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Over at Ars Technica is a story, SpaceX proves it's not afraid to fail by releasing a landing blooper reel:
SpaceX is famously not afraid to fail. "There's a silly notion that failure's not an option at NASA," company founder Elon Musk has said in the past. "Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough."
In recent years, others in the aerospace industry have come to see the sense of this ethos, as SpaceX has tinkered with its Falcon 9 rocket to make it a mostly reusable booster, finally achieving reuse of the rocket's first stage earlier this year. To go further in space, at a lower cost, new things must be tried.
Even Gene Kranz, who famously said that failure was not an option as a NASA flight director during the Apollo lunar missions, has recently enthused about SpaceX, saying, "Space involves risk, and I think that's the one thing about Elon Musk and all the various space entrepreneurs: they're willing to risk their future in order to accomplish the objective that they have decided on. I think we as a nation have to learn that, as an important part of this, to step forward and accept risk."
To that end, SpaceX has put its failure on display in a new video showing the company's (often explosive) attempts to first return the Falcon 9 first stage to the ocean, then to an ocean-based drone ship, and more. Along they way the engineers have clearly learned a lot about rockets, propellants, and the pitfalls of trying to return a very large rocket from space.
Note: the apocryphal saying was not from the actual Apollo 13 mission. It was a line from the movie based on the mission. See this section on the Wikipedia entry for Gene Kranz.
With that out of the way, I find it absolutely amazing that just a few short years ago, the concept of a rocket that could land upright was science fiction. Now, it happens so routinely for SpaceX that they feel comfortable releasing a "blooper reel"!
(I'm curious, though, how many millions of dollars does that video show going up in flames?)
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by ledow on Friday September 15 2017, @06:36PM (4 children)
I'm much more worried about the number of "ran out of propellant", "not enough hydraulic fluid", etc.
Surely shouldn't even be attempted if that's the case? It should know how much it's got left, yes (surely just thrust amounts tell you how much propellant you have left, from a simple weight calculation?).
Sure, aeroplanes went through the same failures, not the end of the world. But rather than "could not land", "miscalculated", "strong wind", "faulty sensor", it's mostly "this fell off" or "no fuel left" and it doesn't seem to just safely abort rather than just explode.
I'm still not sure what the point is, either. Standing-up landing is just a show-off item. It serves no real purpose, you still have to ship it back somewhere to have it tested, which inevitably means laying it down again unless your want it to fall over with a bunch of fuel still in it.
Parachute + pickup is - as recent press releases saying SpaceX were giving up on these kinds of landings - pretty expensive, difficult and pointless compared to a cheap parachute and a boat you already have.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bob_super on Friday September 15 2017, @06:55PM
> Standing-up landing is just a show-off item. It serves no real purpose, you still have to ship it back somewhere to have it tested,
> which inevitably means laying it down again unless your want it to fall over with a bunch of fuel still in it.
You do realize the engines are at the not-pointy end, right? That's the end you need to point down if you want the thrust to win against gravity. Conveniently, it's the right orientation for the stresses it was designed to sustain at takeoff.
Any other landing angle requires additional engines and structural reinforcements to handle the impact (need more struts).
> parachute + boat
Landing in salt water isn't friendly if you want to go up ever again. A parachute requires a deployment system and structural reinforcements too, and you get an impact that can damage a lot of stufff.
Despite its technical complexity, landing straight up is the simplest solution from a reusable design standpoint. Then you empty the thing and lay it down for transport.
The part where it falls down engines-first at supersonic speed without breaking nor failing to restart is the most amazing piece...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @07:40PM
Where's the "Windows had a BSOD during landing"?
(Score: 3, Informative) by tangomargarine on Friday September 15 2017, @08:15PM
Gee, it's almost like rocket science is difficult.
Have you ever looked up the abort modes for the Apollo or shuttle programs? There's quite a few of them, depending on how far they are into the flight. "Abort" is not just a thing where you can shut off the engine, close your eyes, and glide it down safely :P
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 16 2017, @12:54PM
What is the better landing configuration? Keep in mind that the rocket engines won't decelerate the falling stage, if they aren't pointed down.