
SpaceX returns to flight with Falcon 9 rocket launch - thomseddon
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38613275
======
fillskills
"A few minutes later, the first stage of the rocket landed successfully on a
platform in the Pacific Ocean." \- They have made this so normal. Its not even
news title worthy now. Exciting times we live in!!

~~~
maverick_iceman
Compared to what was achieved in the 60s it doesn't seem that impressive.

~~~
simonh
I'm going to break with the pack and say you are quite right. By itself
landing the boosters isn't a dramatic achievement. After all they're not even
manned.

But it's not about landing the boosters, it's about what this will enable in
the future. If Musk really can reduce the cost to orbit by a factor of 100 it
will revolutionise space transport. Imagine a series of moon landings just
like in the 60s and 70s, but all using the same launchers and spacecraft? How
about manned missions to Mars in reusable ships? It's the first step in a new
era. So ok it's not headline grabing next to the moon landings. But compared
to that, the Mercury missions don't look all that much of an achievement in
hindsight. Yet they were vital groundwork.

~~~
TrevorJ
I mean, from an engineering perspective it's pretty dramatic. The rocket is
going two kilometers a _second_ in the wrong direction, it has to null out
that speed, hit a moving target in the middle of the ocean and come to a stop.
The rocket is too light to hover (the engine can't be throttled low enough,
it's too powerful) so the velocity must be zero'd out right at the deck, too
early and the rocket starts moving back up, too late and it hits the boat and
blows up.

------
generj
I don't know what they did on the camera and transmission side, but having the
sub-orbital view on the 1st stage all the way down to the barge was super
impressive.

~~~
51Cards
This. I found that so satisfying to watch. I was also pleased that the
broadcast team made an on-air comment congratulating their colleagues that got
that working.

~~~
generj
It helps that the broadcast team is comprised of the more photogenic
engineers.

I'm curious to find out what they changed. One of the problems they previously
had was that the vibration from the rocket landing was too much for a
satellite connection on the barge (or it's nearby support ship); there were
other issues on the rocket. Maybe being right next to the coast the whole time
helps on a polar launch?

~~~
ygra
Well, vibration of the barge wouldn't have been a problem this time as there
was no view from the barge during the landing (only after). But I had the same
thought regarding the launch profile to be much easier to track. GTO launches
from the East coast are about 600 km off the coast. This time the drone ship
was about 370 km away from the launch site, and also much closer to land in
general.

We'll see how it'll be for the Echostar 23 launch (and landing).

~~~
estel
> Well, vibration of the barge wouldn't have been a problem this time as there
> was no view from the barge during the landing (only after).

There was a live view from the barge on the technical stream through descent.

------
jonah
Here's a photo I took of the ascent from about 50 miles east.

[http://imgur.com/a/RlJUR](http://imgur.com/a/RlJUR)

(Nikon D7000, 300mm, handheld. Cropped and adjusted for contrast.)

~~~
david-given
Nice picture; could you hear it from that distance?

(I'm very jealous; I'd love to see a launch, but neither Switzerland nor the
UK have functioning space programs, and French Guiana is a bit far too
walk...)

~~~
jonah
Thanks. I've been able to catch a few launches over the years. (I even heard
the Shuttle's sonic boom once.)

I didn't hear it going up but there was a loud rumble on the return. (Which I
couldn't see from my vantage point.)

~~~
dtparr
Are you accounting for the speed of sound? The distance to the launch site of
50mi would be about 4 minutes of delay (getting longer as it flies South)

Hearing the landing over 400km away (or even boost back burns which started
about 4.5 minutes and several hundred km down range, plus whatever altitude it
attained) seems odd if you didn't hear all 9 engines going up.

~~~
jonah
Oh, yeah. You're likely right. I wasn't keeping close watch on the time as I
had my hands full with a radio, live stream on my phone, and the camera.

------
tankenmate
For those wondering, they successfully deployed all 10 satellites, after the
second SECO, into their correct orbit.

