All four landing legs now mounted on Falcon 9 rocket being processed inside hanger at Cape Canaveral, FL for March 16 launch. Credit: SpaceX/Elon Musk
Posted on 02/26/2014 6:41:24 AM PST by BenLurkin
The next commercial SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that’s set to launch in March carrying an unmanned Dragon cargo vessel will also be equipped with a quartet of landing legs in a key test that will one day lead to cheaper, reusable boosters, announced Elon Musk, the company’s founder and CEO.
The attachment of landing legs to the first stage of SpaceX’s new and more powerful, next-generation Falcon 9 rocket counts as a major step towards the firm’s eventual goal of building a fully reusable rocket.
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SpaceX engineers will continue to develop and refine the technology need to accomplish a successful touchdown by the landing legs on solid ground back at the Cape in Florida.
Extensive work and testing remains before a land landing will be attempted by the company. “However, F9 will continue to land in the ocean until we prove precision control from hypersonic thru subsonic regimes,” Musk quickly added in a follow-up twitter message.
Ocean recovery teams will retrieve the 1st stage and haul it back to port much like the Space Shuttle’s pair of Solid Rocket Boosters.
This will be the second attempt at a water soft landing with the upgraded Falcon 9 booster.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
I hope they are smarter than NASA and put a parachute on them
Water landings are NOT that soft. I worked at a company that made the controls for the solid rocket booster then the first one that hit the water sheared it right of the nozzle
A simple parachute would have made a much softer landing
Whoa! Nice gams.
Where NASA screwed up on the shuttle was not separating cargo from humans.
Cargo needs only 95-99 percent reliability. Humans need 100% along with life support and all kinds of back up systems.
Eliminate the 100% threshold and the life support and the back up systems and creature comforts and you can ship cargo for about 1/50 the cost.
Then you send a small human container up and join with the cargo in space.
“A simple parachute would have made a much softer landing”
It takes 3 giant parachutes to land a simple apollo capsule.
I suspect that landing full sized rocket ship might be beyond the capabilities of a a parachute especially when the rocket is coming in at about 10,000 mph (can’t deploy a chute when above 6 miles because the air is too thin).
not sure what you are referring to
I know the solid rocket boosters were dropped into the ocean and often it left them broken
Since they were intended to be re-used, it seemed illogical NOT TO put a parachute on them to minimize any potential for damage
I think we have technology to put deployable wings on them and guide them back to a runway these days
Water landings are NOT that soft. I worked at a company that made the controls for the solid rocket booster then the first one that hit the water sheared it right of the nozzle
A simple parachute would have made a much softer landing
What are these?
The SRBs *did* have chutes.
http://spaceline.org/rocketsum/solid-rocket-boosters.html
[snip] The drogue parachute has a diameter of 54 feet, and is used to orient and stabilize the descent of each SRB to a tail-first attitude in preparation for the deployment of the main parachutes. About 248 seconds after SRB separation and at an altitude of about 6,000 feet, deployment of the main parachutes begins. Three main parachutes are deployed on each SRB. Each main parachute has a diameter of 136 feet. The main parachutes accompany each SRB to water impact, which occurs about 295 seconds after SRB separation at a speed of about 81 feet per second.
Well said!
Nice photo!
SRB chutes in action (at this time index)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HOsc7r7BiQ;t=112
On board view of a Space Shuttle SRB separation sequence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCv42yrGsg4;t=120
Full Ride on the Shuttle Boosters Natural SOUND STS-135
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkdH6hfMoZU
Three main parachutes are deployed on each SRB. Each main parachute has a diameter of 136 feet. The main parachutes accompany each SRB to water impact, which occurs about 295 seconds after SRB separation at a speed of about 81 feet per second.”
Each chute has a diameter about 1 and half times the length of a basketball court and 81 ft. per sec is about 55 mph.
These are 3 huge chutes and the rocket is still coming in at 55 mph.
Yeah, that wasn’t a bad velocity, although it’s too fast for skydivers. :’)
I stand corected~! (mulitple times)
I was just out of high school when i was working at a place that made the throttle control arms. The first one came back ripped like a piece of paper. Inc and a half thick metal was torn like nothing. It was kinda freaky to see
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