Wow! SpaceX Nails Rocket Landing At Sea Again

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: space.com
For the second time in less than a month, SpaceX has landed the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on a ship at sea.

Chants of "USA! USA! USA!" erupted at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California as the Falcon 9 stuck its landing on the ship, which was stationed about 200 miles (320 kilometers) offshore in the Atlantic Ocean.


Quote:
In December, SpaceX brought a Falcon 9 back to Earth on terra firma at Cape Canaveral during the launch of 11 satellites for SpaceX customer Orbcomm, marking the first soft touchdown ever achieved during an orbital liftoff. (SpaceX would prefer to bring all of its rockets down on land, but boosters on some missions cannot carry enough fuel to make it all the back to their launch site, which is why the company is practicing ocean landings.)


Quote:
SpaceX also pulled off a landing on "Of Course I Still Love You" last month, during the successful launch of SpaceX's robotic Dragon cargo capsule toward the International Space Station. But the company wasn't expecting success on Friday morning, because the two-stage Falcon 9 had to send JCSAT-14 to a much more distant geostationary transfer orbit (GTO).


"Given this mission's GTO destination, the first stage will be subject to extreme velocities and re-entry heating, making a successful landing unlikely," SpaceX representatives wrote in a description of the JCSAT-14 mission.


Quote:
These landings are part of SpaceX's effort to develop launch systems that are completely and rapidly reusable — technology that Musk has said could cut the cost of spaceflight by a factor of 100. Such price reductions could revolutionize spaceflight, perhaps making Mars colonization economically feasible, according to Musk.

Indeed, SpaceX aims to refly the first stage that landed last month — and, presumably, the one that touched down Friday morning as well. (The booster that landed in December will be displayed at SpaceX headquarters.)


http://www.space.com/32811-spacex-rocket-landing-jcsat-14-launch.html


Originally Posted By: wired.com
SpaceX has landed a freaking rocket on a robot boat in the dark.

Defying its own predictions, the Hawthorne-based commercial spaceflight company has safely brought a Falcon 9 from the edge of space—where it was traveling at nearly six times the speed of sound—to a stationary platform floating several hundred miles off the coast of Florida. Safe and sound.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was skeptical this was possible, because the rocket’s payload, a communications satellite, was heading to an orbital altitude of 22,300 miles. Which means the rocket would be coming home very, very hot. “It wants to melt,” he said at an earlier press event. Just before launch, he put the odds of a successful landing at “maybe even.”


Quote:
It’s okay to get excited. In fact, it’s not okay to not get excited. This is amazing. But…but. SpaceX is probably going to fail eventually. Which is cool. Failure is a necessary prerequisite for success. Especially when you’re talking about space. Especially when you’re trying to land rockets on freaking barges in the middle of the night.

Oh yeah, one more thing: The Falcon 9’s payload—a Japanese communications satellite—is making its way to orbit just fine. Mission accomplished, times two.


http://www.wired.com/2016/05/spacex-landed-freaking-rocket-robot-boat-dark

Looks like whatever helps/assists that NASA provided SpaceX some years ago are paying off now and in future. The next importance milestone is bring astronauts to international space station and back to earth, probably in 2017-2018.

SpaceX probably will charge NASA(and USAF) less in future rocket launches since they can reuse their main rocket now.

Perfect landing at center of the barge

 

[raytseng]

What's actually cool is the official hosted webcasts ( on YouTube) are really accessible, modern, and fun.

They spent a lot of effort to outreach to the public, and produce them from a fan or sports perspective with hosts and the employees cheering; and not as dry and clinical say nasa tv.

Perhaps it's self-serving pr to keep ahead of the elon musk haters but it's still a public good that they spent the effort to share.
.
It really gives you a sense we are living in the future and participating in the shared excitement that they are having

last mission JCSAT-14 Landing at 29min mark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0bMeDj76ig

previous mission CRS-8: landing at 26 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pUAydjne5M

 

[OneEyeJack]

It appears that mars is getting closer.

 

[GumbyJarvis]

I am just awaiting the SpaceX/Tesla crossover where I have a SpaceX Model S that can do what George Jetsons car can do.



Instead, I will listen to my Walkman Cassette Player and play my Game Boy Color

 

[GumbyJarvis]

I kid though. I know a guy who was prior military and got stuck as a tanker with a technical score of 129 and an overall ASVAB score of 97. Anywho, got busted smoking something post deployment and now makes 6 figures a year at SpaceX.

