That was seriously impressive to watch. Congratulations to all the SpaceX engineers who made this a reality.
Perfect takeoff, 2 simultaneous landings (still waiting for confirmation on the droneship landing), the car is in orbit.
I don't remember being so nervous watching a launch video since... Space Shuttle missions, I think.
Great job, SpaceX!
"SpaceX also attempted a recovery of all three of the first stage boosters it used during the launch. It has recovered two of those thus far, and we’re waiting to hear back from SpaceX on the official status of the final, third booster, which was landing at sea."
Do we know the fate of the centre core yet?
Anyone knows what happened to the core booster?
Even if the droneship didn't work out...
But I couldn't help but laugh at the fact that they can launch a massive rocket on the first try and land (at least) 2 cores, but the camera STILL cuts out on the drone ship.
Elon over there going to Mars, I can't even get this dang app to build.
Might be time to move....
Also love seeing machinists side by side cheering with software engineers, standing by a mission control which is placed feet from where engines are assembled on the shop floor.
Open company culture well-executed.
Congratulations to all there!
Screen shots from live feed: https://imgur.com/a/gh410
Would Musk focusing only on it make any difference?
edit: This is not a complaint, just a question, why the downvotes? I'm used to getting downvoted for no reason, but this is basic a question, with great answers. Come on HN! We can't ask questions?
Well played Mr. Musk. Well Played.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B_tWbjFIGI&feature=youtu.be...
Any idea what that was?
EDIT: I think it's a replay of the capsule opening that initially contained the car, just spliced in at a weird part of the video.
But 2/3 is impressive! Seeing the simultaneous landings had me in tears!
In this model, it's all about idiosyncrasies: the Voyager record had the Vitruvian Man, this has an astronaut on a sports car and largely-irrelevant sci-fi stories.
Of course, private space probably means the whole timeline comes faster and private associations are soon launching Dostoyevski and Pollock too. Still, this payload is culturally cringeworthy, as much as the sheer engineer accomplishment must be lauded.
Might be a naive thought, but for a few minutes, you forget everything else. There were millions of people from every nation live-watching the broadcast and everyone was cheering and hoping for the best.
The world seemed at peace during that moment and this is what I love about space exploration and all these great human achievements.
That's nuts.
What can happen ? Did a payload already exploded passing through the Van Allen belt ? Are batteries a problem ?
Someone noticed there was a camera feed on the mission control wall that shows the Center Core's drone ship, after the smoke clears no ship can be seen: https://twitter.com/Darkphibre/status/960990105581240321
9:00 into the feed, it's likely the core either missed or failed to land properly. Although the screen is partially out of view. So this is still speculative.
https://twitter.com/FalconMainCore/status/960992022575374336
Like, remove any fluids, remove any parts that might explode in the hot or cold of space, deflate the tires, etc.
Note: I'm more interested in a scientific answer, as opposed to casual conjectures. Preferably from an engineer knowledgeable of such things. And specifically, the materials sciences aspect of how materials will survive in a vacuum.
"The core stage, meanwhile, burned slightly longer before separating from the upper stage, performed a flip maneuver and landed on SpaceX's Of Course I Still Love You drone ship."
Not sure it's true.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/nation-now/2018/02/06/sp...
Great job Elon and team SpaceX!
Edit: referring to the Starman live feed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBr2kKAHN6M
https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16971200/spacex-falcon-hea...
This is innovation. This is the future. This, and Tesla, are the biggest technological breakthroughs since the iPhone.
Also human space travel is just the answer to none of our current and urgent earthly problems. I don't get why people are so unreasonably hyped about it.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/06/spacex-landed-two-of-its-t...
Do they turn off the camera if its about to fly by something that would rather not be seen?
Awesome work by spacex. They are peerless, except if you want to count massive superpower governments as peers.
At approx t-minus four minutes and counting. Elon Musk tweeted the "Holy Mouse Click" had returned "true". That moment when control is transferred to the onboard modules. And the Autonomous Flight Safety System takes control.
Its truly awesome to see that silky smooth burn. that perfect parabolic arc. And think upon the twenty-seven Merlin engines all firing in synchrony. Equipped with an intelligent decision making capability. And what the implications might be for future human spaceflight.
Here is an ancient link. But back around the mid-noughties. NASA published some details on the architecture of an AFSS:
An Autonomous Flight Safety System
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/200800...
Considering the Falcon Heavy includes reusable side boosters and central shaft. The complexity multiplies. As an example, take a peek at an implementation for expendable missions. that still use ground or satellite tracking and control.
Range Safety Algorithm Software Module for an Autonomous Flight Safety System
https://software.nasa.gov/software/GSC-15594-1
Darpa contributed tool for low level verification of onboard AFSS software.
SeaHorn: A fully automated analysis framework for LLVM-based languages
And of course, once your computers make it into space. They will need a place to store all the mountains of data generated ;)
SpaceBelt: space-based cloud storage network
Were the two falcons landing at the same moment synchronized to look good for the cameras, or was it just how it happened because they travelled together?
Love that pic of the dummy astronaut in the Tesla looking back at Earth.
Am I the only one that find it quite disturbing that a private corporation taking over more public space?
In the long run this stuff will bite humanity at large in the butt.
I don't mean they look similar. I mean they look like they came from the same video feed. When completing the touchdown, they both seem to land at the same pad -- you can see the flame of the other booster and the pad the other booster is landing at in both videos, except they aren't rotated 180 degrees from one-another because the rest of the landscape is identical. Also, watch the moment when the boosters do their initial burn to slow down from freefall. The flames in both videos look virtually identical.
Here's a few samples: https://imgur.com/a/Xpbu8
Did they acknowledge that the videos weren't actually taken from both rockets during the stream and I just missed it? Or is there some other explanation?
But I have this one observation on watching the launch, and landing and I hope someone can explain the discrepancy to me:
How come the two boosters when they stick-landed have different colors than when they were launched - so soon? I mean, they were all real shinny white when blasting upwards from the launch pad. Are those the same ones that stick-landed to perfectly?
Comments: