
SpaceX Iridium-1 Webcast [video] - edsouza
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTmbSur4fcs
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Tarrosion
I feel incredibly...relieved. Whatever you may think of Elon Musk personally,
SpaceX work environment, SpaceX vs. Blue Origin, Kessler syndrome, etc., etc.,
it seems pretty clear that SpaceX's work with reusable space vehicles is a
huge step forward for general human spaceflight, and I'm glad to see them
successfully return to flight.

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Animats
Very nice. Space-X is back in business.

Now Space-X needs to catch up on their launch manifest and make some money.
When they're not launching, they're not making money. They're about a quarter
billion dollars behind from the pause in launches. Iridium alone has six more
launches in the backlog. They don't put dates on their launch manifest any
more; the constant slippage is too embarrassing.[1]

The first Falcon Heavy launch is supposed to be this spring. That was
originally planned for 2013. There are at least three revenue Falcon Heavy
launches in the queue. The crewed Dragon launch has slipped to 2018. The
Brownsville launch site isn't scheduled to be used until late 2018.

Maybe 2017 will be the year Space-X starts to catch up. As a business, this is
about launching in volume.

[1] [http://www.spacex.com/missions](http://www.spacex.com/missions)

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michelb
It's almost like it's rocket science...Slow and steady beats fast and faulty.

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MicroBerto
Bullseye landing of Stage 1! This is always so inspiring to watch live

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mwambua
We live in exciting times!

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hcrisp
I asked my 3-year-old how old she would be when landed in a rocket, and she
said, "Um, 6?". Pretty optimistic.

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pacaro
Last night, while reading about planets before bed, my 2 1/2 year old said
"get dressed, put shoes on, go to Mars"

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nickjarboe
Here is the technical webcast:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WimRhydggo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WimRhydggo)

Lots of good information on reddit (/r/spacex).

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blhack
Much better, thank you!

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sigmar
Here's a video of just the first stage landing for anyone that missed it:

[https://streamable.com/la9m7](https://streamable.com/la9m7)

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the8472
you can also seek backwards in the technical live stream[0]. they have
uninterrupted footage of the first stage all the way from orbit to touchdown.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WimRhydggo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WimRhydggo)

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sidcool
Both stages looking great so far. Stage 1 landed perfectly. I was worried
after the earlier explosion with FB satellites. This worked perfectly. Great
job SpaceX. I wish to see Elon Musk's expressions right now.

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rrmm
The weird thing is that fueling the vehicle was the worrying part not the
landing.

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mabbo
The countdown on the YouTube feed says "X minutes to live", but that's
actually to liftoff. The feed usually starts 20 minutes earlier.

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ChuckMcM
Schweeet! I really liked that they now have a complete launch to landing video
of the first stage, from the first stage.

Congrats SpaceX team and welcome back to active flight operations!

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Fuzzwah
I was skimming the recorded webcast and it seemed like the stream was stopped
before they confirmed that all 10 satiltes were successfully deployed.

I chased down confirmation via this tweet:

[https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/820348655613800448](https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/820348655613800448)

> Successful deployment of 10 @IridiumComm NEXT satellites has been confirmed.

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tehabe
Now we have to wait if the Iridium people can also celebrate.

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caconym_
Congrats to the SpaceX team. I'm looking forward to buying my ticket to
Mars... after the kinks are worked out. ;)

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sprucely
Anyone else notice the tumbling object ahead and to the left that appears at
about 34:38?
[https://youtu.be/tTmbSur4fcs?t=2078](https://youtu.be/tTmbSur4fcs?t=2078)

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nialv7
Likely to be the fairing.

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cant_see_wc
I just see a video of a spinning earth (with the count-up timer on top), no
actual content. Anyone else having this issue? Any idea how to solve it?

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ygra
Between launch/separation/landing and satellite deployment is a long coast
phase of the second stage. That's what you see there. You can go back in time,
though, to more interesting moments, or start watching at the very beginning.

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Analemma_
Heh, I signed on just in time to see the landing. Smoothly done once again!

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dankohn1
Yeah!

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popobobo
This is very exciting. But somehow sad to me at the same time. I don't wanna
explain my feeling.

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deadcast
I guess I'm puzzled as to why somebody would find this great event saddening?

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rrmm
Feelings are complicated. Maybe he is considering it in contrast to other
stuff that may not find as positive happening?

