SpaceX Successfully Lands Rocket on Drone Ship

[MowCowWhoHow III]

Source: Bloomberg

Elon Musk's SpaceX successfully launched a rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Friday at 4:43 p.m. EDT. The mission, officially known as CRS-8, is the company's eighth cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. The launch itself was largely routine for SpaceX: the real excitement began when the Falcon 9 completed its burn and landed upright on the drone ship for the first time.

This was the fifth attempt to recover the rocket's first stage on a drone ship—cheekily named Of Course I Still Love You—in the Atlantic Ocean. The company webcasts each of its launches, and young engineers provide running commentary. The screams of joy in Hawthorne, California overrode the commentary.

SpaceX made history in December by successfully landing the first stage on land but had yet to complete the same goal on a ship bobbing in the ocean. Reusable rockets that land themselves—unlike the traditional model in which the rocket is left to burn up on reentry—are a critical aspect of reducing the cost to reach orbit. Musk has said that a fully and rapidly reusable rocket is the only way to enable humans to travel to and from Mars.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo capsule will carry 7,000 pounds of supplies, science experiments, and technology demonstrations to the orbiting lab, according to NASA. The launch marks SpaceX's first mission to the ISS since last June, when Falcon 9 blew apart 139 seconds after launch. An initial investigation into that mishap pointed to a two-foot-long, inch-thick strut in a liquid oxygen tank that snapped.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-08/spacex-attempts-to-land-a-rocket-on-a-drone-ship-for-the-fifth-time

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[Cooley Hurd]

1. YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Woohoo!!!!!! Awesome job, SpaceX team!!!!

[LiberalArkie]

3. Sea was pretty choppy also.

[LiberalArkie]

4. Showing some of the waves

[Cooley Hurd]

6. I held my breath because I could see the whitecaps...

...but they nailed it!!!

[LiberalArkie]

11. For sure. They knew as long as they could keep getting data, that at some point the

programming would get nailed. I am sure that they are on pins and needles to see if they can repeat it of was the weather just right this time for the the software.

[joshcryer]

22. Elon is a ruthless union hating capitalist.

I'm a fan, mind you. But this is the capitalist entrepreneur approach, which Musk could not have done if Obama didn't privatize space.

[joshcryer]

25. I backed Obama's move to cancel Cx.

And I applaud the milestone based pay as you go approach that was COTS (and which saved his company).

If only *more* contracted government work was done this way, but you mention public private partnerships and people lose their minds.

Now, Orbital had done a less than stellar job, it doesn't always work out, if SpaceX had failed, the conversation the left is having about Obama's decision to privatize would be a lot different.

The Shuttle is another matter, a bad design, with good intentions, but way too costly to fly.

[awoke_in_2003]

16. Or poker. nt

[Uncle Joe]

5. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, MowCowWhoHow III.

[Warren DeMontague]

7. Watching the 10 seconds of video of the actual landing, there....

that's quite possibly one of the coolest things I've ever seen, period.

[Plucketeer]

8. THIS!!!

is the sort of thing that America should be putting it's money and brains into! Stuff that advances science and technology.

[LiberalArkie]

10. Almost looked like it was going to c rash again

[Purveyor]

13. Go job people, good job indeed. eom

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. He's using Iain M. Banks ship names from the Culture! I love it!

SpaceX’s autonomous spaceport drone ships are custom-built ocean platforms designed to accommodate the landing of booster rockets after they have sent spacecraft into orbit. The company is still in the testing phase, but decided to christen their first completed ship of its kind:

Elon Musk ✔ ?@elonmusk
Repairs almost done on the spaceport drone ship and have given it the name "Just Read the Instructions"

@elonmusk ... In honor of IMB, RIP.

Lest the other drone ships feel left out, Musk added:

West Coast droneship under construction will be named "Of Course I Still Love You"

Just Read the Instructions and Of Course I Still Love You are two of the sentient, planet-sized Culture starships which first appear in Banks’ The Player of Games. Just as the Minds inhabiting each Culture ship choose their names with care, you have to imagine that Musk did the same here.

http://www.tor.com/2015/01/23/elon-musk-iain-m-banks-just-read-the-instructions/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spacecraft_in_the_Culture_series

I wonder if he'll ever dare to use " Funny, It Worked Last Time..."

(PS: the ships aren't "planet-sized", really, though, being maybe tens of kilometres in all 3 dimensions, they could potentially contain the population of a planet. Tor ought be be getting these things right)

[joshcryer]

26. Just finished The Hydrogen Sonata the other day.

His last culture book. Was pleased it had a lot of ship stuff. Banks was an amazing writer.

[eggplant]

15. These things always make me tear up.

It's just so fucking cool.

[eggplant]

18. It's the collective screams of joy that put me over the top.

I can't imagine anyone not getting swept up in it.

[yourpaljoey]

19. My God

[JimDandy]

20. Now that's Damn. Impressive. n/t

[Ptah]

21. Short Youtube:

[Thespian2]

23. Frickin' Awesome...

kinda' says to hell with people who think we can't...

[EdwardBernays]

28. Amazing

To see it actually work.

[Gumboot]

29. You may not like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos...

... but they're bankrolling some serious engineering progress here.

SpaceX and Blue Origin are bringing sci-fi dreams to life.

Gotta love this all-American space race!

[Marrah_G]

30. This was incredible to watch

[nitpicker]

31. SpaceX rocket launches inflatable room to the ISS

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35997794

SpaceX rocket launches inflatable room to the ISS


9 hours ago

From the section Science & Environment

An inflatable habitat has launched into space, atop a private SpaceX rocket contracted by Nasa. The inflatable room will attach to the International Space Station (ISS) for a two-year test and become the first such habitat to hold humans in orbit.
(snip)

A capsule, containing the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (Beam) alongside other supplies for the ISS and its crew of six, is scheduled to dock at the Space Station on Sunday morning, starting at around 09:30 GMT.
(snip)

Meanwhile, the launch is a huge moment for Bigelow Aerospace, the project of real estate billionaire Robert Bigelow. The company has launched prototype expandable habitats before, but none have been occupied by humans.

This 1,400kg contraption, once attached and inflated in about a month's time, will be visited periodically by ISS personnel. Made of many layers of fabric and covered with a flexible Kevlar-like material, the Beam will be tested to see how well it stands up to fluctuating temperatures and high levels of radiation.

[bananas]

32. Historic flight for two reasons: BEAM and the barge landing..nt

[MowCowWhoHow III]

33. SpaceX cargo arrives at crowded space station

SpaceX cargo arrives at crowded space station

SpaceX's unmanned Dragon cargo ship, carrying lettuce seeds, lab mice and an inflatable pop-up room, arrived Sunday at a crowded International Space Station where six spacecraft are now docked.

British astronaut Tim Peake reached out with the station's robotic arm and grappled the Dragon, carrying its nearly 7,000 pounds (3,175 kilograms) of gear, at 7:23 am (1123 GMT).

"We show load is safe, and it looks like we've caught a Dragon," said Peake.

Four Russian spaceships -- two Progress cargo carriers and two Soyuz capsules which ferry astronauts -- are docked at the space station, along with Orbital ATK's Cygnus cargo ship and SpaceX's Dragon.

https://in.news.yahoo.com/spacex-cargo-arrives-crowded-space-120221627.html