SpaceX’s Falcon 9

[FaT Air]

On Tuesday(1/6/15), @ 6:20 a.m. Eastern time, one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets is scheduled to lift off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on what is otherwise a routine unmanned cargo run to the International Space Station.

But this time, the company will attempt to land the first stage of the rocket intact on a barge floating in the Atlantic Ocean. After the booster falls away and the second stage continues pushing the payload to orbit, its engines will reignite to turn it around and guide it to a spot about 200 miles east of Jacksonville, Fla.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/05/s...-and-elon-musk-landing-a-rocket-on-earth.html

Spaceflightnow live stream: http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/01/05/spacex-5-mission-status-center/

 

[KE4EST]

Be interesting to see how this goes.

 

[FTA4PA]

More info on the launch, including briefings and television coverage: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/spacex_crs5_briefings_events.html#.VKqwBF3mtwE

 

[Cham]

Retry early Saturday morning 03:45 central I think... Might even get up and watch it live on NASA TV...

 

[Lone Gunman]

Streaming webcast online at this link if you have the bandwidth.

http://www.space.com/17933-nasa-television-webcasts-live-space-tv.html

 

[FaT Air]

I wanna see the landing on that barge

 

[Lone Gunman]

I wanna see the landing on that barge

Close but no cigar! Or so they say. It "hit" the target platform ship but at a much greater velocity than planned. They said that video of that landing was very poor because it was still dark and I haven't found a link to it yet.

Good lift off though as I was up and watched that.

Edit: Found the landing video.

http://www.space.com/28227-blast-off-spacex-crs-5-mission-launches-to-space-station-video.html

 

[FaT Air]

Edit: Found the landing video.
http://www.space.com/28227-blast-off-spacex-crs-5-mission-launches-to-space-station-video.html

Can only find the launch.

It "hit" the target platform ship but at a much greater velocity than planned

'misplaced' a decimal point in the calculations? Well, in any event, they should have a good quantity of data to look over.

 

[Pixl]

Here is a post launch statement.

SpaceX attempted to land the first stage on an autonomous spaceport drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean after stage separation. While the rocket made it to the drone ship, it landed hard. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get good landing video because of the dark and fog, but we are in the process of evaluating invaluable telemetry data which will inform future attempts.


Read more at..
http://www.spacex.com/news/2015/01/...-mission-resupply-international-space-station

 

[bpalone]

I think this would be called a SUCCESSFUL failure. Just hitting the barge was quite a feat, now to evaluate all the data and make some adjustments. Then they can probably have a FULL success.

History in the making.

 

[Lone Gunman]

I think this would be called a SUCCESSFUL failure. Just hitting the barge was quite a feat, now to evaluate all the data and make some adjustments. Then they can probably have a FULL success.

History in the making.

Yeah, I was thinking that same thing. They got a bunch of data to look at now, so next time......................

 

[Cham]

They have done a great job. Kind of an insane difficult feat landing that booster; just the weather can be such an issue since the landing site isn't a priority, the launch is most critical part of the mission, and to get good weather for both areas at the same time is likely rare.

Interesting demographics in their control room... most of the engineers look maybe 30ish or younger. People that age still have vision and energy to burn. The perfect crew to have around if you want to push the envelope.

 

[sgs]

... most of the engineers look maybe 30ish or younger. People that age still have vision and energy to burn. The perfect crew to have around if you want to push the envelope.

Yeah, like any engineer over 30 has anything to offer, right? /sarc

sgs

 

[Cham]

Didn't mean it that way! Someone had to teach the young ones how it's done... and give them those ideas to ponder and turn into reality.