Posted on 01/17/2016 4:14:01 PM PST by BenLurkin
Elon Musk's SpaceX managed to launch a satellite into orbit Sunday, but suffered another setback in its attempt to retrieve a rocket stage by landing it on a sea-going platform.
SpaceX officials said the Falcon 9 rocket first stage experienced a "hard landing" and broke one of its stabilizer arms designed to hold it upright. The fate of the rocket stage was not immediately known, and there was no video footage of the landing immediately available, those officials said.
This was the third time the Hawthorne-based company failed to accomplish a clean sea landing, although the company brought a Falcon rocket stage back to terra firma at Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Dec. 21 in what many hailed as an engineering feat.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
In order to do that, the launch site needs to be up-range of the landing site. The previous, successful landing at the Cape required the first stage to decelerate, back up quite a distance then land. This takes a lot of extra fuel/weight.
Launches from the Cape are eastbound. Not much usable land downrange for an easy landing site.
SpaceX needs to launch from another site with empty land downrange about 60-100 miles or so.
Exactly!!!
The landing was perfect — smooth, gentle, and right in the center. The one leg failed to lock. Speculation is that it was due to ice buildup from the fog at the launchsite.
Specs:
It’s a trade off. At some point, it’s cheaper to just build more first stages than it would be to put money into an expensive recovery system, along with having to limiting lift capacity from the need to save fuel for landing.
I think they need something more as well. At least some way of securing the thing from toppling over from a rouge wave, if they do manage to nail the landing.
Notice the listing of the barge to the right as soon as the smoke clears some. You can see the stanchions on the barge start pretty much even with the horizon then sink well below the horizon. Not sure if this roll contributed to the toppling, but it’s sure in a direction which may have helped exceed the design limits of the landing legs or lock mechanism.
I don't see how using a deserted oil rig would be more expensive. Some or most of them already have a 'landing pad'.
But considering that today's landing would have been successful if the one leg had locked in place, then the expense would be unnecessary.
I can't argue with that.
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