I envision SpaceX to be a bunch of "JD" from "Grandmas Boy" style nerds, that smoke a lot of stuff.

But heck, if they can get to mars, good on them

 

[HTSS_TR]

I think US Government should dump "United Launch Alliance (ULA) a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense, Space & Security"

No need to pay $300M plus per launch they are charging, also stop paying $1B a year to them for doing nothing. Why pay a lot of money to use Russian rocket's engine instead of a lot less with American engine ?

NASA and USAF should have bidding contest for every launch, after all bidders are qualified.

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
I think US Government should dump "United Launch Alliance (ULA) a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense, Space & Security"

No need to pay $300M plus per launch they are charging, also stop paying $1B a year to them for doing nothing.

NASA and USAF should have bidding contest for every launch, after all bidders are qualified.


Good idea.

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: raytseng
It really gives you a sense we are living in the future and participating in the shared excitement that they are having

last mission JCSAT-14 Landing at 29min mark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0bMeDj76ig

Watching this video when the rocket landed at 29 minute mark did give me a goose pump. I repeat this minute many times and still in awe.

Note: The 3 kids on the left screen didn't go banana is amazing too. I would go nut at the second the rocket landed successfully.

 

[CT8]

Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
I think US Government should dump "United Launch Alliance (ULA) a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense, Space & Security"

No need to pay $300M plus per launch they are charging, also stop paying $1B a year to them for doing nothing. Why pay a lot of money to use Russian rocket's engine instead of a lot less with American engine ?

NASA and USAF should have bidding contest for every launch, after all bidders are qualified.
Lots of lobby money being spread around by those that want the lucrative contracts.

 

[raytseng]

Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
Originally Posted By: raytseng
It really gives you a sense we are living in the future and participating in the shared excitement that they are having

last mission JCSAT-14 Landing at 29min mark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0bMeDj76ig

Watching this video when the rocket landed at 29 minute mark did give me a goose pump. I repeat this minute many times and still in awe.

Note: The 3 kids on the left screen didn't go banana is amazing too. I would go nut at the second the rocket landed successfully.



LOL, yea there's a second there from the camera exposure and autobrightness that everyone thought it failed before it came back into view and they see it landed, which was definitely a yo-yo of emotions and you do here a little yelp of Oh! from the hostess and uncontrolled laughs of happiness from the non-speaking host .

But gets back to my point that they've spending a good effor to produce the hosted webcast.

They have decent hosting skills although still amateur, they not absolute garbage so most likely had some public speaking coaching/classes and weren't just being thrown in front of the camera blindly; yet are still real employees and not just professionally hired actors. Plus a space company has a culture to try to think of everything and not just wing it. So they would've have prepped for the main possible outcomes. I can definitely guess they've gone through dress rehersals and covered both if it succeeds what are you going to say. If it crashes and burns what are you going to say.

Now if something completely insane happened, like aliens showed up, that's where we're all in the same boat and we'd see the truly unscripted unprepared human side.

 

[UncleDave]

Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
I think US Government should dump "United Launch Alliance (ULA) a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense, Space & Security"

No need to pay $300M plus per launch they are charging, also stop paying $1B a year to them for doing nothing. Why pay a lot of money to use Russian rocket's engine instead of a lot less with American engine ?

NASA and USAF should have bidding contest for every launch, after all bidders are qualified.


Not that simple.

Falcon doesn't yet have the lifting capacity of the delta's, nor the demonstrated reliability of the Atlas/Rd-180

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2016.html#stats

Falcons 1 kaboom put it way down the list.

If you Blow up one multi billion dollar satellite much of the savings vanish.

SPaceX is getting there- the falcon is awesome on 2 fronts, redundancy in engines, and booster recovery - it needs more flights and more lifting power before putting the other guys totally out of business .

 

[SteveSRT8]

One day we will look back at the privatization of space travel and realize it was a new dawn for humanity...

 

[MrHorspwer]

Originally Posted By: UncleDave
Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
I think US Government should dump "United Launch Alliance (ULA) a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense, Space & Security"

No need to pay $300M plus per launch they are charging, also stop paying $1B a year to them for doing nothing. Why pay a lot of money to use Russian rocket's engine instead of a lot less with American engine ?

NASA and USAF should have bidding contest for every launch, after all bidders are qualified.


Not that simple.

