SpaceX Falcon 9 FT 1st reuse launch - SES-10 - LC-39A

[Grendal]

My Dad and I went to see the launch. We were at the famous Banana Creek viewing area at Kennedy. Here's a video taken with my Iphone if anyone is interested what it looked and sounded like from there. Sorry it wasn't done with better equipment, maybe next time.

It's a great video. I love the huge crowd experiencing the launch. Who was doing the voice over? Someone nearby, someone from NASA, or someone from Banana Creek? Your video gave it the personal touch that the official videos sometimes lack. Thanks for sharing.

I expect the aluminum was actually burning.

I looked it up and aluminum does have a very low burning and melting point. It's been mentioned that the fire retardant coating was what we saw burning off for the brief moment the boosters video stayed up. However, there was another 30 seconds after that moment of intense friction generating more heat. SpaceX, as Elon mentioned, will need to get a lot better at a fire retardant paint or coatings if they don't want to be recoating or repainting a booster after every landing. This was a hot landing but it seemed the new coating did not do as well as boosters with an unused fresh coating.

 

[Grendal]

Here we go. An official video of the landing from three angles:

Instagram post by SpaceX • Apr 5, 2017 at 2:16am UTC

Not quite perfectly dead center, but close.
I like the little hop at the end.

Here are a bunch of pictures of "Of Course I Still Love You" in port and the damage that is done to it from a landing. A few shots of the 1021 booster being offloaded as well.

Aerial photos of SpaceX B1021 recovery

 

[Electroman]

My Dad and I went to see the launch. We were at the famous Banana Creek viewing area at Kennedy. Here's a video taken with my Iphone if anyone is interested what it looked and sounded like from there. Sorry it wasn't done with better equipment, maybe next time.

Thanks I enjoyed it. A different angle, a different perspective. Everything what we have seen so far are closeup from the booster or 2nd stage. Seeing from the ground till MECO is cool.

 

[Electricfan]

Who was doing the voice over? Someone nearby, someone from NASA, or someone from Banana Creek? .

They had a local "expert" answering questions for a couple of hours before the launch. They tried to pipe in the SpaceX audio feed when it got close to launch time but had problems and only got it working at the very last minute - maybe it was right after liftoff. Another confusing thing is that I think the audio from the SpaceX feed was delayed, so the rocket was a little further along than the SpaceX audio.

Someone asked him during the Q&A before the launch, why did they end the shuttle program? His answer surprised me, being right there on the NASA grounds, because he said one reason was that they lost 2 of 5 shuttles, and in the end they were just not a safe vehicle. I was surprised NASA would admit that. He listed many other reasons - cost of a billion dollars per launch, etc., so the "unsafe" comment wasn't the primary reason.

 

[Doug_G]

"Unsafe" is the real reason. The cost wasn't a problem, it was a benefit that boosted jobs in various congressional districts.

 

[aronth5]

"Published on Apr 6, 2017
Gwynne Shotwell showed a neat montage during her presentation at the 33rd Space Symposium.
The video shows the booster's journey from CRS-8 launch through refurbishment to landing for the second time during the SES-10 mission."

 

[ecarfan]

Gwynne Shotwell showed a neat montage during her presentation at the 33rd Space Symposium.

I love it. Thanks for posting!

 

[ls7corvete]

I thought I would bring this thread back from the dead to ask, where is B1021 now?

 

[Grendal]

I thought I would bring this thread back from the dead to ask, where is B1021 now?

B1022 is still sitting at the Cape awaiting NASA doing something with it.
Anytime you want to find some information on a core and usually the latest details about a core, you want to go to:
cores - spacex
This is located in the SpaceX abbreviations and shortcut pinned thread. Which has all sorts of useful SpaceX data and data links.
Space(X) Acronyms, Abbreviations, and Data Links