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posted by mrpg on Thursday March 30 2017, @11:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the calima dept.

Ars Technica reports SpaceX launches, and lands its "flight proven" rocket:

SpaceX did it. Its flown booster launched on Thursday evening from Florida, delivered its payload into orbit, and then returned safely to Earth by landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. During a brief interview on the SpaceX webcast, company founder Elon Musk was almost at a loss for words. "It's been 15 years to get to this point," he said. "It's taken us a long time. A lot of difficult steps along the way."

Ars will have a comprehensive, new story posted later tonight.

Cnet reports SpaceX launches recycled rocket in historic first:

A few minutes after sending the Dragon on its way April 8, [2016] the rocket successfully landed on the SpaceX drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You" in the Atlantic Ocean. It was the first such Falcon 9 landing attempt that didn't end in a spectacular explosion. Clearly, this rocket had to be the one.

The rocket was recovered, reconditioned and reloaded for its second launch, which happened at 3:27 p.m. PT Thursday.

Roughly ten minutes later the Falcon 9 made its second visit to "Of Course I Still Love You" of the coast of Florida, landing right in the center of the landing pad bullseye.

"This is going to be ultimately a huge revolution in spaceflight," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said immediately after the landing. "It's the difference between if you had airplanes where you threw away an airplane after every flight versus you could reuse them multiple times."

Way to go SpaceX! I have watched rocket launches from way back in the Mercury, Gemini, and Saturn days, as well as many Shuttle launches. That we have finally reached a point where we can successfully vertically land then re-use rocket boosters kindles a feeling of amazement and awe in me that I struggle to put into words! This certainly adds credence to Elon Musk's plans to reduce the cost of commercial space launches and bodes well for his Mars ambitions, as well!

[Updated: 00:55 UTC] Launch and landing are available on YouTube: SES-10 Hosted Webcast and SES-10 Technical Webcast.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @12:10AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @12:10AM (#486831)

    It is indeed an amazing feat. However, there is something I don't get. NASA has designed some boosters to fall back into the ocean with parachutes for reuse. This seems a cheaper way to reuse the booster (or at least a large part of it) because it doesn't need landing fuel and landing guidance control hardware. True, the guts get soaked. Is soaking versus non-soaking the alleged key difference in cost savings? Is the difference big?

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by martyb on Friday March 31 2017, @12:26AM

    by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 31 2017, @12:26AM (#486838) Journal

    It is indeed an amazing feat. However, there is something I don't get. NASA has designed some boosters to fall back into the ocean with parachutes for reuse. This seems a cheaper way to reuse the booster (or at least a large part of it) because it doesn't need landing fuel and landing guidance control hardware. True, the guts get soaked. Is soaking versus non-soaking the alleged key difference in cost savings? Is the difference big?

    IIRC, those were solid rocket boosters that strapped to the side of the shuttle. That is, solid propellant. Once they are ignited, they just go until they run out of fuel. Think of a really BIG fireworks tube, packed with solid fuel.

    This is a liquid-fueled rocket booster. Liquid oxygen (LOX) and RP-1 (rocket-grade propellant (kerosene) -- also cooled to "densify" it.) This goes through turbo pumps to be fed into the combustion area. These pumps run at something like 10K RPM, can be throttled or even stopped, and can later be restarted. This is a far FAR more complicated device.

    From first-hand experience, salt water does really nasty things to stuff, especially metals.

    So, to answer your question: Yes, keeping the rocket from soaking IS a BIG deal.

    I am NOT a rocket scientist, and these are from memory; some of the details may be a bit off, but the basic point stands. Also, there's not much ocean to land in on Mars. Vertical landing and relaunch (using in situ derived fuels) makes a return journey from the surface potentially much more feasible.

    --
    Wit is intellect, dancing.
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by ese002 on Friday March 31 2017, @12:29AM

    by ese002 (5306) on Friday March 31 2017, @12:29AM (#486839)

    It is indeed an amazing feat. However, there is something I don't get. NASA has designed some boosters to fall back into the ocean with parachutes for reuse. This seems a cheaper way to reuse the booster (or at least a large part of it) because it doesn't need landing fuel and landing guidance control hardware. True, the guts get soaked. Is soaking versus non-soaking the alleged key difference in cost savings? Is the difference big?

    It's huge. Salt water and relatively hard impact in the ocean messed up the boosters so badly that the best that NASA could do was disassemble the units and refurbish and reuse some of the parts.

    Space-X reused an entire rocket nearly as-is. As I recall, only the landing pegs were new.

    Quora [quora.com]