History Making First Recovery for SpaceX - Orbcomm-2 Launch

[HVM]

Orbcomm-2 booster is back at Launch Complex 40:
floridatoday.com/spacex-poised-fire-landed-falcon-rockets-engines

 

[hockeythug]

Orbcomm-2 booster is back at Launch Complex 40:
floridatoday.com/spacex-poised-fire-landed-falcon-rockets-engines
View attachment 107774

Yep. Static fire tomorrow.

 

[Grendal]

Successful static fire test of the returned stage with a variance:

SpaceX fire up returned Falcon 9 first stage at SLC-40 | NASASpaceFlight.com

Twitter from Elon of results: “Conducted hold-down firing of returned Falcon rocket. Data looks good overall, but engine 9 showed thrust fluctuations. Maybe some debris ingestion. Engine data looks ok. Will borescope tonight. This is one of the outer engines.”

 

[lolachampcar]

I've got a life size picture of Elon up on a ladder with a borescope in his hands poking around

 

[Ulmo]

Success

Aha! I missed this one. I must have been working that night. I was working a lot of hours back then.

Oops, no, I retweeted it. I wish I had a perfect memory. Who knows what I really did that night. I probably watched it!!

 

[mach.89]

For anyone in the LA area that's interested, the Falcon 9 from this launch is back at Space X in Hawthorne. Sorry if this has been mentioned on the forums already, I just searched for this particular thread to post it. You can see it best driving east on Jack Northrop, just south of the airport along Space X's west campus. You can't see it along the sidewalk due to a blacked out fence. I did find a couple areas where I could sneak my cell phone past the tarp on the fence and snapped a couple great photos, but beware of security everywhere. Pretty dang awesome to see tho!

 

[lolachampcar]

This stuff is just too cool.
I envy Elon's ability to play in such fun sand boxes (even with the glass munching from time to time).

 

[Grendal]

For anyone in the LA area that's interested, the Falcon 9 from this launch is back at Space X in Hawthorne. Sorry if this has been mentioned on the forums already, I just searched for this particular thread to post it. You can see it best driving east on Jack Northrop, just south of the airport along Space X's west campus. You can't see it along the sidewalk due to a blacked out fence. I did find a couple areas where I could sneak my cell phone past the tarp on the fence and snapped a couple great photos, but beware of security everywhere. Pretty dang awesome to see tho!

Awesome pictures! SpaceX has gotten approval from the FAA to stand the rocket up but hasn't actually done it yet. The top will have a flashing light to let airplanes know to avoiding hitting the very tall booster. SpaceX is very near the Hawthorne airport. It's possible they are waiting on other permits before they can stand it up.

I hope they put landing legs on it. It would emphasize the achievement that rocket accomplished. I'm pretty sure the engines are dummies at this point.

 

[mach.89]

Awesome pictures! SpaceX has gotten approval from the FAA to stand the rocket up but hasn't actually done it yet. The top will have a flashing light to let airplanes know to avoiding hitting the very tall booster. SpaceX is very near the Hawthorne airport. It's possible they are waiting on other permits before they can stand it up.

I hope they put landing legs on it. It would emphasize the achievement that rocket accomplished. I'm pretty sure the engines are dummies at this point.

SpaceX displays Falcon 9 rocket as monument outside of HQ in Hawthorne, CA

Here ya go... Looks like they did put the landing legs back on, gonna drive by this week to check it out myself.

 

[Grendal]

SpaceX displays Falcon 9 rocket as monument outside of HQ in Hawthorne, CA

Here ya go... Looks like they did put the landing legs back on, gonna drive by this week to check it out myself.

Yeah. They're putting the legs on overnight. It should be done by tomorrow. I was wrong about the engines. The nozzles are show wear from a burn. Whether they are the actual engines from F9-0021 is unknown, but they are used engines nozzles.

 

[ecarfan]

Very cool, looking forward to driving by there the next time I am passing through LA and seeing it in person!

 

[Grendal]

While we are in this downtime from a failure, here is a remembrance of the height of glory:

I've never seen this before. It's cool to see Elon's reaction to the very first landing:

SpaceX Makes History

Also a link to the National Geographic channel for episodes of Mars.

 

[malcolm]

Thanks for the link Grendal.

Great to watch it again.

 

[Grendal]

It's been two years.
SpaceX (@SpaceX) | Twitter

Two years ago today, Falcon 9 delivered 11 Orbcomm satellites to low-Earth orbit followed by the first successful orbital class rocket booster landing. To date, SpaceX has landed 20 boosters—12 on droneships and 8 on land—and flown 4 missions on flight-proven boosters.

Here's the video reminder of that historic moment:

 

[ecarfan]

Thanks for posting those video. Watched them again, and it was almost as emotional as watching it live!

 

[Electroman]

Absolutely. I was so thrilled i called some half a dozen people whoever I could reach at that time, and told them about the landing. None of them cared. sigh.

 

[ecarfan]

Absolutely. I was so thrilled i called some half a dozen people whoever I could reach at that time, and told them about the landing. None of them cared. sigh.

I have a similar experience when talking to people I know about SpaceX. A small fraction of the people I talk to get excited. Another minor fraction show some mild interest. But I would say the majority show no interest at all. This is incomprehensible to me. The mission of SpaceX is to change the course of human history in the most significant way since the invention of the first crude stone tool, in my opinion. Even if ultimately a Martian colony fails, we will learn so much in the process that we will be prepared to try another off-Earth colony somewhere else, one that may well succeed, whether on another planetary body, a moon, an asteroid, or in orbit somewhere.

 

[StephenM]

Same here. I can't find anyone in my immediate group of friends, nay, any group of people I have regular contact with, to have a conversation about SpaceX. I can see their eyes glaze over so I move on. Thank God for this group!

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Same here. I can't find anyone in my immediate group of friends, nay, any group of people I have regular contact with, to have a conversation about SpaceX. I can see their eyes glaze over so I move on. Thank God for this group!

There's a lot of feeling of "What's the point?"
Talking about plans to go to Mars won't excite many people. To be honest, I'm really not that excited about going to Mars. What excites me is what it would mean for global telecommunications to have cheap access to space. StarLink is the _really_ interesting project.

 

[scaesare]

There's a lot of feeling of "What's the point?"
Talking about plans to go to Mars won't excite many people. To be honest, I'm really not that excited about going to Mars. What excites me is what it would mean for global telecommunications to have cheap access to space. StarLink is the _really_ interesting project.

Short term, StarLink is indeed the SpaceX effort more likely to directly impact the average person, so from that standpoint I can see the more immediate interest. I think of it as a tactical initiative.

Long term, not only enabling human travel to another planet (not just our local satellite), but perhaps the initial steps at colonizing another world are far more exciting than simply building more efficient away to move IP packets from point A to point B. It's the strategic initiative.