161–170 of 444 posts
Planetary landing is so hot this year! We've got Space Engineers, Elite: Dangerous, Star Citizen, and now SpaceX!
(And if you're interested, search YouTube for many, many attempts to simulate what SpaceX did in KSP, including barge landing attempts.)
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I have a vague feeling he's being snide to pay Elon back for those mildly snarky tweets back when Blue Origin landed their rocket. EDIT: Musk: "Congrats to Jeff Bezos and the BO team for achieving VTOL on their booster" Musk: "It is, however, important to clear up the difference between "space" and "orbit", as described well by https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/" http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/24/news/companies/elon-musk-jef…
Actually, thinking about it, if they staged a faux-rivalry, it would probably get more public interest in space. People can choose their team and have someone to root for and someone to hate.
Interesting - something flaming separated from the first stage as it landed. You can see it separate, hit the ground, and burn as the landing completes. https://youtu.be/O5bTbVbe4e4?t=2518
I don't see what you're seeing. There are lights surrounding the landing pad. Are you talking about those?
Also, what happens to the mass-adapter (i.e. the balancing 12th non-satellite)?
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This time, with a much bigger landing area. The maneuvering to land on their landing barge was kind of extreme the last time they tried it.
Thank you, I didn't know they had upgraded. I still remember the tiny RCS thruster trying to get the rocket upright from the last landing...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRsufOoNOIQ
;).
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The satellites themselves usually have small thrusters but I'm not sure what kind of orbital change the can effect, usually they are there for detailed maneuvering and to boost the satellite to a slightly higher orbit as it decays. When it runs out of fuel it dies so you'd try to use as little of that as possible during launch.
Even a small difference in orbits adds up over time. You don't need much fuel for orbital adjustments, as long as you're staying in the same plane. Say one satellite's orbit is a bit smaller. That means that, over time, they will naturally drift farther and farther apart, until they end up on different sides of the globe. At that point, just raise the smaller orbit slightly. Kerbal Space Program is really good for un…
Only mid-launch I figured out I could just put three of them on Kerbisynchronous Equatorial Orbit at 120° phase difference :/.
Yes, KSP is absolutely amazing for learning this stuff :).
[0] - useful if you're playing with RemoteTech mod, which prevents you from operating unmanned spacecraft if they don't have a radio connection back to a proper command centre.
Does anyone know what specifically changed to allow a landing attempt on land as opposed to barge? Was it just that they gained enough confidence with the barges that they would at least be able to hit the target (and not crash into a building or something), or was some regulatory clearance received or something? Or something about this launch (ie lighter payload?) made a return to land feasible?
Youtube link for people for whom livestream videos won't work. (I believe the embedded player is livestream). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bTbVbe4e4
I join in congratulating SpaceX for this awesome achievement. It's like, holy fuck, they landed the rocket AND deployed 11 satellites, all in a single Pomodoro! I also want to commend them for a few minor things: - a real-time stream from landing (as opposed to holding it and releasing footage few days later, as before) - a real-time stream from satellite deployment, with a camera placed so that we could see everythi…
But they really upped the PR game this time, that's for sure. I assume somebody must have had a look at the viewer count numbers from the last few and put 2 and 2 together on the opportunity they were missing out on. A nice job of it overall.