SpaceX Chase Plane Video of Falcon 9 First Stage "Soft" Landing

1. HOT damn! So close now, so close…

   1. Ain’t it the truth?

      Bring on the barge!! (CRS-4 landing)

      1. Actually, after CRS-4. That booster will lack legs.

         1. That’s bad news why not?? I was hoping for barge landing on 12th

            1. That’s not true, the asiasat 6 won’t have legs, crs-4 will

            2. And barge for crs-4 too??

               September 12th is my 59th birthday. Have my fingers crossed 🙂

            3. It will be a leg-less and less-controlled re-entry, a la CASSIOPE, so no barge to splat on.

            4. Not true, I’m afraid – see above.

         2. The booster core for CRS-4 was switched out from one of the AsiaSat missions for logistical reasons. It was built without the legs or necessary RCS to control the return flight. The next flight set to have legs is the next OrbComm mission. That was originally set for October, but OrbComm is now making noises that they might want to put it off in order to do additional testing on the satellites before they ride uphill.

            1. Thanks Todd. 🙁 oh well

            2. Source please?
               Cheers

            3. I guess I will not get up to watch the launch then. They said very little chance of recovery and I say zero, with no RCS. OrbComm website says as early as the end of the 4th 1/4. So maybe the next CRS in Dec. Long wait, but gives them time. Going to be strange not to see SpaceX not launch for that long. May be on purpose to do the pad abort.

2. Anyone know how far offshore they were?

   1. There was no mention of a boost back burn on the engines, so I’m thinking it was within the normal downrange area for the flight. Patrick AFB publishes the NOTAM warning area before each launch. Here is the one for the Orbcomm launch: http://www.patrick.af.mil/s…

3. Most excellent.

4. Time is running out for the naysayers.

5. To soft land a liquid booster requires some new kind of physics

   Mr. Gass ex CEO of ULA

   What was his exact quote?

6. Recovering a rocket is against God and nature. Impossible. STOP!!!

7. “Professor Goddard…does not know the relation of action to re-action,
   and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to
   react….he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high
   schools.”
   — 1920 New York Times editorial on Robert Goddard’s rocket work.
   [The New York Times printed a retraction to this—in 1969, when
   the Apollo 11 astronauts were on their way to the Moon.]

8. I’m still holding out for Elon to authorize a covert ” Whoops -Sorry About That ” (W’SAT?) maneuver where a reused Falcon 9 booster does a pinpoint landing in the executive parking lot of the ULA buildings at the Cape, nicely straddling the top boss’s blue BMW convertible with its four legs.

9. Or actually recognisable as a car; a pool of bubbling steel would be more like it.

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