ChiefsPlanet - Science Space Exploration megathread

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Space Exploration megathread (https://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=284057)

<blockquote class="twitter-video" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Replay of the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Falcon9?src=hash">#Falcon9</a> first stage landing on "Of Course I Still Love You"<br><br>Dragon is in orbit. <a href="https://t.co/Y8kWgeS0fq">pic.twitter.com/Y8kWgeS0fq</a></p>— Trevor Mahlmann☄ (@TrevorMahlmann) <a href="https://twitter.com/TrevorMahlmann/status/718543149791055873">April 8, 2016</a></blockquote>
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That's ****ing awesome!

Is it my imagination, our does the rocket have a slight lean to it on the barge?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Donger (Post 12169456)

Is it my imagination, our does the rocket have a slight lean to it on the barge?

I think the barge itself is rocking all over the place. It's certainly possible that the big ass rocket landing on it caused it to dip on that side, though. :)

In the shots they showed of it from the barge itself a minute or so later, it looks perfectly solid.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaFace (Post 12169462)

It sure looks like it bounced and then leaned. So maybe a damaged foot.

That was so awesome. Emotional too.

34:19 you can see the RCS firing right above the women hosts head. Real cool:

<iframe width="854" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7pUAydjne5M" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cool!

Random dump of points made by Elon in the post-launch press conference...

Quote:

Mousetronauts doing well!
Half of missions will need to land out to sea due to technical reasons
Elon: "Press should educate public on difference between space vs orbit"
Koenigsmann: "Dragon healthy, all thrusters fired, comms working"
Next step is opening of the GNC door, will happen in about 2 hours and 15 minutes, followed by orbital adjustment burns tomorrow morning.
Question about whether booster will be reused Likely this booster will be reflown, will arrived in port on Sunday, series of test fires at the Cape, fire 10 times in a row, if that looks good, that will qualify it for reuse and launch in June! Eventually would like to reuse them in a few weeks.
Thought 2-1 chance it would land, if it did fail, would fail for a new reason. "Still quite tricky" to land on a ship.
Would reflight be paying customer? think it will be
vague question abut future of spaceflight "another step towards the stars", with a huge impact on cost. "Few years to make that smooth and efficient". Proven that it can work, with failures in future. Want to make it routine.
Would like to be able to just wash rocket and refly
Where is F9-021? Hopefully will be displayed outside Hawthorne HQ in next few months
What was the highest altitude and velocity this booster reached? "I don't actually know!". Could've bought it back to land, wanted to do a ship landing with lots of margin. Low margin return to land vs high margin to ship.
Maximum transfer velocity of F9 is to accelerate 120 tons to 9000-10000 km/h
Barge is better called a ship
What is the maximum tilt the rocket can handle? 2-3 degree pitch and roll today, maximum is about double-triple that (8-9 degrees) limit, that'd be intense seas.
Ship holds to absolute GPS position with accuracy below a meter
headcount + launch rate will continue to grow, Q3 2016 one launch every 2-3 weeks.
Welded shoes are still go! "Potentially some heavy winds coming in"
"Not certain if initial destination is Port Canaveral"
Bring it into port, they can put a cap on the top of the rocket, pick it up with a crane and move it to land onto a stand. Fold legs up, crane rotates it horizontal, brings it back to 39A, then 10 test fires. Then comfortable with an orbital flight.
Horizontal velocity cannot be emphasized enough. "Could conceivably put a huge weight on top of the boost stage, but there's no point doing that"
"Basically impossible to do these tests on land"
"I have a confession to make: I did hug Hans", still a lot of work ahead, making the landing and reflight easy is hard. Rapid + complete reusability needed for cost effectiveness.
Question about FH "Should've been called the Falcon 27", high pucker factor, amazing payload capabilities, heavy payloads that can currently only be flown by Ariane.
50/50 ground/ocean. As performance is refined, in the long run 1/3 or 1/4 on barge. Next land landing is about 3 months away. JC-SAT for ocean landing. Third mission from now will be land landing. Tough to stick landings, really hot.
How many times can you reuse a used first stage? No meaningful limit, up to 1000 missions. "10-20 missions", minor refurbishment "100 missions"
Forsee any competing launch providers? Musk hopeful other providers will embrace reusability. 100 fold marginal cost reduction.
"What can top the experience you had today?" Getting to orbit to the first time was the best one. Falcon 1 was most profound.
"We'll be successful when it becomes boring"
Fairing reuse mentioned! Several million dollars each!
Falcon Heavy will be quite exciting.
World's cringiest question, no useful information.
End of conference!

