SpaceX CRS-8 Postlaunch Press Conference

[Grendal]

This has already been posted but there is lots of SpaceX details and future plans being discussed. I figured it deserved it own thread. Also information on the recovered stage and its plans for the future.

Elon starts at 3:52 and questions begin at 8:30. Almost an hour and a half of information.

 

[Grendal]

For example, Elon mentions at 34:20 that SpaceX would like to recover the fairing. He mentions that piece alone costs several million each.

And correction: the conference is only 30 minutes of questions. This video repeats it twice.

 

[ecarfan]

I was interested to hear that Elon wants to recover the payload fairing. I assume parachutes and then an ocean recovery?

 

[Grendal]

I was interested to hear that Elon wants to recover the payload fairing. I assume parachutes and then an ocean recovery?

That is what I thought too. There is an entire thread on NASA Spacefight Now forum discussing the subject. There are lots of interesting ideas floating around. Full blown parachutes are probably not worth the weight penalty. The fairings are very light and have a petal sort of shape so something to cause a slowing down or maneuvering might be enough to allow recovery. There is lots of discussion about connecting them to the booster stage in some way. It's an interesting dilemma.