Falcon doesn't yet have the lifting capacity of the delta's, nor the demonstrated reliability of the Atlas/Rd-180

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2016.html#stats

Falcons 1 kaboom put it way down the list.

If you Blow up one multi billion dollar satellite much of the savings vanish.

SPaceX is getting there- the falcon is awesome on 2 fronts, redundancy in engines, and booster recovery - it needs more flights and more lifting power before putting the other guys totally out of business .


Spot on reply.

The correct answer: Space X isn't there yet.

The Atlas is the gold standard in launch vehicle reliability. Since 2002, it has maintained 100% mission success. That's more than 60 missions.

Space X has had 24 launches of Falcon, with 2 failures to get a payload into orbit. That's not bad though. Statistically, this is what is expected in a new launch vehicle. Falcon appears to be on track to become a very successful launch vehicle, it's just not there yet.

The $1 billion ULA receives for "doing nothing" amounts to an insurance policy, an incredibly important insurance policy should the worst happen. ULA maintains completely launch vehicle readiness. If an unfriendly were to have the capability to disable or destroy a military satellite, ULA is prepared to launch with no delay. Nobody else has that capability and nobody else has the launch reliability in such a critical scenario. Space X isn't in a financial or operational position to maintain the type of readiness support ULA can provide. In fact nobody can, which is why ULA is doing it at such a huge cost. Maybe in the future, Space X (or someone else) can challenge that position. Maybe nobody else wants to bother with the hassle?

Saying that Space X should usurp ULA after 22 successful launches, 2 failures, and 2 successful recoveries on a barge shows your extreme and unwavering bias to the cult of Musk.

Having more active, healthy, and successful players in the launch game, be it ULA, Space X, or Orbital ATK, is good for people who want to put things into space.

 

[raytseng]

Well that being said, seems like they got a pretty good schedule of upcoming launch missions so plenty of clients willing to be the guinea pigs of the "not there yet company" in exchange for the savings.

So the "there" is getting closer launch by launch.

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
I think US Government should dump "United Launch Alliance (ULA) a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense, Space & Security"

No need to pay $300M plus per launch they are charging, also stop paying $1B a year to them for doing nothing. Why pay a lot of money to use Russian rocket's engine instead of a lot less with American engine ?

NASA and USAF should have bidding contest for every launch, after all bidders are qualified.

Originally Posted By: UncleDave
Not that simple.

Falcon doesn't yet have the lifting capacity of the delta's, nor the demonstrated reliability of the Atlas/Rd-180

Originally Posted By: MrHorspwer
Spot on reply.

The correct answer: Space X isn't there yet.

The Atlas is the gold standard in launch vehicle reliability. Since 2002, it has maintained 100% mission success. That's more than 60 missions.

Space X has had 24 launches of Falcon, with 2 failures to get a payload into orbit. That's not bad though. Statistically, this is what is expected in a new launch vehicle. Falcon appears to be on track to become a very successful launch vehicle, it's just not there yet.

The $1 billion ULA receives for "doing nothing" amounts to an insurance policy, an incredibly important insurance policy should the worst happen. ULA maintains completely launch vehicle readiness. If an unfriendly were to have the capability to disable or destroy a military satellite, ULA is prepared to launch with no delay. Nobody else has that capability and nobody else has the launch reliability in such a critical scenario. Space X isn't in a financial or operational position to maintain the type of readiness support ULA can provide. In fact nobody can, which is why ULA is doing it at such a huge cost. Maybe in the future, Space X (or someone else) can challenge that position. Maybe nobody else wants to bother with the hassle?

Saying that Space X should usurp ULA after 22 successful launches, 2 failures, and 2 successful recoveries on a barge shows your extreme and unwavering bias to the cult of Musk.

Having more active, healthy, and successful players in the launch game, be it ULA, Space X, or Orbital ATK, is good for people who want to put things into space.

I said "NASA and USAF should have bidding contest for every launch, after all bidders are qualified."

I didn't say dump ULA and give Space-X all future contracts.

Question for you guys, why ULA was formed by Lockheed Martin and Boeing some years ago ? How many launches that NASA and USAF gave to someone else the last 10 years ?

It is clearly that Lockheed Martin and Boeing don't want to compete to each other, they started a new company years ago to share the loot they would get from government. They didn't even try to design the engines for their rockets, they just bought old Russian engines.

As everything else, if a company is monopolize a product they would never try to reduce cost, especially defense contractors with "Cost Plus" contracts, they would inflate the cost to get better profit.

