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Monday's SpaceX launch was a success with both the landing and with the booster recovery. Unfortunately, the second launch mentioned in that story had to be delayed:
Moldy Mouse Food Postpones SpaceX Launch:
SpaceX has postponed its cargo launch to the International Space Station until Wednesday after mold was found on food bars for a mouse experiment bound for the orbiting outpost, NASA said.
[...] Some 40 mice are part of the experiment aimed at studying the effects of microgravity in the immune system.
The launch will be the 16th for SpaceX, as part of an ongoing contract with NASA to send supplies to the astronauts living at the space station.
Some 5,600 pounds (2,500 kilograms) of food, experiments and other gear is packed onto the unmanned Dragon cargo ship, which will blast off on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Launch is scheduled for 1 hour after this story goes live.
The launch will be live-streamed on YouTube starting approximately 15 minutes before launch time.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Sulla on Wednesday December 05 2018, @06:55PM (4 children)
Looked like it was supposed to land on land. As soon as the retros came on it looked like there was too much thrust off to the side, when they cut out there were lots of corrections, wobbly, spinning, then driving out to sea, and feed cut.
Hopefully they eventually provide the footage, based on prior videos of crashes I assume they will. Too bad the stage crashed as it was a new one.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday December 05 2018, @07:23PM (2 children)
I wish they had just left the video feed live. There was obviously a problem.
It was coming down steady. There was a great view of the ground. Then it started making some adjustments which suddenly got larger and larger. It seemed like a bit of a spin. Then some over correction in the reverse direction spin. Then again. Before the video cut off it had made a full 360+ spin, I think to the left (ccw from rocket pov), then back again, and the tail end "aiming point" now seemed to move along the ground. At that point I internally thought something is wrong. Then the video cut out. No more mention of it. Just of the 2nd stage progress. Then you could hear cheering. So it was not clear what they were cheering about. Then an announcement it had landed at sea.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Sulla on Wednesday December 05 2018, @07:49PM (1 child)
https://twitter.com/elonmusk [twitter.com]
Musk's twitter has a video of the water landing
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday December 05 2018, @10:56PM
He also said they'd reuse it for some "internal" mission.
Landing video looks soft (impressive considering the failure), but I'm not sure what the dip in the salty drink does to the hot engines bells and the resultant steam bubbles to the rest of the structure.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday December 05 2018, @08:27PM
They were originally going to land on the pad, but there is another spacecraft on a different pad with a NRO payload. That forced them to move the planned landing to the barge close offshore.
There was a hydraulic failure in the gridfin system preventing normal landing of the first stage. The first stage detected the malfunction and made a soft water landing off the coast. A recovery boat is en route to pick it up.
Mr. Musk indicated that they may try to refly the core for an internal mission.