Don't ever let anyone tell you that something is impossible.
SES-10 Mission
51–60 of 368 posts
Re: SES-10 Mission
#52They've landed it too! Amazing!
Although when the technical webcast went black just at the moment when I'd expect the vehicle to come into sight, I was sure that something had gone wrong and they'd pulled the plug.
That's exactly what I thought too. I assumed it went kaboom and they cut the feed. What a nice surprise when they called out a successful landing!
Re: SES-10 Mission
#53I can't wait until I have a talk with my kids when they realize the significance of this day:
Kid: Daddy, ou mean when you were growing up, they threw away rockets each time?
Me: Yes
Kid: Doesn't that make them expensive?
Me: Yes.
And then not long after will be the other talk:
Kid: Daddy, you mean people used to be in charge of driving themselves in cars?
Me: Yes
Kid: Did people ever die?
Me: Millions
Good job Elon and SpaceX, get some rest, and then focus on the Model 3!
Elon: We have proven what can be done, that many said was impossible. drops mic after SpaceX lands flawlessly
Re: SES-10 Mission
#54Does SpaceX have any real competitors in the private sector? Would be a bummer if people decided they were a monopoly of some sort and demanded a break up.
Does Blue Origin count?
No: SpaceX is launching satellites into various orbits, which Blue Origin cannot do yet (and cannot do with their current rocket).
Re: SES-10 Mission
#55History was being made today. Super, congratulations to all of SpaceX. Now let's see the landing :) STUCK THE LANDING :) :) :) Apologies to my neighbors who I surely woke up. Hah :) Incredible! Now, will they fly this one again?
That cut to black nearly gave me a damn heart attack haha. Satellite connection lost because rocket exhaust is basically a giant ionized cloud of noise. Elon looks like he hasn't been getting enough sleep or showers, and like he's about to back flip and start happy crying.
My heart attack moment was during the launch when I started seeing flame flickering around the tops of the engines... and then I thought to look at the altitude indicator, and realised they were at about 10km, and it was just the plume expanding as the atmospheric pressure dropped.
Re: SES-10 Mission
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
One could argue whether they're truly private sector, but they still haven't quite displaced ULA. In 2016 there were 12 ULA launches, 8 SpaceX launches, and 2 by Orbital ATK. Looking at other countries, there were 20 Chinese launches, 18 Russian launches, 9 European launches, and 7 Indian launches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_in_spaceflight#Orbital_la...
That's why this is so big, dropping the costs significantly could easily pull a significant fraction of those other launches to SpaceX. Pretty soon the ability to re-launch the same booster will be considered a must-have feature if you want to be in the rocket business, unless you fly missions so close the maximum payload or trajectory that recovery is impossible.
SpaceX would still have to deal with scheduling: making enough upper stages and having limited launch/landing pads they share with NASA/ULA/ATK. So those with less cost-sensitive payloads (governments) would probably still pay a premium to launch their payloads sooner rather than cheaper.
Re: SES-10 Mission
#57The link is to a livestream and I didn't get here in time to watch the landing live, has a recording of the landing been uploaded anywhere yet?
Re: SES-10 Mission
#58It looked like one of the grid fins got toasted. Will they still be able to stick the landing? fingers crossed edit: and they did it! I was pessimistic for a minute there!
Someone on reddit said it was an ablative coating. This was also a heavy launch, so it's not surprising they'd be hitting the atmosphere faster.
Re: SES-10 Mission
#59It looked like one of the grid fins got toasted. Will they still be able to stick the landing? fingers crossed edit: and they did it! I was pessimistic for a minute there!
The grid fins are painted with ablative paint that's supposed to burn away while protecting what's underneath. Same with the legs. But they do suffer damage during re-entry as could be seen on photos of them from previous landed boosters. I'm fairly sure that's all expected and accounted for.
Re: SES-10 Mission
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Although when the technical webcast went black just at the moment when I'd expect the vehicle to come into sight, I was sure that something had gone wrong and they'd pulled the plug.
That's exactly what I thought too. I assumed it went kaboom and they cut the feed. What a nice surprise when they called out a successful landing!
...one day I'm hoping they'll release all the cut footage from the, um, learning experiences of the early Falcon 1 and 9. I'm sure that they've cleaned up the broken frames and there'll be lots of fascinating fireworks.