So, that’s three new things this mission.
[ol]
[li]Launch and recover previously-used stage 1[/li][li]Recover cargo fairing[/li][li]Capture and hold landed stage 1 using remotely-operated capture platform[/li][/ol]Assuming everything I’ve seen planned and publicized actually happened.
That’s pretty bold. My engineering paranoia quakes at changing more than one thing at a time, ever. But 3 new things at once? Madness! 
i was born in 1949 - when Wernher Von Braun was building V2 rockets for the US instead of Germany.
Now, a visionary from South Africa has developed a rocket system with more capability than most countries space programs.
Kim Jong Un: eat your heart out.
Blue Origin: Go big or stay home
NASA: Aren’t you just slightly embarrassed? Your technology is 40 years old. The Russians have a very nice engine. I suggest you see how many you can buy before Putin blocks the sale (as soon as oil prices recover).
ULA: See “NASA” above
My bolding
THAT is an incredible trick - not only did it work, from the pics I’ve seen of that contraption, it required the landing legs to line up with the capture 'bot’s slots.
The people who welded the shoes over the landing legs are now out of work. Automating that work is quite an accomplishment.
How much AI and/or computer vision does that thing use?
They’ve only announced a soft landing for the fairing–not recovery. It’s not yet clear that they were able to pull it from the ocean before being torn apart by waves, or being otherwise lost. A good step but not quite “recovery” yet (need that “bouncy castle”).
It’s also not quite clear that they’ve used the robot yet; we certainly know it exists but it may not have been quite ready in time. SpaceX says we should see something in a few months. I get the impression that they still need people onboard to do the final securing, and that the robot is mainly to fix the booster in place when there are high seas. If the seas are calm, there’s no need.
“Do you have a cite for that?”, he asked politely, not wishing to give offense, but being rather skeptical.
Looking at a pic of the capture 'bot - it looked to have three slots. Unless the arms which define the slots swing up and spin around to find the legs, I concluded the landing legs had to align with the slots in the 'bot.
If they release video of the capture (which I’m sure they did; too lazy to go looking) I’d be interested as to how the 'bots slots found the legs, assuming the position was not critical.
Do you have pictures of the slots and pads?
Thanks!
I don’t think the robo-grabber is touching the legs. Rather, it would grab the hold-down points around the base, which are also used by the grabbers on the transporter-erector, and have been previously used as jack points to secure the landed rocket to the barge.
There are some pictures of the robot with extended grabbers, and it really looks like it’s just a set of fancy floor jacks on a moving platform. You can also see that the robot is much smaller than the yellow circle on the barge, while the legs of the landed Falcon span about the whole yellow circle. The robot can probably just scoot between the legs to reach the mounting points on the base.
Someone caught a glance at what looks like big pieces of a fairing on one of the SpaceX recovery ships. It certainly isn’t “recovered” enough for re-use, but it does seem that they managed to control the re-entry and descent of the fairing. SpaceX probably now has a wealth of data from sensors and cameras on the fairing.
The eventual plan with the fairings is to land them on some sort of inflatable mat. They aren’t designed to survive being in the ocean. This one was a test of the guidance systems to bring it down at a specific spot, but won’t actually be reusable.
The robot platform wasn’t used on this mission. It’s a thing they’re working on for the future, and it’s mostly intended for use when the sea is really rough and the stage might shift around on the deck if left unsecured. There’s actually an armored garage off to the side on the deck that it is parked in while the stage is landing, and then it will drive out, position itself under the stage, grab the tie-down structural points, and presumably also anchor itself to the deck to hold the stage in place.
The fairings themselves would also be a goldmine of information. You can examine them for indications of how well controlled and survivable the reentry profile was. For instance, obvious heat damage may show they need to improve the orientation control.
SpaceX has had some partial fairing recovery before (pieces washed up onto a beach). They put out this great video, with highly appropriate music, using footage from one of the GoPros attached to a recovered fairing.
Of course, having a fairing that wasn’t bashed around by the ocean would be a whole lot better…
Another launch, another landing.
This coverage was a bit different because the payload is classified, and so there was no coverage of the (relatively boring) second stage flight. Instead, on this one there’s basically continuous coverage of the first stage from takeoff to landing, and they had some fantastic cameras pointed at it.
You can see basically everything, from the (surprisingly quick) flipover and boostback, to all the cold-gas attitude thruster use, to the final reentry and landing burns. The sheer violence of the landing continues to be impressive to me.
The latest launch + landing was so routine as to be almost boring, but SpaceX released some really great footage today. 4k at 60 hz… beautiful. The heat haze, the little nitrogen thruster poofs, the burning of the ablative coating, the gimbaling of the engine… so many cool details in 30 seconds.
Gotta laugh at the panels that go flying off to the right as it lands. They’re probably about 10x10 feet, too.
Two (!) launches coming up this weekend if things go well. Will be a SpaceX and (I believe) American record for launches from one company. They’ll be launching some Iridium birds from the left coast at Vandenberg, and a mid-sized geostationary satellite on a reused booster out of Cape Canaveral. The boosters will be landing on their respective autonomous drone ships: Just Read The Instructions and Of Course I Still Love You.
The Russians once launched three rockets in 48 hours, so SpaceX won’t quite be beating that record, but it should still be impressive if they pull it off.
So SpaceX just launched BulgariaSat-1 with a used booster, and recovered said booster, and so far as I can tell did not make the front page of any general news site. Awesome.
Yep. It really is becoming routine. There’s another launch out of Vandenberg on Sunday; it’ll be on a fresh booster but they will land it as usual.
Assuming it happens on schedule, it demonstrates pretty impressive capability for SpaceX ground control. Haven’t decided yet if I want to drive down there to watch…
The BulgariaSat booster landing was from quite a hot GTO profile, so it’s impressive that they managed to land it. They did, apparently, use up their aluminum “crush cores” in the landing legs (basically, a low-density aluminum honeycomb that acts as a single-use shock absorber). But it’s standing upright, just a little lower than usual.
I wonder if they’ll use the “Roomba” to secure it. Should find out in the next few days.
I’ll be there, in part because it’s cool to see, and in part because the alternative is yard work.
I decided to make the trip… today’s launch isn’t quite as horribly early as the last one. If you feel like saying hi, I’ll be wearing jeans and a white NVIDIA t-shirt that looks like one of those red-blue 3D images. Somewhere on Ocean ave, as usual.
I’ll keep an eye out. I’ll be the guy on the red Ducati with a bunch of handheld radios.
