SpaceX And/Or Rocketry In General

archae86
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The rest of the SpaceX

The rest of the SpaceX flotilla did make port. So the part about deliberately choosing to come in under darkness was not predictive today.

Various pictures have shown a few new things, including:
1. what appears to be a stack of thick boards used to pad up under one leg.
2. some pretty toasted looking places on the stage
3. the stage at arrival to port was not where we saw it land, but actually quite far off-center. It seems likely that it crept/hopped/slid under wave action before the at-sea interventions got it tied down. As there is a "rim" on the barge, this does not necessarily mean the stage was very near actually going over the side, but does seem disconcerting.

archae86
archae86
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SpaceX has posted some

SpaceX has posted some landing photos. This one in particular shows matters just before impact/landing, and hints rather strongly at how some legs got more compressed than others.


THAICOM 8 first-stage landing by SpaceX, on Flickr

Mike Hewson
Mike Hewson
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Yep, there's that bent leg

Yep, there's that bent leg coming out of it's holder, so I guess they know the weakest point now ! Alot of burn up and down. The target orbit was supersynchronous ( SSTO ) ie. nett energy above geostationary so a longer throw than GSTO. This means they had less fuel margin that I thought ( on expectation of lower mass payload ). Short answer : they gave the client max KE available within the bounds of booster recovery, but here again re-use is to be considered.

All in all a bloody good piece of work though. The legs are a modular component and thus re-design is not a deal breaker.

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

Mike Hewson
Mike Hewson
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Ain't this just sporty

Ain't this just sporty :

Awesome ! :-)

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

AgentB
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RE: Ain't this just

Quote:
Ain't this just sporty

Indeed, if they can land and recover at this angle of approach - it is amazing and bodes well for rough weather landings. A helicopter pitched at this angle would not be a pleasant arrival.

Do i notice one of the other engines bleeding some excess fuel?

Mike Hewson
Mike Hewson
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RE: Do i notice one of the

Quote:
Do i notice one of the other engines bleeding some excess fuel?


Yep, that's one of the other two that were giving thrust just a handful of meters up ie. it doesn't turn off instantly. This is the essence of the 'hover slam' trick.

No doubt there will be some tweaking of the terminal approach algorithm to just bring it vertical prior to contact, with of course also no horizontal translation or it will hop on landing like we've seen before. The fact that one can speak of implementing such adjustments at all is in itself outstanding ie. nay-sayers take note of the meaning of the word experimental ( there are many dictionaries available to check this ).

Cheers, Mike.

( edit ) On the 'sporty' shot note that there is engine gimbal acting to the right in order to null the translation .... that frame is now my desktop background. :-)

( edit ) Time for Velcro on the barge and booster ! :-)

( edit ) As regards acquiring shares not on the open market : essentially there's more than a few mobs selling pigs with lipstick. Notwithstanding the obvious risk nature of such venture capital there remains the larger problem of their Terms Of Endearment. It turns out that you don't actually get clear title. Is it not indifferent brokerage. You have to agree to management with full discretion on their end. Basically if the target investment fails you lose ( of course ) but if it wins you may not get to cash out. In that respect you have pre-agreed to assignation of disposal rights to the intermediaries. For me at least this leaves the distinct possibility of suitcases stuffed full of cash carried by men in suits going to the Caymans .... in short the vast bulk of the risk is not dependent on the target companies performance but related to trusting the fund managers. Yeah, right .... :-)
Most of the offerings are not Class A shares anyway. So if the building is burning down you won't get out.

{ FWIW : this is a total co-incidence but since writing the above missive I've received an email espousing ( puff piece ) that New York financiers/brokers/etc have had "a changing of the guard and a change of heart". LOL :_)) }

{ Mind you there are other more interesting emails about 'technological cargo cults' or "to misdirect resources to ineffectual ritual from actual problem-solving" that demonstrate the old adage about history repeating itself with new generations. }

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

Mike Hewson
Mike Hewson
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Check this out. Here is a

Check this out. Here is a video of the landing that Elon tweeted. What a neat view of the final trajectory. It seems they may be getting the GoPros to track in realtime .... what a LOL ! :-)

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

Anonymous

RE: Check this out. Here is

Quote:

Check this out. Here is a video of the landing that Elon tweeted. What a neat view of the final trajectory. It seems they may be getting the GoPros to track in realtime .... what a LOL ! :-)

Cheers, Mike.

Wow! After successful, stable touchdown the two thrusters at the top seem to signal their approval.

On your earlier comment about SpaceX and going public I hope that they can sustain their present technical growth without having to do that. I believe that Elon Musk and his team do best while unfettered by a bunch of bottom line bozos. The only person they have to please is "them self" and their desire to achieve the unimaginable.

AgentB
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Elon Musk | Code Conference

Elon Musk | Code Conference 2016 talks about SpaceX and Tesla.

Mike Hewson
Mike Hewson
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FWIW : A Reddit thread claims

FWIW : A Reddit thread claims the following :

[pre]Eutelsat 117W B & ABS 2A Campaign Discussion Thread

SpaceX's June 2016 launch! As per usual, campaign threads are designed to be a good way to view and track progress towards launch from T minus 1-2 months up until the static fire. Here’s the at-a-glance information for this launch:
Liftoff currently scheduled for: 14 June, 1432 UTC (10:32AM EDT). This is a 45 minute window.
Static fire currently scheduled for: June 10
Vehicle component locations: [S1: Cape Canaveral] [S2: Unknown] [Satellites: Cape Canaveral] [Fairings: Unknown]
Payload: Eutelsat 117W B for Eutelsat, ABS 2A for Asia Broadcast Satellite
Payload mass: Previous Eutelsat/ABS dual launch was 4,159kg
Destination orbit: Geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) to 75.0° East (ABS 2A) & 116.8° West (Eutelsat 117 West B)
Vehicle: Falcon 9 v1.2 (26th launch of F9, 6th of F9 v1.2)
Core: F9-026
Launch site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral, Florida
Landing attempt: Yes - downrange of Cape on ASDS Of Course I Still Love You
Landing Site: TBD
Mission success criteria: Successful separation of both satellites into their target orbits[/pre]
... apparently current as of three days ago.

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

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