SpaceX does it yet again: Falcon 9 delivers JCSAT into a higher-than-low-earth-orbit, then lands the booster on a droneship.

[captain cactus]

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/6/11599196/spacex-launch-landing-success-falcon-9-rocket-elon-musk

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SpaceX successfully landed its Falcon 9 rocket on a drone ship at sea after launching it into space early Friday morning. It's the third time the company has recovered the vehicle post-launch, and the second time the rocket has landed intact on the ship. Now, SpaceX has both demonstrated that it can land the Falcon 9 at sea, and that the company can repeat the process.

The logistics for this mission made sticking the landing unlikely, SpaceX said on Monday, but CEO Elon Musk upgraded the chances  to "maybe even" just before launch. Today's mission sent a Japanese communications satellite to a very high orbit above Earth — called a geostationary transfer orbit. Because of the satellite's destination, SpaceX originally said that the rocket would be "subject to extreme velocities and re-entry heating, making a successful landing unlikely."

 

The fact that the booster had much more energy than previous launches makes this even more amazing. Way to go SpaceX. 

 

The do have a slight problem now though:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/728459808270000128

 

Here's the webcast. Landing at 38:30.

That laggy video of it landing made it even more amazing.

"Bright lights! Did it land?"

"No wait, it's too bright for too long, it must have exploded!"

video goes live again, shows Falcon 9 just sitting there happily venting off excess fuel

crowd goes nuts

[Sakkura]

Very impressive. Not sure reusing the first stage on a GTO mission is economical with the current configuration, but presumably it will be well worth it with the Heavy configuration they're working on. 

[VanayadGaming]

24 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Very impressive. Not sure reusing the first stage on a GTO mission is economical with the current configuration, but presumably it will be well worth it with the Heavy configuration they're working on. 

But it was a GTO mission, and they said that they will reuse the booster. 

[Sakkura]

53 minutes ago, VanayadGaming said:

But it was a GTO mission, and they said that they will reuse the booster. 

Doesn't mean it's necessarily something that would be economical in the long run. This is more of a demonstration of the capability. 

 

The higher velocity of the first stage on a GTO mission means more fuel must be reserved for recovery, reducing the payload that can be delivered. 

[VanayadGaming]

They can always choose to make the booster expendable if they need to. That's the cool part about this. Atm the F9 can send 8.3 tonnes to GTO. If they decide to make the booster reusable, they can send only 60-70% of that mass...meaning around 5t. Now they have this flexibility. They also mentioned that they will prefer to use the FH for GTO missions because they can have a higher margin on return fuel if needed. 

 

[source:] 

[Agent181]

hmm internship there sounds amazing but the friends I have there work around the clock 

[CommandMan7]

Absolutely love this, amazing job to those at SpaceX. It's so exciting they've made spaceflight cool again after NASA ended the shuttle missions.

[captain cactus]

4 hours ago, CommandMan7 said:

Absolutely love this, amazing job to those at SpaceX. It's so exciting they've made spaceflight cool again after NASA ended the shuttle missions.

What's better is the fact that SpaceX already wants to go to Mars in 2018, a mere 2 years from now. The SLS won't even be going to LEO by that time. 

 

The SLS is yet another rocket program doomed from the get-go. It uses SRBs from the Shuttle era with a rocket design similar to that of the Saturn V, but with SSME (Space Shuttle Main Engines) from the Shuttle itself. None of these have reusability (the SRBs are partly reusable but not at all at the speed of which the Falcon 9 will be capable of), the Orion spacecraft is a bigger version of Apollo that still relies on ocean parachute landings and by the time the SLS flies it's already way to late to be any use for anybody. The only flight it will make is a demonstration flight, that's it. It's way too expensive, and the only reason it exists is so that Nasa (or actually, the government) has a rocket program.

 

It's the private industry that will have (and already has) the biggest impact. Falcon 9 launches are already the cheapest available, and it's very hard to best that,