SpaceX Planning to Land their Falcon 9 Rocket at Sea in 7 Hours

[LlamaDom]

After their historic world first launch and subsequent landing of their large Falcon 9 rocket, Elon Musk's SpaceX team is gearing up for another attempt this time at sea once again.  The rocket shoul lift off at 10:42am PT launch from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

 

Quote from SpaceX (quoting not working on Edge, sorry):

 

"Date

Sun, Jan 17 2016 6:42 PM GMT — Sun, Jan 17 2016 8:00 PM GMT

About

With this mission, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will deliver the Jason-3 satellite to low-Earth orbit for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), French space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). The Jason-3 launch is targeted for a 10:42am PT launch from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. If all goes as planned, the Jason-3 satellite will be deployed approximately an hour after launch. This mission also marks an experimental landing of the first stage on the SpaceX drone ship “Just Read the Instructions”. The landing of the first stage is a secondary test objective."

 

Hopefully it goes to plan.  As an aerospace student I find what SpaceX is doing is massively important in order to proliferate the use of space more than it currently is, and reducing the costs of getting to orbit is a giant leap in the right direction.

 

Edit:  Here's the source link, and where you can watch the launch live: http://www.spacex.com/webcast/

[Tungsten_Hue]

Unfortunately hard landing, they reported a broken landing leg. Also sad that the video feed cutout.

[Blucyrik]

Love the experiments that SpaceX does, let's hope it works!

[Agent181]

well it was a god landing, except for the damaged leg that caused the booster to tip over 

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BAqirNbwEc0/

[byalexandr]

well it was a god landing, except for the damaged leg that caused the booster to tip over 

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BAqirNbwEc0/

Solution:

 

Stronger legs, come on SpaceX!

[Bensemus]

Solution:

 

Stronger legs, come on SpaceX!

So sad to watch that. It actually landed properly despite the waves yet still falls over at the end due to that bad leg. Much better then their last water landing though

[byalexandr]

So sad to watch that. It actually landed properly despite the waves yet still falls over at the end due to that bad leg. Much better then their last water landing though

Musk actually said that one of the legs didn't lock due to it freezing up from condensation

[captain cactus]

Musk actually said that one of the legs didn't lock due to it freezing up from condensation

 

I'd believe that. It was foggy as fuck on both the launch and landing site. Couple that with the fact the rocket went waaaaaaaay up so any water in the system froze and stayed frozen all the way down locking up the latching mechanism.

 

So all SpaceX has to do now is invent a way to keep water out of the latching mechanism and they're golden. Because the other part of the landing (the actual landing itself) was a total success. It was on the barge, it landed, engines shut off. If it wasn't for that damn landing leg it would've stayed upright, even in the rocking waves.

[Serin]

"How did you solve the icing problem''

 

Dear gods the Iron Man parallels just keep coming with Musk

[rhyseyness]

"How did you solve the icing problem''

 

Dear gods the Iron Man parallels just keep coming with Musk

I just thought exactly the same thing!