
SpaceX misses landing on a drone ship, breaking the company's streak - rezist808
http://mashable.com/2016/06/15/falcon-9-rocket-landing-failure/#LDR_56chrmqz
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netinstructions
Sounds about right, given what Elon was expecting back in January [1]

> My best guess for 2016: ~70% landing success rate (so still a few more RUDs
> to go), then hopefully improving to ~90% in 2017

[1]
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/689299216607232000](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/689299216607232000)

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hughes
As the presenters repeatedly said throughout the livestream, even when the
landing fails it is a great source of data to integrate into future landing
attempts.

So far it doesn't appear that the landings have failed for the same reason
twice. Not learning from past mistakes is really the only failure.

~~~
gozur88
>As the presenters repeatedly said throughout the livestream, even when the
landing fails it is a great source of data to integrate into future landing
attempts.

That's sort of half joke and half spin. It's hard to argue having a failure
and learning you shouldn't have designed your rocket with a particular flaw is
better than not designing your rocket with that flaw in the first place.

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Retric
Oddly enough, sometimes letting things fail is the cheapest way to create a
better design. Not necessarily in direct costs, but getting a great product
out in 30 years is rarely an option.

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hugh4
Has SpaceX actually cleaned out and reused any of their recovered rockets yet?
I'm guessing no, they're still analysing them, but it'll be interesting when
they do. (Damned if I'd want my payload on the first recycled rocket...)

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jpgvm
A re-used rocket should be more reliable than the first go-around. Purely
because if anything is likely to go wrong it will either happen on the first
run or after N runs that is enough to wear a component out. N is likely much
greater than 1.

~~~
rkangel
That may be true in the long term, but that may not be true for the first few
attempts until they understand the sort of things that are
stressed/weakened/generally affected by the first launch.

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lbenes
Stabilized version here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5_hvVbxAAo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5_hvVbxAAo)

~~~
sidcool
Till the very end it seemed that is almost made it.

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HCIdivision17
From the little I could find on it, it sounds like the rocket actually
landed... and then sorta kept landing until RUD. Is that right? There was more
slam than hover in this particular maneuver?

~~~
mikeash
That's pretty much correct. One of the engines wasn't producing full thrust
during the final landing burn. Since there's almost no fuel margin, the rocket
ignites at the last possible moment with the goal of reaching zero speed right
as it touches the ship. Reduced thrust means that it would touch the ship
before it had fully braked.

The live video from the ship didn't work well (something about satellite
dishes makes them work poorly when there's a massive rocket blasting them with
fire, apparently) but from the few frames that made it through, the rocket
clearly managed to come to rest upright on the ship. There was a great deal of
residual fire, everything was clouded in smoke and compression artifacts, and
the last frame was from only about four seconds after touchdown. It's hard to
tell exactly what was going on, but it looks like it hit hard, broke the legs
or the fuel tank, and after a few seconds it exploded or fell over or both.

~~~
schoen
I'm somehow reminded of the Monty Python line about building castles in a
swamp:

> When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to
> build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them.
> It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. And that one sank into the
> swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, and then sank into
> the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that’s what you’re going to
> get, son, the strongest castle in all of England.

SpaceX may be doing things in a slightly different order, but maybe eventually
all of their castles, er, rockets are going to stay up on the landing pad. :-)

~~~
mikeash
That's hilarious, and a great comparison too. They'll get there! Fortunately
they've figured out how to get paid even if they fail, so they can take their
time getting it to work.

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sehugg
At least it's a policy that ensures only very well-performing vehicles are
reused.

~~~
sargun
Once all the weak rockets crash, we can take the surviving rockets and cross-
breed them to build the ideal rocket race.