~~~
jessriedel
They said they might have video of the deployment, but this was interupped by
the loss of ground tracking. Anyone know if that video will ever be available?

~~~
jccooper
SpaceX is inconsistent about what videos they provide after a flight. They'll
usually pick one or two that are good from a marketing perspective. (New
and/or impressive.) I wouldn't be surprised to see an edited Vine of the
satellite deployments, though.

~~~
jpatokal
I actually would be pretty surprised, since Twitter axed Vine a few months
back...

------
grkvlt
Sadly, with these new Iridium satellites, the 'Iridium Flare' phenomenon of a
bright flash visible in the sky when the old satellites passed through
sunlight and reflected it downwards when overhead, will no longer occur. I
liked the quote from the Iridium CEO explaining why it won't happen: "[...] we
weren't going to spend money just to make angular shiny things on our
satellites [...]"

~~~
hazeii
That's news to me, and a real disappointment. Just before Christmas I saw
there was going to be a mag -8 flare close to where the ISS would be- watched
it with my 4yo, spinning a tale the ISS was Santa and the flare was a reindeer
re-entry.

The flare predictor[1] on the Heavens Above website will presumably shut down
when the last of the old satellites goes.

[1] [http://www.heavens-above.com/IridiumFlares.aspx](http://www.heavens-
above.com/IridiumFlares.aspx)

------
harshaw
The video says a one engine burn on the return of the first stage. The descent
seemed a bit slower than the last landing and thus less of a dramatic suicide
burn.

This time the descent video seemed more "real". On the last barge landing it
was so quick that it seemed magical.

~~~
JshWright
The descent _was_ slower. This was a launch to low earth orbit, as opposed to
the geosynchronous launches we've seen recently. Geosynchronous launches
require the first stage to be going a lot faster by the time it separates
(thus requiring the three-engine landing burn).

------
sctb
Recent discussion on the webcast:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13399119](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13399119)

------
ufmace
Good for them! I'm impressed with how quickly they were able to conclude their
accident investigation and get approved for return to flight. Brings to mind
all of the multi-year Shuttle accident investigations.

~~~
464192002d7fe1c
In fairness, if there had been loss-of-life it probably would have been a much
harder process.

I suspect the reason for the swift return to flight is half that fact, and
half that SpaceX is more bureaucratically efficient.

------
thenewwazoo
Watching the broadcast, it appeared that they launched _westward_ off the
coast of California. That seems very weird to me, since my understanding is
that you can use the not-insignificant rotation of the earth as "free energy"
to achieve orbital speed.

Did they launch westward? Why?

~~~
tamcap
Iridium sats are in polar orbits. Launches for those inclinations are done
from the west coast due to geographical constraints. Also, I believe it makes
them travel "backwards" to other (most?) sats.

~~~
Klathmon
Well not so much "backwards" as perpendicular.

------
smoyer
It would have been cool to see an animation of how these seven satellites move
in their orbits (as well as the final completed constellation).

~~~
JoeDaDude
Well, the final completed constellation would look something like the video in
[1] which is available at the Iridium website [2]

[1] [https://youtu.be/sXUmBJmf_DI](https://youtu.be/sXUmBJmf_DI)

[2]
[https://www.iridium.com/network/iridiumnext](https://www.iridium.com/network/iridiumnext)

------
general_ai
And the beauty of this is, launching these Iridium satellites is just a beta
test for what they're going to do next: launch _four thousand_ of their own
satellites which will blanket the planet with gigabit broadband.

~~~
Tepix
I wouldn't call it a beta test. These launches provide crucial income for the
company.

~~~
general_ai
One does not preclude another.

------
joeblau
This was freaking amazing. These are the types of technology launches that
truly get me excited.

~~~
bluejekyll
What's awesome is watching the commentators trying to hold back their
excitement a bit. Awesome job SpaceX!

------
Shivetya
Why does Space X land on barges while blue origin land, well on land. Also
does anyone have a pictures of iterations of Space X's landing methods and
strut setup?

