Posted on 01/13/2015 10:41:30 AM PST by Vince Ferrer
SpaceX’s ocean-going rocket landing pad — dubbed the autonomous spaceport drone ship — is back in port after a Falcon 9 rocket booster crashed on the platform during an experimental flyback maneuver following Saturday’s successful liftoff with supplies for the International Space Station.
Under tow from a tugboat, the 300-foot-long Marmac 300 cargo barge arrived at the Port of Jacksonville in Florida on Sunday afternoon. The images below show it in the St. Johns River near Dames Point Bridge.
The first stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket completed a series of maneuvers to fly back to the barge from the edge of space after sending a Dragon supply ship on its way to the International Space Station. The mission lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 4:47 a.m. EST (0947 GMT) Saturday, with landing on the barge targeted less than 10 minutes later.
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk tweeted the first stage booster reached the platform but landed hard, adding later that hydraulic fluid powering the rocket’s four aerodynamic stabilization fins apparently ran out on final descent.
Engineers plan to add more hydraulic fluid to the rocket for an upcoming launch, which will try to perform the recovery experiment again. If SpaceX succeeds, engineers will inspect the rocket to see what work is required to refurbish for another flight. The ultimate goal is to make the Falcon 9 rocket reusable, an achievement SpaceX says would reduce the cost of space launches.
Photos of the barge show signs of blast and burn damage to cargo containers and possible wreckage from the rocket covered by tarps on the platform’s deck. The rest of the vessel appeared undamaged.
It was a really good try!
I look forward to seeing them returning to port soon with an intact first stage aboard.
I’m trying to imagine today’s NASA running an actual flight test that had a published, admitted, chance of success of only 50%.
... nope ... trying ...
... can’t really imagine it.
And, of course, what SpaceX is trying to do here was conventionally considered “impossible” or at least “impractical”, which is why we got the Space Shuttle as the re-usable space system (which of course, was no cheaper per launch than fully expendables, and was almost exactly as dangerous as the STS skeptics predicted).
If they can figure out how to land a ship returning from space on a barge that size, that would be pretty darn amazing.
spacex bump
One thing they have mentioned, but hasn't gotten a lot of attention, is that the span of the landing legs takes up about 75% of the area of the ship. They really have to have a perfect landing to get all the legs onto the ship. When they finally land one successfully, it will be an amazing picture with the rocket and barge together.
...you have to wonder if the darn thing didn’t topple over into the ocean...don’t see no rocket on that barge...
.
i remember musk saying something like “it ran out of hydraulic fluid” or some such....really? maybe a hydraulic fluid leak actually?
...get a bigger barge already...
Plain old GPS can get you within five feet.
It looks like the bulk of the booster rolled off? Can’t tell from these photos.
This will be a game changer.
I sure wish there had been video of the attempt...
Translating 2-dimensional GPS co-ordinates into a rocket descending from 150 miles up remaining under control and landing on a 50-meter-wide barge is not as easy as you seem to think it is.
I suffer from the presumption that a hydraulic system is a CLOSED SYSTEM….and shouldn’t “run out”!!
I don't understand hydraulics either, but it seems there is an "open" loop and "closed" loop, and the rocket uses an "open" loop and ran out of fluid.
“which is why we got the Space Shuttle as the re-usable space system (which of course, was no cheaper per launch than fully expendables, and was almost exactly as dangerous as the STS skeptics predicted).”
It should be noted that the final form of the STS selected was a lesser compromise design from among other proposed designs. One of the more expensive designs that was rejected due to cost and the difficulties of man-rating the launch vehicle provided for a human crew to pilot the winged booster launch vehicle back to an aerospace runway. Had such a design proved successful and the problem of the heat shield tiles been eliminated with a better solution, we could very well have seen the costs of the missions becoming dramatically lowered and safety greatly improved.
New rocket engine designs from commercial innovators such as SpaceX in combination with new heat shield technologies may yet make such reusable shuttle designs feasible in the not so distant future.
There was. I guarantee it. They just issued the BS release that precluded any video being available. PR.
We should be glad they release any video at all. It's not like they are obligated to do that.
Oops.
Either way, there is a learning curve. As with all leading edge technology, there will be failures along with the successes. Ultimately, there will be the desired reliability and then the public will yawn and change the channel.
I thought the V-22 made sense (I’m not sure the F-35 does), there have been plenty of twin rotor helicopters, and the tilt concept wasn’t a deal-breaker. I was fairly sure the kinks would be worked out.
This “private venture” of course has received a lot of public funding.
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Tuesday’s decision means Chicago-based Boeing (NYSE: BA) and Hawthorne, California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, remain in the program to receive more long-term funding that will be tied to each experimental spacecraft meeting specific milestones.
Boeing was selected for a $4.2 billion award and SpaceX for $2.6 billion.
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NASA cut Sierra Nevada out of the funding loop, but I still think the Dream Chaser was a good concept.
Of course has already delivered cargo, and can deliver people and can be fitted with add-on’s to extend its range and possibility even add the components to the Dragon to send it to the moon.
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