Tuned in late for the conference, but just heard Elon say that only a few more dots need to be connected for a successful landing ability, that this test gave them info to connect more dots, and that he thinks it could happen this year. - - - Updated - - - The next step would be to not only recover the first stage, but also to re-fly it. This would likely happen next year. - - - Updated - - - Seems the landing test went quite well, but they don't have all the data yet (needs a couple of hours). If sea weather gets better, they might try to get to the first stage.
Elon Musk @elonmusk 55s Data upload from tracking plane shows landing in Atlantic was good! Several boats enroute through heavy seas. Twitter / elonmusk: Data upload from tracking plane ...
I'm hoping that the recovery ships retrieve the rocket quickly. The Russian situation worries me, and I have no doubt that the Russians would steal the Falcon 9 in order to pirate the intellectual property for their own programs if they had the chance. Given the heavy seas though I think the Russians would have as much trouble as anyone else trying to recover the booster.
That means the booster went horizontal only after reaching the water. And if that took 8 seconds, speed was probably quite low.
I think you are a little paranoid buddy. Maybe it is time to stop watching Fox news and do a little research about Russia yourself.
Pretty difficult to steal a rocket stage floating in the middle of the ocean. You can't just pick it up and stuff it in a ship's hold and disappear with it when other vessels on the area are actively looking for it and probably have a very good idea of where it is located.
Maybe the russians can show us the landing video I'm assuming that's what the tug was doing there thoug it wouldn't be that odd if they indeed attempted to recover the stage before SpaceX to glean of the intel, that has been the modus operandi of russian research for the past 80 years and I doubt they'd just stop
Paranoid, yes. But I do not watch Fox "News" or other cable tv propaganda channels. I know it would be difficult, but not impossible. Sometimes dumb luck can play a factor. The odds of a Russian tug stealing a rocket are not good (rough seas, would be difficult to know the splashdown area without data stream from the rocket), but there's always the element of random chance.
Elon retweeted this story; amazing perspective of Dragon in flight: Dragon in space: SpaceX capsule video by Theirry Legault
Theirry Legault is an amazing astrophotographer, to be sure, but I have doubts that this video shows the capsule and solar sails. It must be four objects flying in formation - perhaps some covers ejected during spacecraft separation? Here's a cropped frame grabbed from the video. It clearly shows the pot end of the "Big Digger" (actually part of the constellation Ursa Major). The field of view is approximately 20 degrees. The text accompanying the article says that the 7.2 meters long at an altitude of 370 km. It should be about 0.07 arc-seconds across at this distance. The resolution of this hand-held camera with a field of view that large is orders of magnitude too low to resolve the spacecraft. A found a youtube video posted by Theirry Legault here: One of the comments: That seems more plausible.
A few more details on the first stage: Spaceflight Now SpaceX achieves controlled landing of Falcon 9 first stage Regardless of whether the first stage is retrieved in one piece, Musk told reporters Friday the recovery experiment went further in demonstrating the Falcon 9's potential for reuse than any mission before. "We were able to control the boost stage to a zero roll rate, which is previously what has destroyed the stage -- uncontrolled roll where the on-board nitrogen thrusters weren't able to control the aerodynamic torque and spun up," Musk said. "This time, with more powerful thrusters and more nitrogen propellant, we were able to null the roll rates."
The usual skepticism and archaic thinking - Lockheed Martin and Ariane in this context, regarding reusability - continues when it comes to ideas that Musk pursues with fervor.
ULA’s and Arianespace’s views sound lot a like that Mercedes exec’s thinking of Tesla Motors. (or Nokia’s views of the first iPhone or Kodak’s about digital cameras…)