Falcon Heavy core booster lost at sea(techcrunch.com) |
Falcon Heavy core booster lost at sea(techcrunch.com) |
Regardless, it was absolutely wonderful to watch! I think the Youtube stream had 2,500,000 viewers at one point. I can’t wait for more footage of the launch the coming days.
Keep in mind that we got kicked off the backbone because we were using too much bandwidth and 'the internet wasn't made for video' (which is why we moved to Canada to begin with).
In this flight, the side boosters and center core were Blocks 3 and 4. So SpaceX definitely wants to recover the boosters, to perfect reusability, but they never intend to re-fly any of these boosters, so better to get back the one with the expensive and reusable titanium grid fins.
“Of Course I Still Love You” is the name of a spacecraft in The Culture, a series of novels that inspired Elon Musk when he was young.
Does anyone else think that they were overly quiet on the core booster landing on purpose, in order to minimise negative PR on the whole operation; or was it simply that they did not have enough information on what happened (seems slightly implausible to me)?
This all being said, what happened today was nothing short of magic.
SpaceX's biggest advantage is that they iterate quickly. Hopefully next iteration fixes whatever problem they had today. Those boosters aren't cheap.
The center core is a special structurally enhanced model, so I'll give them a pass since they're flying a new bird. I'm sure they'll get it right.
I hope they post a very high quality video of that booster having its unplanned disassembly. May not be great for PR, etc, but it sure would be entertaining.
This will be amazing.
Remember a few short years ago when humans always threw away the rocket after every trip?
That’s definitely not set-speak for ‘video feed’ but I wish it was.
Basically he said that 2 of the 3 engines didn't start up correctly, and caused the booster to hit the water at a few hundred miles per hour.
I'm guessing the dive into the water was purposely missing the barge when it detected the problem, as they have spoken about this capability in the past when they were first making attempts at landing the rockets.
He also said that as long as they have the footage, and it's cool looking, they will post it somewhere!
Which is very true. But it was clearly a move to divert away the audience from that last booster. Which is understandable. it'd be a shame if everyone focused on a lost booster when the everything else was nothing short of magic like you say ;)
Congrats spaceX, guys guys are magicians.
I think you're talking about John Insprucker: https://twitter.com/jinsprucker?lang=en
He's a senior engineer who was present for the whole cast. Look at it again.
That said I can't wait to see the video.
Doubt any thought of 'Public Relations' went through the minds of any of the presenting engineers. Clearing the launch tower was a massive achievement, everything else was a bonus. Loved seeing the engineers all beaming at the end with John joining in — away from a desk!
And considering that the core booster landing on the drone ship was a mere side benefit of the overall launch it was probably the best thing to do.
I'm a big fan of SpaceX and of Musk as well, but he's still winning even if he fesses up to the minor setbacks.
This should have been a 1-3-1 style landing burn where it lights up one engine, then 2 more to slow it down, then drops down to just 1 again at the end. In this case it sounds like the the outer 2 engines didn't start up right, so it came in way too hot.
They also have said that the center core of FH is basically a new design from the ground up, so it makes sense that they had some problems on it's first landing.
They have said in the past that it's "solveable", but it's not exactly a high priority by any means as they can always retrieve the footage when they get to the barge.
Why are rocket versions specified with the word "Block"? The Saturn launchers did the same thing, but it seems like a strange word to use.
I'm also a bit surprised the grid find are so pricey, they seem pretty small? Not that I really know how much titanium costs to buy and machine.
Either that or they were specially made castings, which are similarly expensive in low volume, if not more.
They both say Oh exactly at the moment when the smoke clears, meaning that they themselves are looking at the live feed while pretending it was lost.
Also the chances that Spacex doesn't have any other presence next to the droneship are zero. There in no reason for them to be beaming the data feed via a finicky satellite connection only.
Would you keep manned boats in the area where a rocket is coming down?