~~~
dtparr
When I heard they were using genetic algorithms to improve the rocket's
design, that's not what I had expected.

~~~
remontoire
Truly, we are living in 2 billion years ago.

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chrisatumd
Video is up:
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/743602894226653184](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/743602894226653184)

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hodder
Accordng to Elon, the rocket experienced #RUD = Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly

~~~
gmazza
RUD = it turned into "rudere" [1]

[1]
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rudere#Italian](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rudere#Italian)

~~~
annon
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/743097668725940225](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/743097668725940225)

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rwmj
While this is bad news, even if they only land a quarter or a half of the
time, it must still save a huge amount on launch costs.

~~~
sickbeard
How so? They aren't reusing the rockets...we don't even know if they are in a
reusable state.

~~~
aeorgnoieang
[SpaceX's Musk: We'll reuse today's Falcon 9 rocket within 2 months • The
Register]([http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/09/falcon_9_rocket_reus...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/09/falcon_9_rocket_reused_in_two_months/))

~~~
rgbrenner
It's been 2.5 months. Last week, it was pushed back to the fall:
[http://www.space.com/33145-spacex-to-refly-
falcon-9-rocket-f...](http://www.space.com/33145-spacex-to-refly-
falcon-9-rocket-fall-2016.html)

It is interesting that it was 2 months.. then after landing a few, it's now 6
months. Makes you wonder how much damage the rocket is sustaining during
launch/recovery.

~~~
walrus01
If I had to guess, their first priority is launching new rockets that generate
revenue, with paying customers' payloads on them (as all of the recent Falcon
9 launches have been), rather than a self funded R&D flight. I don't think any
paying customer would put anything other than a boilerplate/test article
satellite on the very first ever re-use of a first stage.

~~~
aetherson
People would if the cost was sufficiently defrayed -- this is just a financial
instrument problem.

That might make the first reuse flight unprofitable for SpaceX, but not as
unprofitable as one with no payload.

~~~
blater
For context, this launch cost around $60mil and carried $200mil of satellite
(spacenews [http://spacenews.com/spacex-successfully-launches-2nd-
pair-o...](http://spacenews.com/spacex-successfully-launches-2nd-pair-of-
eutelsat-and-abs-all-electric-satellites/) ) Spacex are aspiring to a 30%
discount [https://spaceflightnow.com/2016/03/31/spacex-hopes-to-
sell-u...](https://spaceflightnow.com/2016/03/31/spacex-hopes-to-sell-used-
falcon-9-boosters-for-40-million/) Until the tech is well proven this would
seem to only be a compelling offer for lower cost sats. Theres also the catch
22 that the first mission will be almost uninsurable. I reckon we'll see an
LEO demonstration launch maybe with some cubesats n the first one.

~~~
eru
If, say, around 30% of rockets blow up, I don't see why there wouldn't be an
insurance willing to write a policy for say 35%?

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dmurray
Not if the satellite is much more expensive than the rocket. Using the GP's
figures of $200mm and $60mm, that would mean paying $70mm in insurance instead
of just waiting for the next $60mm flight.

~~~
eru
Yes, that's true. With an expensive enough satellite, even a free launch would
not compensate for 30% failure.

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philtar
If this was successful the title would have read "Elon Musk breaks record for
most landings on drone ships."

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Shivetya
I figure every success is icing on the cake until they drop prices on the
assumption they will always recover the rocket

RUD, Well, a wave hit it.

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smegel
Losing 1 in 4 is a lot cheaper than losing 4 in 4, and these numbers will only
improve.

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oh_sigh
Does anyone know the relative cost between relaunching a pre-launched rocket
and the total launch costs? Are reusing engines/rockets something like
$10k/$50M, or $10M/$50M?

~~~
Joof
Nobody really knows. Refueling is more like the first number, but it may need
repairs, refits or otherwise.

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ygra
Refueling, according to Elon, is about 200k.

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shardinator
Looks like they just need a bigger (wider) ship. Problem solved :)

~~~
ygra
No first stage has missed the drone ship so far. They were always right on
target. So I don't think it needs to be bigger.

