken and even .8Km is more than good enough, no?