Now, we have more than 1 company qualified to launch a rocket into space, there is no reason to not start bidding for space launches. Personally, I like to have some restrictions such as major components must be made in USA, not import from China or Russia.

Last week USAF contracted Space-X to launch a satellite at $82.7M, ULA didn't bid on this launch and they started to lay off few hundreds. USAF stated that they save 40% with Space-X.

The era of monopoly space flight is over. ULA's easy time of the last 10 years is over, they need to change the way to do business and it is happening now as they are laying off redundant people they had for so many years.

 

[UncleDave]

I dont think Spacex has reused yet.

What reliability will 2nd and 3rd refuse scenarios display?

I'm delighted to see Spacex's progress, but the record is what it is, and well see how they stack up to not only the big boys but competing governments.

They are poised to become the most successful vendor in the sector and I believe we will see others will scramble to develop similar capability. Im rooting for them.

Lots of unanswered question still -

Since reuse of booster is the major economic advantage-

1. How reliable are 2nd and 3rd use scenarios on the Merlin/ or super draco?
Rocket engines are fairly tough on parts...

2. How much time and money to refurb for next mission - eager to not see a repeat of the space shuttle which was horrendously expensive to reuse.

3. How will the insurance industry feel about 2nd and 3rd use scenarios? (large cost variability)

4. When will the Falcom Heavy variant actually deliver?

Good problems to have Regardless SpaceX is in the catbirds seat today for most commercial needs.

UD

 

[HTSS_TR]

Landing a first stage rocket on a barge in the ocean is not an easy task, so far only Space-X tried it and after some failures they did success 2 landings in a row, especially the last one was coming back to earth at much faster speed than they think it could land safely.

If Space-X can do this difficult job they certainly can do others that required by NASA and USAF.

My main point is competition does bring out the best of all competitors. I hope they cut the fat but not the quality.

Quote:
ULA is responding to competition from SpaceX and other startup ventures by slashing costs and overhauling its lineup of rockets. The venture is upgrading its workhorse Atlas 5 rocket, cutting launch prices to less than $100 million per flight, and dropping its costly Delta 4 rocket line, ULA executives have said.

The Colorado-based firm plans to eliminate 875 jobs, or about one-quarter of its workforce, before the end of 2017, so it can better compete against SpaceX and other rivals, including the Jeff Bezos-backed Blue Origin, ULA Chief Executive Tory Bruno told Reuters in recent interviews.


http://fortune.com/2016/04/28/spacex-air-force-ula-rocket/

 

[Nate1979]

Competition is good. Space X is the second to land a rocket and is also working on a heavy version but first test flight doesnt look to be until late this year. They are a long way from fulfilling all capability (I saw one figure as capable of launching 60% of flights). But still anything less than 100% and they are a long way from eliminating ULA.

 

[MrHorspwer]

Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
Personally, I like to have some restrictions such as major components must be made in USA, not import from China or Russia.


This is exactly what Elon Musk thinks too!

Elon likes this idea so much that he bought himself a senator (one who happened to sit on and now chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee) to further the idea.

I find it curious that from one side of your mouth, you talk about healthy competition being good for industry, and from the other side you support a play that effectivly removes the largest player in that industry and creates ANOTHER monopoly... except this time, it's a monopoly for the guy you like and then it's ok.

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
Personally, I like to have some restrictions such as major components must be made in USA, not import from China or Russia.

Originally Posted By: MrHorspwer
This is exactly what Elon Musk thinks too!

Elon likes this idea so much that he bought himself a senator (one who happened to sit on and now chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee) to further the idea.

I find it curious that from one side of your mouth, you talk about healthy competition being good for industry, and from the other side you support a play that effectively removes the largest player in that industry and creates ANOTHER monopoly... except this time, it's a monopoly for the guy you like and then it's ok.

Why Space-X can design/engineer/produce engines for its rockets but the much more experienced companies such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing can't ? If they can't why don't they contract GE to design/engineer the engines they need ?

Something as critical as rocket's engines should be designed/engineered in-house, not buying it from potential enemies. We(posters on this board) hate outsourcing manufacturing jobs to Mexico and oversea from private companies, but it is okay with you to outsourcing the rocket's engines to Russia ?

Why didn't Boeing compete with Lockheed Martin but they combined force(ULA) to loot American tax payers for more than 10 years ? Do you have answer for this ?