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posted by
Dopefish
on Friday February 21 2014, @05:00PM
from the rocket-kits-are-awesome-these-days dept.
from the rocket-kits-are-awesome-these-days dept.
WildWombat writes:
"nasaspaceflight.com reports that the next Falcon 9 flight will attempt a soft splashdown off the coast of Florida to test its newly installed landing legs. If successful, this will be a major step along the path to a reusable rocket.
The flight, CRS-3, is an ISS resupply mission scheduled for March 16th. The pace of SpaceX technology development is truly impressive."
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Next Falcon 9 to Attempt Soft Splashdown
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Q: How was Thomas J. Watson buried?
A: 9 edge down.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by cmn32480 on Friday February 21 2014, @07:26PM
I am no rocket scientist, and I apologize for the very basic question.
What, exactly, is the purpose of the landing legs? Is it really as simple as I think it is, like landing on the moon with the legs on the lunar module?
"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
(Score: 4, Informative) by kanisae on Friday February 21 2014, @07:46PM
SpaceX wants their rockets to be fully re-usable, so the purpose of the legs is exactly that, to land land the rocket after launch.
(Score: 2, Informative) by amblivious on Friday February 21 2014, @07:55PM
The addition of landing legs is one of the steps on the path to building a fully reusable rocket.
(Score: 5, Informative) by WildWombat on Friday February 21 2014, @08:22PM
Yes. This flight they are going to test the leg deployment and make sure they can land softly and accurately. Once they've proven that the system works they'll attempt landings on solid ground instead of water. They want to be able to reuse the first stage and this is a step in that direction. This has always been a goal of SpaceX and they designed the rocket and the engines with re-usability in mind.
Cheers,
-WW
(Score: 5, Informative) by sar on Friday February 21 2014, @09:12PM
(Score: 1) by tibman on Saturday February 22 2014, @12:18AM
The rocket legs will be mostly used for crushing every competing rocket system ever designed. Instead of just crashing back to earth the rocket will land!
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