SpaceXStats suggests April 1st for CRS-8 ( with a downrange barge recovery attempt ), and the Sherpa-1 flight from Vandenberg has been put back a bit.
Cheers, Mike.
( edit ) Found it. If you look at this Jason-3 webcast from, say, 55:18 ( T + ~ 33:30 ) onwards looking at the left inset half screen, lower right side, the guy sitting in the dark shirt motions to the guy in the light top who is standing to his right side. He points to the screen in front of him and then makes falling motions with his right arm, elbow bent while keeping his hand open, at about 55::33 ( T + ~ 33:45 ). Also if you wind back to T +28::00 onwards you'll see much interest generated by what the dark shirt guy sees on his right hand screen of three ( it's back is to us and the lower right side seems of interest ), people coming over to look, people being brought over to look, pointing at the screen, alot of phone work, considerable discussion etc.
Despite my previous comment, that wasn't concurrent with any voice-over, my bad memory. In fact the 'loss of signal' from the drone ship was some 20 minutes earlier at around T + 9:00. I would deduce that SpaceX have footage of the tip over due to the folding leg problem.
Anyway no biggie. As he has hinted previously I guess Elon may be sick of providing YouTube rocket crash footage. :-))
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
It is a pretty high-res picture, you'll want to zoom in on parts you think interesting.
I see scorched booster pieces. Some damage to barge bits. The condition of the barge deck is not obvious to me. Some folks think it is listing a little. Some folks think they have defined the initial impact point near a corner.
Looks like the people who expected a hole in the deck of the barge got it right, and that when Elon Musk specified a "hard landing" he was not kidding.
Just to be clear, I am talking about the big of mangle near the top left corner of the landing pad as oriented in this picture. This puts it very close to the left blast wall which was apparently added in hopes of protecting electronics and other gear in the containers at either end of the barge. The hole is mighty close to the wall. One wonders how much of the container contents survived.
While the third-party SpacexStats future mission list still lists the first Falcon 9 heavy as mid 2016, President Shotwell very recently was quoted "about November".
Spaceflightinsider.com has posted a specific schedule for CRS-8, a Falcon 9 launch of a Dragon capsule to the ISS.
That opening picture on this link is amazing. If rockets can be "pretty" then that rocket definitely qualifies
hmm on second look it almost looks "too pretty".
Quote:
They say the window is an instantaneous one at 20:43 UTC on April 8, 2016.
This is well in daylight at the launch site, so good views should be possible, if there is a first stage recovery attempt, which I expect.
From Kennedy so that should be another "return to land" effort. Informative post. Thanks.
From Kennedy so that should be another "return to land" effort.
Maybe, but the current thinking/leaks/information on the NSF CRS-8 thread is that provision is definitely being made for a barge landing, and that appears to be the preferred option on this flight. In particular, the "permission slip" request for temporary radio authorization needed for the barge landing fleet has been spotted. The given position on that application is just over 180 miles from the launch site, at about 42 degrees azimuth. So this is far closer in than the barge location for the extreme case tried last time. I suspect that means the plan this time includes a moderate boostback, and quite likely a less aggressive re-entry (slow it down more with rockets, so it gets cooked less?). Maybe they'll try 3-engine landing burn again, but maybe closer to the middle of the throttle range? Or maybe a 1-engine burn if they think the 3-engine one remains an unsolved problem.
Parsing the NSF thread discussion and adding my own Kentucky windage of interpretation, it seems that full return to launch site is currently a bit marginal for this particular set of mission specifics, and that in any case further developing the barge landing option is quite important to them--with additional trials badly needed.
Meant to be humorous, neither
)
Meant to be humorous, neither accurate nor critical:
LOL ! :-) SpaceXStats
)
LOL ! :-)
SpaceXStats suggests April 1st for CRS-8 ( with a downrange barge recovery attempt ), and the Sherpa-1 flight from Vandenberg has been put back a bit.
Cheers, Mike.