~~~
JshWright
Blue Origin does not launch into orbit. Going up is the 'easy' part. To get to
orbit you have to go many thousands of miles per hour sideways. Blue Origin
doesn't go sideways at all, they just go up and come back down.

SpaceX has done 'land' landings in the past as well (for lighter payloads they
have enough fuel to turn around and come all the way back to land).

EDIT: Here's a quick explainer on the topic with shiny graphics:
[http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a18711/blue-
or...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a18711/blue-origin-vs-
spacex/)

~~~
walrus01
It is pretty easy to learn the difference in this with a very basic rocket in
kerbal space program. Launch up and you'll come down near where you started,
in a parabola... Launch up and then go sideways to gain orbital velocity for a
long time, you're in orbit.

~~~
rrmm
Agree, KSP is a great way to internalize how orbital mechanics work. After
playing it a little while, everything clicks and things become natural, like
the sort of physics one uses playing billiards or building block towers.

------
nixarn
And what a beutiful launch & landing it was! I gotta admin, I was a bit
nervous after their last explosion. Great everything went smoothly!

------
srigi
It would be really cool if there will be a recording of "arriving to
Antarctica" from stage2
[https://youtu.be/7WimRhydggo?t=3012](https://youtu.be/7WimRhydggo?t=3012)

------
monk_e_boy
Any videos of the landing?

~~~
InclinedPlane
[https://youtu.be/7WimRhydggo?t=2145](https://youtu.be/7WimRhydggo?t=2145)

~~~
david-given
Thanks --- this one's the technical webcast and not only gives you a much
better view (mostly side-by-side streams of the video feeds from the two
vehicles), but there's no commentary and the audio feed's from mission
control.

No onboard ascent footage or fuel tank footage this time, alas.

~~~
mikeyouse
I read a while ago that they were restricting the fuel tank footage going
forward for ITAR concerns.. Can't seem to find my source but it feels like
it's been a long time since we saw the inside of the tanks.

------
sidcool
Their turn around time is super fast. I can't imagine this happening even with
NASA. Here's a lot of good luck to SpaceX in 2017.

------
hsavit1
We're all going to Mars, yay!

Wait. actually...

~~~
ethbro
It's almost like the path to Mars can be divided into a series of small
achievements -- like some sort of small steps before a giant leap, if you
will.

------
nrjdhsbsid
Does anyone else feel like the COPV problem was not truly solved? This is the
second mission loss caused by the same exploding COPV's.

They need to be redesigned and SpaceX is twiddling around the issue to avoid
the r&d cost. If I was NASA I would be very hesitant to use their rockets for
people at this point

~~~
nialv7
Clearly NASA & FAA know a lot more than you and most of us do. If they choose
to let SpaceX continue launching their rockets, there must be a good reason
behind it.

~~~
taf2
True it'd be rather nice to not have to read another article like:
[http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2016/02/25/466555217/...](http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2016/02/25/466555217/your-letters-helped-challenger-shuttle-engineer-
shed-30-years-of-guilt)

in 30 years

~~~
mikeash
Unlike the Shuttle, SpaceX's manned vehicle will have the ability to escape an
exploding launcher. It's best avoided, obviously, but a repeat of Challenger
should end with everybody safe and sound, just not in orbit.

~~~
agildehaus
Dragon 2 will have abort modes throughout the flight. The Interplanetary
Transport System (aka MCT)? Nope.

~~~
nickik
Not quite true. The MCT should be able to escape as well, it will just not be
able to do it as reactivly as the Dragon 2.

~~~
agildehaus
Definitely not as reactively, not convinced it will work as an abort, and not
at all on Mars.

[https://mobile.twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/780896313676148...](https://mobile.twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/780896313676148737)