Props to Echologic on reddit for the summary.

They're aiming for a re-launch in June. That'd be fun. :)

Whoa.

<blockquote class="twitter-video" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Onboard view of landing in high winds <a href="https://t.co/FedRzjYYyQ">pic.twitter.com/FedRzjYYyQ</a></p>— SpaceX (@SpaceX) <a href="https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/718605741288894464">April 9, 2016</a></blockquote>
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HD (4K if you can do it) version of the landing from the chase plane. It definitely hops a bit there right when it lands.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by DaFace (Post 12170369)

This is just one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Ever. I don't even know.

Would love to see video of the barge coming into port if anyone finds any! Think it is supposed to come in tomorrow?

Can't wait to see it fly again this summer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by unlurking (Post 12170751)

Yep, sometime this morning I believe. I'll keep an eye out for media and post it if it comes in. I'm sure we'll get pictures if nothing else. They did post this one of it on the way back at least.

<blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-version="6" style=" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:658px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);"><div style="padding:8px;"> <div style=" background:#F8F8F8; line-height:0; margin-top:40px; padding:37.2817955112% 0; text-align:center; width:100%;"> <div style=" background:url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAACwAAAAsCAMAAAApWqozAAAAGFBMVEUiIiI9PT0eHh4gIB4hIBkcHBwcHBwcHBydr +JQAAAACHRSTlMABA4YHyQsM5jtaMwAAADfSURBVDjL7ZVBEgMhCAQBAf//42xcNbpAqakcM0ftUmFAAIBE81IqBJdS3lS6zs3bIpB9WED3YYXFPmHRfT8sgyrCP1x8uEUxLMzNWElFOYCV6mHWWwMzdPEKHlhL w7NWJqkHc4uIZphavDzA2JPzUDsBZziNae2S6owH8xPmX8G7zzgKEOPUoYHvGz1TBCxMkd3kwNVbU0gKHkx+iZILf77IofhrY1nY FnB/lQPb79drWOyJVa/DAvg9B/rLB4cC+Nqgdz/TvBbBnr6GBReqn/nRmDgaQEej7WhonozjF+Y2I/fZou/qAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); display:block; height:44px; margin:0 auto -44px; position:relative; top:-22px; width:44px;"></div></div> <p style=" margin:8px 0 0 0; padding:0 4px;"> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BD_4mrtl8RT/" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">Coming back</a></p> <p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A photo posted by SpaceX (@spacex) on <time style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;" datetime="2016-04-09T23:37:12+00:00">Apr 9, 2016 at 4:37pm PDT</time></p></div></blockquote>
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In the meantime, not that it's anywhere near as tricky as the launch itself (let alone landing), but Dragon is officially captured by ISS. Complete mission success (pending a successful return in a few weeks).

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Capture confirmed! Dragon now attached to the <a href="https://twitter.com/Space_Station">@Space_Station</a> robotic arm <a href="https://t.co/lud5bGxzt9">pic.twitter.com/lud5bGxzt9</a></p>— SpaceX (@SpaceX) <a href="https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/719124940348203008">April 10, 2016</a></blockquote>
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While we wait on some pics of the booster coming back, would you guys mind giving me some feedback on this thread itself? I enjoy having a place to chat about this stuff, but I'm well aware that about 1/3rd of the posts in here are mine. I don't have a problem with that since I'm doing a lot of posting from around the interwebs, but I don't want to go so crazy with it that it's annoying to have the thread bumped all the time with boring info either.

So if you would, let me know what you think. I'll add a poll just to give me some concrete numbers, but just generally let me know if you think the level of content I post in here should be 1) slowed down a bit, 2) kept about the same, or 3) dive even more into the minutiae into things like launch schedules, press conferences, etc.

Oh, and thanks to those who have let me know they enjoy keeping up with this stuff privately. I know there are at least a few - I just want to gauge interest from others. :)

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EDIT TO ADD: I could also be convinced to re-brand this as the "Space Megathread" and talk about other cool space shit, but I don't want to overlap with Fish's science thread too much either.