SpaceX landing attempt 2/GoreSat to spread it's wings after 15 years in storage 18:10 local time (23 - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Alexak75;47122346]Oh wow, that shot of mission control... maybe I'm just caught up in all of the older-style ones from the movies and such but that's still amazing to see. [img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/rvKGOLZ.jpg[/img_thumb][/QUOTE] mission controls are rather interesting, NASA has the tiered ones with consoles and a big map, russia has a giant room with rows and rows of tables on one level, and best korea has a couple guys and a projector [t]http://www.changstar.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=211.0;attach=838;image[/t]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/YxcpsgT.jpg[/img]

[QUOTE=OvB;47124015]They're building pads back at Cape Canaveral: Also, there aren't many islands out there.[/QUOTE] It's awfully inefficient to have to devote fuel to stopping your velocity, turning around, and flying back to the Cape. But, yeah, the only real candidates are some of the Bahamas, and the tourists might not like getting buzzed by rocket boosters.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47124125]It's awfully inefficient to have to devote fuel to stopping your velocity, turning around, and flying back to the Cape. But, yeah, the only real candidates are some of the Bahamas, and the tourists might not like getting buzzed by rocket boosters.[/QUOTE] most rockets don't burn all their fuel anyways, and fuel accounts for 90% of a rockets weight, so for most missions, the tollerances permit it to be able to fly back. now they do have missions that won't permit such launches, but the idea is if you recover a booster once, reuse it and if its lost, its already paid for itself twice. also the rockets are pretty much on a very steep trajectory so nobody's being buzzed at all, actually funny enough today they announced that they now are refurbishing an old pad at canaveral's airforce station for landings, the condition though is they prove that the system can reliably land (hence the barge) before they'll allow a big firecracker to land on their expensive pad. its really a better alternative to what their promo stuff shows where they land back on 39A, this way its sort of a ways away [editline]11th February 2015[/editline] from elon musk's twitter page [quote]Rocket soft landed in the ocean within 10m of target & nicely vertical! High probability of good droneship landing in non-stormy weather.[/quote] well, they have another launch in march to try it again

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47124125]It's awfully inefficient to have to devote fuel to stopping your velocity, turning around, and flying back to the Cape. But, yeah, the only real candidates are some of the Bahamas, and the tourists might not like getting buzzed by rocket boosters.[/QUOTE] You're completely right. It would be much better for them to discard the whole rocket each launch than to [i]waste[/i] a small portion of their fuel, the total of which accounts for under 0.4% the cost of the entire rocket. What were SpaceX thinking?

[QUOTE=Sableye;47124162]well, they have another launch in march to try it again[/QUOTE] Next flight on 27/28th won't have legs because it's launching two satellites to geostationary orbits. Heavy load. It's one of those cases where return is not possible. Flight after that probably won't have legs either. Next opportunity for a landing is CRS-6 in April.

[QUOTE=OvB;47124271]Next flight on 27/28th won't have legs because it's launching two satellites to geostationary orbits. Heavy load. It's one of those cases where return is not possible. Flight after that probably won't have legs either. Next opportunity for a landing is CRS-6 in April.[/QUOTE] ya i was thinking they had a dragon launch coming up in mid march

[QUOTE=ultradude25;47124219]You're completely right. It would be much better for them to discard the whole rocket each launch than to [i]waste[/i] a small portion of their fuel, the total of which accounts for under 0.4% the cost of the entire rocket. What were SpaceX thinking?[/QUOTE] I think Used Car Salesman is getting too much flak for that comment. While it may be feasible to fly back the first stage/side boosters, I have no idea how SpaceX plans to fly the Heavy's center core back to Canaveral. It seems like that would take a huge amount of fuel, given how far downrange it would be at stagesep. Seems to me that the barge would be the wise choice for that core, but maybe flying back isn't as hard as it seems...

[QUOTE=FunnyBunny;47124310]I think Used Car Salesman is getting too much flak for that comment. While it may be feasible to fly back the first stage/side boosters, I have no idea how SpaceX plans to fly the Heavy's center core back to Canaveral. It seems like that would take a huge amount of fuel, given how far downrange it would be at stagesep. Seems to me that the barge would be the wise choice for that core, but maybe flying back isn't as hard as it seems...[/QUOTE] Depends on the mass/destination of the payload. For big ones they might be able to only recover the boosters and lose the main core. There's a variety of options and I think they're going to keep the barge around for just that situation, but it's designed to be able to return to launch site.

Elon wants to upgrade the barge, to handle more weather conditions. [url]https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/565637505811488768[/url] They landed in the ocean within 10 meters of target, with 35-40mph winds. [url]https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/565659578915115011[/url]

[QUOTE=FunnyBunny;47124310]I think Used Car Salesman is getting too much flak for that comment. While it may be feasible to fly back the first stage/side boosters, I have no idea how SpaceX plans to fly the Heavy's center core back to Canaveral. It seems like that would take a huge amount of fuel, given how far downrange it would be at stagesep. Seems to me that the barge would be the wise choice for that core, but maybe flying back isn't as hard as it seems...[/QUOTE] the heavy will be the first rocket ever to crossfeed, so the core stage won't actually use up its own fuel until the side boosters eject, plus it'll probably just do a go-around orbit

[QUOTE=OvB;47124338]Depends on the mass/destination of the payload. For big ones they might be able to only recover the boosters and lose the main core. There's a variety of options and I think they're going to keep the barge around for just that situation, but it's designed to be able to return to launch site.[/QUOTE] When they finally start launching out of Boca Chica I think it would be cool as shit if they could land the stages in Florida. But I don't think anyone could get authorization to fly over a such a populated area.