SpaceX first stage landing failed for Starlink-4 launch • Hacker News Board

Re: SpaceX first stage landing failed for Starlink-4 launch

#21

Post by agumonkey » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 5:51 PM UTC

baseballMan wrote: post #13

Shivetya wrote: post #3

well it would become noteworthy that their failures make news simply because they had taken the concept of recovering the first stage to the point of people just assuming it was how rocket launches are meant to be. I remember the first video of one successfully landing after launching and being wowed but when two landed together then it truly felt like science fiction had become reality

I remember everyone in my office stopped working for about 30 minutes to watch that dual rocket landing and being completely blown away.

I wonder how it is when you're on site, it's hard to appreciate the scale on video

Re: SpaceX first stage landing failed for Starlink-4 launch

#22

Post by scrumbledober » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

zanderwohl wrote: post #8

Shivetya wrote: post #3

well it would become noteworthy that their failures make news simply because they had taken the concept of recovering the first stage to the point of people just assuming it was how rocket launches are meant to be. I remember the first video of one successfully landing after launching and being wowed but when two landed together then it truly felt like science fiction had become reality

I watched this live with a friend. We had previously watched a couple of failures, and were almost expecting that one to fail as well. We went out of our minds when the smoke cleared and the booster was upright. It does feel annoying when rocket launches, which are enormously complex, go right and get no press, but surface in the news when they explode or fail in some way. By most standards, this launch was perfectly…

important to note that by any other launch provider's standards this was a perfect launch. Payload was inserted into the correct orbit, no one else even attempts to recover the booster.

Re: SpaceX first stage landing failed for Starlink-4 launch

#23

Post by krm01 » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

I remember seeing the first landing. I thought it was some fake footage. Glad to see they progressed so rapidly that a relatively minor failure becomes news.

Re: SpaceX first stage landing failed for Starlink-4 launch

#24

Post by martindevans » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

fauxrockpet wrote: post #16

When are people gonna start talking about the elephant in the room? There is no publicly available data that points to reusable rockets being safe for human return.

There hasn't been a single failure of a reused falcon 9 booster on launch, which is the bit relevant to human spaceflight. Humans aren't going to ride a falcon 9 down to landing.

If you're talking about starship then I'm not sure how worthwhile extrapolating from F9 is. I would guess they're pushing F9 to its limits here - after all a small gain in launch efficiency multiplied by the size of the StarLink constellation is a big overall improvement!

Re: SpaceX first stage landing failed for Starlink-4 launch

#25

Post by Denvercoder9 » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

clutchingstraws wrote: post #14

xt00 wrote: post #5

I believe they do a little horizontal kick just before landing when they validate things are look good. Potentially something wasn’t right and it just crashed into the ocean like 100 yards from the drone ship.. the good thing is that spaceX seems to learn from all of these issues and compensates, so will be interesting to here what happened.

This is accurate. More good examples of this passive-safety landing procedure in action were in the Heavy demo flight and the CRS-16 mission. The Heavy demo center core failed to relight two of the three engines needed for landing, and plunged right into the water off the side of the landing barge ( https://youtu.be/A0FZIwabctw?t=72 ). CRS-16's booster had a hydraulic failure of the grid fins but still had engine and…

If I remember correctly this procedure was implemented after SES-9, which came in too hot and broke straight through the deck of the droneship.

Re: SpaceX first stage landing failed for Starlink-4 launch

#26

Post by speedgoose » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

scrumbledober wrote: post #22

zanderwohl wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched this live with a friend. We had previously watched a couple of failures, and were almost expecting that one to fail as well. We went out of our minds when the smoke cleared and the booster was upright. It does feel annoying when rocket launches, which are enormously complex, go right and get no press, but surface in the news when they explode or fail in some way. By most standards, this launch was perfectly…

important to note that by any other launch provider's standards this was a perfect launch. Payload was inserted into the correct orbit, no one else even attempts to recover the booster.

However it's important to note that recovering the first stage makes sense only if it's successful enough times. Because it reduces the payload and it's more expensive as a single use.

Re: SpaceX first stage landing failed for Starlink-4 launch

#27

Post by fauxrockpet » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

martindevans wrote: post #24

fauxrockpet wrote: post #16

When are people gonna start talking about the elephant in the room? There is no publicly available data that points to reusable rockets being safe for human return.

There hasn't been a single failure of a reused falcon 9 booster on launch, which is the bit relevant to human spaceflight. Humans aren't going to ride a falcon 9 down to landing. If you're talking about starship then I'm not sure how worthwhile extrapolating from F9 is. I would guess they're pushing F9 to its limits here - after all a small gain in launch efficiency multiplied by the size of the StarLink constellatio…

I'm talking about extrapolating from any rocket launch. Sorry if I'm not clear, but I am talking about starship.

Re: SpaceX first stage landing failed for Starlink-4 launch

#28

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 6:05 PM UTC

speedgoose wrote: post #26

scrumbledober wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

important to note that by any other launch provider's standards this was a perfect launch. Payload was inserted into the correct orbit, no one else even attempts to recover the booster.

However it's important to note that recovering the first stage makes sense only if it's successful enough times. Because it reduces the payload and it's more expensive as a single use.

[deleted]

Re: SpaceX first stage landing failed for Starlink-4 launch

#29

Post by TheNorthman » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 6:08 PM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #12

cowmix wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that these are used to launch their own cargo (no not paid launches) I'm sure every loss hits them hard.

A failure on launch would hit them harder, but a failure landing the empty rocket costs the same as it always did, assuming they've got enough spare capacity to keep up the launch schedule.

The payload is smaller and they're more expensive than single-use.

It's cheaper if they land it multiple times, which they have. I'm not aware of the actual ratio they need to hit, although I'm sure they are.

Re: SpaceX first stage landing failed for Starlink-4 launch

#30

Post by jacquesm » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 6:09 PM UTC

Please all keep in mind that the primary mission is a success and that landing the booster is an optimization, not a failure if it does not work. A failure is when the primary mission fails, everything else is a success.