( edit ) Found it. If you look at this Jason-3 webcast from, say, 55:18 ( T + ~ 33:30 ) onwards looking at the left inset half screen, lower right side, the guy sitting in the dark shirt motions to the guy in the light top who is standing to his right side. He points to the screen in front of him and then makes falling motions with his right arm, elbow bent while keeping his hand open, at about 55::33 ( T + ~ 33:45 ). Also if you wind back to T +28::00 onwards you'll see much interest generated by what the dark shirt guy sees on his right hand screen of three ( it's back is to us and the lower right side seems of interest ), people coming over to look, people being brought over to look, pointing at the screen, alot of phone work, considerable discussion etc.
Despite my previous comment, that wasn't concurrent with any voice-over, my bad memory. In fact the 'loss of signal' from the drone ship was some 20 minutes earlier at around T + 9:00. I would deduce that SpaceX have footage of the tip over due to the folding leg problem.
Anyway no biggie. As he has hinted previously I guess Elon may be sick of providing YouTube rocket crash footage. :-))
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
The barge under tow got back
)
The barge under tow got back to Port Canaveral this morning.
An enterprising person with a not particularly good vantage point took this high-resolution picture:
F9 remains on OCISLY
It is a pretty high-res picture, you'll want to zoom in on parts you think interesting.
I see scorched booster pieces. Some damage to barge bits. The condition of the barge deck is not obvious to me. Some folks think it is listing a little. Some folks think they have defined the initial impact point near a corner.
Looks like the people who
)
Looks like the people who expected a hole in the deck of the barge got it right, and that when Elon Musk specified a "hard landing" he was not kidding.
[img]http://public.cyndyclayton.fastmail.us/ASDS/2016-03-08%20OCISLY%20aerial(2).jpg[/img]
Just to be clear, I am talking about the big of mangle near the top left corner of the landing pad as oriented in this picture. This puts it very close to the left blast wall which was apparently added in hopes of protecting electronics and other gear in the containers at either end of the barge. The hole is mighty close to the wall. One wonders how much of the container contents survived.
While the third-party
)
While the third-party SpacexStats future mission list still lists the first Falcon 9 heavy as mid 2016, President Shotwell very recently was quoted "about November".
Spaceflightinsider.com has
)
Spaceflightinsider.com has posted a specific schedule for CRS-8, a Falcon 9 launch of a Dragon capsule to the ISS.
They say the window is an instantaneous one at 20:43 UTC on April 8, 2016.
This is well in daylight at the launch site, so good views should be possible, if there is a first stage recovery attempt, which I expect.
RE: Spaceflightinsider.com
)
That opening picture on this link is amazing. If rockets can be "pretty" then that rocket definitely qualifies
From Kennedy so that should be another "return to land" effort. Informative post. Thanks.
RE: RE: Spaceflightinside
)
hmm on second look it almost looks "too pretty".
RE: From Kennedy so that
)
Maybe, but the current thinking/leaks/information on the NSF CRS-8 thread is that provision is definitely being made for a barge landing, and that appears to be the preferred option on this flight. In particular, the "permission slip" request for temporary radio authorization needed for the barge landing fleet has been spotted. The given position on that application is just over 180 miles from the launch site, at about 42 degrees azimuth. So this is far closer in than the barge location for the extreme case tried last time. I suspect that means the plan this time includes a moderate boostback, and quite likely a less aggressive re-entry (slow it down more with rockets, so it gets cooked less?). Maybe they'll try 3-engine landing burn again, but maybe closer to the middle of the throttle range? Or maybe a 1-engine burn if they think the 3-engine one remains an unsolved problem.
Parsing the NSF thread discussion and adding my own Kentucky windage of interpretation, it seems that full return to launch site is currently a bit marginal for this particular set of mission specifics, and that in any case further developing the barge landing option is quite important to them--with additional trials badly needed.
This picture ? ....
)
This picture ?
.... I think they are all static fired b/4 launch still, hence the dirty look of the bottom end.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal