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I understand the benefits of reusability for the rocket booster. But I don't understand why they're landing it on a barge. I've read tons of articles about this but not one has even hinted at an answer. Why is landing on a barge preferable over a launchpad or any other large flat surface that isn't moving with the waves?

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    $\begingroup$ See space.stackexchange.com/questions/6123/… $\endgroup$
    – Hobbes
    Commented Jan 10, 2015 at 21:49
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    $\begingroup$ Land tends to be covered with people and buildings and lawyers. $\endgroup$
    – Dan
    Commented Jan 11, 2015 at 3:56
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    $\begingroup$ I don't know rocket physics or the design of SpaceX, but I'd suppose that the rocket probably require lots of local positioning equipments to be able to land on a platform, which need to be positioned in precise configuration, like Autoland system for airplanes. Thus, they probably think its cheaper to build the positioning equipments into a movable ship rather than to have to disassemble, move, reassemble, resurvey, and reprogram every time a launch/landing platform is needed. And the ship can also carry it straight to the next launch location, allowing it to be much more flexible. $\endgroup$
    – Lie Ryan
    Commented Jan 11, 2015 at 13:56

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Edit Jan. 25, 2015: Geoffcc recently provided a link to words straight from the Horse's mouth, Elon Musk. Musk says the payload hit for RTLS (Return To Launch Site) is 30% vs a 15% payload hit for landing on a downrange ocean platform. Musk also said said safety is a reason for having an ocean landing platform -- "As far as the safety aspect of the return to launch site of the first stage that's part of why we want to do it first in the ocean just to make sure that things will be fine. For any landing area that we would have, the landing ellipse, the sort of error that the stage could encounter would be an unpopulated region. So we would aim to have a landing site that's unpopulated with a radius of a couple of miles (which can be achieved in Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg)."

So it seems safety as well as delta V are reasons for the barge landing

End Edit.

To get back to the launch pad, a booster stage would need to kill it's eastward velocity and then do a westward burn. This extra delta V "boost back" expense inflicts a penalty on payload mass as others have said.

However a Jon Ross info graphic from an NBC story indicates a boost back burn to get to the barge:

enter image description here

I had imagined a near parabolic trajectory for the booster's path from launch site to barge but Ross' graphic indicates a boost back burn as well as a reentry burn and landing burn. I haven't been able to get actual numbers but the delta V savings of this path doesn't seem that great.

Further, if this sort of barge landing offers substantial delta V savings over RTLS, then why is SpaceX still negotiating with the air force for the use of SLC 13 for RTLS?

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    $\begingroup$ Interesting, but how accurate is it? Could be just an artist's guess... $\endgroup$
    – Hobbes
    Commented Jan 12, 2015 at 20:24
  • $\begingroup$ The CRS-5 launch of January 2015 was a test. That may account for the unusual trajectory with partial boostback, giving them the opportunity to test the boostback principle without bringing the stage close to the Cape. The additional 15% payload hit for boostback makes it likely that downrange landings will be used occasionally in the future. $\endgroup$
    – Hobbes
    Commented Jan 25, 2015 at 18:22
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    $\begingroup$ @LocalFluff thats not a linear effect, for adding 30% more propelant you need to add another X% more propelant to push it.. And more to push that.. $\endgroup$
    – jkavalik
    Commented Jan 19, 2016 at 9:43
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    $\begingroup$ @jkavalik Falcon 9 takes a fifth or a tenth of the mass to orbit of what the Saturn V did. If Saturn V was reusable it would be very cheap to use it to launch cubesats to LEO. Mass of launcher is not a good proxy for launch costs. Not anymore. The paradigm is shifting. $\endgroup$
    – LocalFluff
    Commented Jan 19, 2016 at 10:15
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    $\begingroup$ As far as I know, they have three options: RTLS (easiest but most costly), landing on a barge with boost-back burn (harder than RTLS but allows for more payload / higher orbit), and landing on a barge without boost-back burn (hardest, but allows for even heavier payload or higher orbit). At the time of writing, they achieved 1 succesful RTLS, 1 succesful landing on sea with boost-back burn, 2 succesful landings on sea without boost-back burn, and since then one more almost succesful landing on sea without boost-back burn. $\endgroup$
    – Daan Wilmer
    Commented Jun 17, 2016 at 9:13
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Most people would cite danger to populations and property as the foremost reason to stay away from land. You're setting down a rocket on a tail of flame like a 50s sci-fi film, after all. But the economics of the launch physics is the overwhelming factor.

The "flying over populated areas" question is pretty much solved by their options to launch, currently coastal areas. By the time of the first stage MECO (Main Engine Cut Off) and separation, the Falcon 1st stage is significantly northeast of Canaveral, with nothing but water underneath.

Elon Musk did pitch trying to fly back to the launch pad, but the tyranny of the rocket equation makes the price exacted on payload unacceptable. Even if some of the booster cores from the Falcon Heavy make it back to shore (and this remains to be seen), they still plan to land the center core on a barge.

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  • $\begingroup$ "But the economics of the launch physics is the overwhelming factor." Can you expound on that? Are you saying it's easier to land on water because that's already where the rocket is? $\endgroup$
    – user379
    Commented Jan 11, 2015 at 3:29
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    $\begingroup$ @JustinY the first stage is considerably downrange from the launch site & traveling at a considerable rate of speed. It is enough to have to kill all of the forward momentum; the additional propellant required to get back to the launch site will mean that much less available capacity to launch payload. Much cheaper to provide a landing site closer to where the stage is overhead when you start the recovery burn. $\endgroup$
    – Jerard Puckett
    Commented Jan 11, 2015 at 6:09
  • $\begingroup$ "But the economics of the launch physics is the overwhelming factor." That was my opinion, that a barge landing eliminated boost back expense. Now I'm not so sure (see my answer). If you could provide cite(s) backing up your statement, I'd be grateful. $\endgroup$
    – HopDavid
    Commented Jan 12, 2015 at 19:57
  • $\begingroup$ SpaceX is still planning on returning the F9 first stage core to a landing pad, in fact, they have two under construction at this very moment. $\endgroup$
    – marked-down
    Commented Jan 12, 2015 at 20:17
  • $\begingroup$ @JerardPuckett Another point is that trying to aerobrake is very difficult, given that the rocket is in effect an oversized egg-shell hurtling at several times the speed of sound. Aerobraking will likely result in broken eggs. $\endgroup$
    – Aron
    Commented Jan 19, 2016 at 6:11
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Now that we've seen 4 landing attempts, it's time to revisit this question. We've seen both options (landing on a barge and on land) being used, albeit not yet successfully for the barge landing.

SpaceX wants both options.

  • They prefer to land the stage on land, if that's possible. This can only happen if there is sufficient margin to account for the extra fuel needed by the boostback burn. The Falcon 9 has some flexibility: the first stage cutoff point can be at speeds between 6000-9000 km/h (1670-2500 m/s). The speed chosen depends on the mission: missions to a high-energy orbit (GEO, heavy payloads) need a higher staging speed.
  • At the high end of that speed range, there's not enough fuel left for a return to the launch site, so the second option is to land the stage on the barge.

Quoting Elon Musk:

Ship landings are needed for high velocity missions.
Ship landings are not needed for flexibility or to save fuel costs.
Just not physically possible to return to launch site
If speed at stage separation (higher than) ~6000 km/hr. With a ship, no need to zero out lateral velocity, so can stage at up to ~9000 km/h.

They also used the first two barge landings to test the landing process and build confidence they can land the stage accurately. This may have been a requirement imposed by Cape Canaveral, but I haven't seen evidence either way.
The first landing on land (Falcon 9 Flight 20, Orbcomm-2) showed SpaceX can provide a safety margin for landings on land: after the reentry burn, the stage is on a trajectory towards a point just off the coast. If the landing burn fails (engine doesn't start), the stage will splash down harmlessly.

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    $\begingroup$ Musk had a series of tweets Sunday night that included some figures with speed at staging that limits the return to launch site - would make a nice addition to your answer. Sadly twitter seems to be down at the moment... $\endgroup$
    – James Thorpe
    Commented Jan 19, 2016 at 9:00
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    $\begingroup$ For convenience: 6000 km/h ~ 1670 m/s; 9000 km/h = 2500 m/s. $\endgroup$
    – user
    Commented Jan 19, 2016 at 12:07
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As this question has resurfaced following the Jan-2016 launch of Jason-3 it is worth flagging this news article that says, precisely, why a barge landing was selected in this case.

It states

Koenigsmann said SpaceX is doing the ship landing on this mission because it was not able to secure environmental permissions in time to permit a landing back at Vandenberg. “We could land back on land” were it not for the paperwork issue, he said. “We have enough energy on this mission to come back to land. It’s not anything technical.”

The source of the quote, Hans Koenigsmann, is vice president of mission assurance at SpaceX.

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I see nobody seems to have mentioned the simplest reason why they're not landing on land: there isn't any.

They launch east from Florida, and there aren't any islands in the Atlantic out there. Without a major course change from the first stage, which as other people point out would use a prohibitive amount of fuel, then it's basically going to come down in vast stretches of empty ocean. Hence the barge.

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    $\begingroup$ Actually Jerard says "1st stage is significantly northeast of Canaveral, with nothing but water underneath." $\endgroup$
    – James Jenkins
    Commented Jan 11, 2015 at 12:01
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The only reason SpaceX is landing on the barge is to demonstrate to the range safety community (and themselves) that they can safely and reliably land the first stage. There is a very little propulsive advantage to landing on the barge where SpaceX is positioning it vs. returning to the launch site.

A good video showing SpaceX's aspirations in this area is shown in this video.

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    $\begingroup$ That seems unlikely to be correct. They have stated repeatadly they take a payload hit, reserving propellant for stage recovery. As high as 15-30%. Being able to land downrange on a barge, instead of trying to find an island that would only work for one orbital inclination, or some other land base. So it seems there is a great deal of propulsive advantage to landing down range (on a barge or land) vs returning to launch site. $\endgroup$
    – geoffc
    Commented Jan 10, 2015 at 22:58
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    $\begingroup$ The 15-30% number tells you that there is a major cost. Boostback to the cape, for a Falcon Heavy center core, which is much higher, and much faster is definitely a bigger deal. $\endgroup$
    – geoffc
    Commented Jan 10, 2015 at 23:15
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    $\begingroup$ @raptortech97 - yet. $\endgroup$
    – Erik
    Commented Jan 11, 2015 at 6:29
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    $\begingroup$ I'd like to see some numbers to support your argument that RTLS only has a minor cost in extra fuel over a barge landing. $\endgroup$
    – Hobbes
    Commented Jan 11, 2015 at 12:09
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    $\begingroup$ @HopDavid Do not disagree with you. But the magnitude of that burn differs between RTLS and down range barge. That is the key disagreement here, the difference between the two. I dispute the "There is very little propulsive advantage". Clearly there IS a difference, perhaps we only quibble about the magnitude of 'little'. $\endgroup$
    – geoffc
    Commented Jan 12, 2015 at 19:42