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The Official Space Exploration Thread
JediJman:
That's so cool. Looks like something out of a science fiction movie!
DSJ™:
That landing is amazing...
Why a barge vrs land... fuel & safty issues...
THE WHY AND HOW OF LANDING ROCKETS
So. Why Did SpaceX Land a Rocket on a Barge?
**** Elon Says - Transcript - SpaceX Press Conference September 29 2013s
--- Quote ---[Question on performance hit for attempting landing the first stage] We effectively lose, in terms of performance... It really depends on what we want to do with the stage if we were to do an ocean landing or a return to launch site landing. If we do an ocean landing, the performance hit is actually quite small at maybe in the order of 15%. If we do a return to launch site landing, it's probably double that, it's more like a 30% hit (i.e., 30% of payload lost).
As far as the safety aspect of the return to launch site of the first stage that's part of why we want to do it first in the ocean just to make sure that things will be fine. For any landing area that we would have, the landing ellipse, the sort of error that the stage could encounter would be an unpopulated region. So we would aim to have a landing site that's unpopulated with a radius of a couple of miles (which can be achieved in Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg).
--- End quote ---
Nicklab:
The safety issue is not insignificant, I will agree with that. Especially when you're deal with a rocket at speed with volatile fuel on board.
But it does seem that there can be an increase in risk variables with a sea landing, notably with the weather. Most carrier rated pilots say that landing at sea is a big challenge not just because of the small field of an aircraft carrier and the incredibly small target of the arresting wires. But also because the deck is subject to pitching and rolling based on the sea state (frequency and height of waves).
The rocket touchdown is probably much more like a helicopter landing since it's a vertical approach to a relatively static landing zone. But given the automated nature of the control systems for the drone ship as well as the rocket, is the guidance software really up to this sort of challenge on a regular basis?
Matt:
Hey, what time is the eclipse today?
Rob:
This was ******* amazing.
Full video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1791&v=wbSwFU6tY1c
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