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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWFFiubtC3c
This will give you an idea of how grasshopper fits into the full flight plan.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the detailed rundown! If you don't mind me asking - where did you find all this out? I've been looking for a good source of SpaceX news. The official website/g+/facebook/etc just posts short updates whenever a mission occurs. I'm looking for news about what is on the horizon and more detailed analysis.
I am also interested in this. I know where I can get detailed news and analysis in the Tech industry, but I haven't come across too many good resources for the space industry. If I could find great news sites or podcasts or similar I'd consume them like you wouldn't believe.
That is where you will find the best info for the space industry more than likely. A lot of the info is in the forums though and you will have to kind of hunt it down. They also have a private section of the site that you can pay to gain access that has a lot of insider info.
Can someone share some details on how the rocket is stabilized? There are a few different ways to do it -- how does this one work?
Can't watch this in Germany of course.
Of course, because ... no? Why? It works great in Sweden, for instance so it can't be "side of the Atlantic" that decides. Some DRM/rights issue?
Wikipedia have an article about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_YouTube_videos_in_G...
For those of you who haven't seen it, here is SpaceX's fantastic animation of their ultimate goal for Falcon 9 (complete with soundtrack by Muse): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWFFiubtC3c This will give you an idea of how grasshopper fits into the full flight plan.
For those of you who haven't seen it, here is SpaceX's fantastic animation of their ultimate goal for Falcon 9 (complete with soundtrack by Muse): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWFFiubtC3c This will give you an idea of how grasshopper fits into the full flight plan.
I find this confusing. It's awesome, that's for sure. But it seems like lifting all the fuel needed to do a soft landing is inherently a tradeoff for less payload capacity. What is the benefit, then? Is it just so much cheaper to be able to re-use the first two stages?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The pace of progress seems to have been faster than even SpaceX anticipated. Within the next year we'll see very significant tests of core components of the system and flight profile (for the first stage at least). The very next Falcon 9 flight (out of Vandenberg) will use the performance overhead provided by the v1.1 upgrade to do a controlled reentry of the 1st stage and then after it has reached terminal velocity…
Do you have more information on the "water landing" planned for the next Falcon 9 flight? Why won't the SpaceX team attempt to land it on some sort of floating platform? Seems to me that this would yield an even better test "for free" and even provide the possibility of recovering the first stage for analysis.
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And I haven't been this excited (nay, giddy) since I was about 6 and reading Space Colonies For Kids or whatever. I'm a bit worried about the bimodality of the future but man the good parts are going to be good .
Hopefully the bad parts will be okay too!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The pace of progress seems to have been faster than even SpaceX anticipated. Within the next year we'll see very significant tests of core components of the system and flight profile (for the first stage at least). The very next Falcon 9 flight (out of Vandenberg) will use the performance overhead provided by the v1.1 upgrade to do a controlled reentry of the 1st stage and then after it has reached terminal velocity…
> The very next Falcon 9 flight (out of Vandenberg) will use the performance overhead provided by the v1.1 upgrade to do a controlled reentry of the 1st stage and then after it has reached terminal velocity it will slow down to a hover out over some remote part of the ocean, then splash down. This is a good and cheap test of a huge part of the flight profile. Could you explain the first part a bit more, or point me s…
For those of you who haven't seen it, here is SpaceX's fantastic animation of their ultimate goal for Falcon 9 (complete with soundtrack by Muse): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWFFiubtC3c This will give you an idea of how grasshopper fits into the full flight plan.
I find this confusing. It's awesome, that's for sure. But it seems like lifting all the fuel needed to do a soft landing is inherently a tradeoff for less payload capacity. What is the benefit, then? Is it just so much cheaper to be able to re-use the first two stages?
Additionally you can build more expensive rockets that are more efficient since rocket creation becomes a capital rather than a reoccurring cost.