13
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Accepted
What is the cause of this Falcon 9 first stage "dance" after landing?
The movement comes, as you guessed, from the ASDS (autonomous spaceport droneship) moving in the seas. Although the sea might not look rough, one can easily underestimate the scale of the ASDS and the ...
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11
votes
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SpaxeX employees on the droneship when the booster lands?
No, they're on a separate ship (a tug boat) nearby. This tug tows the barge into position, then detaches so the barge can use its own motors for positioning and retreats to a safe distance for the ...
- 130k
11
votes
Is this Falcon 9 on a drone ship in Port Canaveral really on fire?
The cited Teslarati article SpaceX’s latest Falcon 9 booster returns to port as NASA hints at “vested interest” actually offers an explanation immediately after they show the tweet:
B1056’s return ...
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9
votes
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Would it be beneficial to land Falcon Heavy's side boosters on droneships too?
Currently SpaceX has only one drone ship in the Atlantic, Of Course I Still Love You, so it wasn't an option. As far as I know, they aren't planning to build more; their goal is to do as many return-...
- 172k
8
votes
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Feasibility of landing all 3 Cores of the Falcon Heavy on Droneships
Feasibility of landing all 3 Cores of the Falcon Heavy on Droneships
That would require three ASDS in the landing zone which SpaceX does not have. Therefore, it is not feasible.
All of the Falcon ...
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8
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What is the turnaround time for SpaceX's barges?
Let's look at some of the past missions to get an idea. In particular, let's look at the Echostar 105 mission. The mission launched on October 11. It arrived in port on October 15th. Unloading the ...
- 122k
7
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What is the cause of this Falcon 9 first stage "dance" after landing?
According to this and this article it is the Thaicom 8 mission (until now I always thought that it is from the BulgariaSat mission). They say that a radar glitch damaged landing legs.
If Falcon 9 ...
- 846
6
votes
What is the turnaround time for SpaceX's barges?
Towing speed is usually around 5-8 knots. The ASDS Barges do not have engines for travelling, rather the Thrustmasters at each corner are used almost exclusively for station keeping as the booster is ...
- 80.5k
6
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What if anything makes launching a recovered SpaceX rocket from a drone ship implausible?
The barge would need some kind of flame trench, and you'd need some kind of rain bird system to absorb the acoustic energy reflected off the barge surface, otherwise you risk damage from the rocket's ...
- 2,350
5
votes
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What barge height limit warning sign is Scott Manley describing? (Falcon Heavy core fell into ocean)
Core loss was initially discussed from reddit reports of a pilot over the atlantic, and later confirmed by spacex on April 15.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/15/18311945/spacex-falcon-heavy-center-...
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4
votes
Feasibility of landing Starship's Super Heavy booster on a droneship
The problem is that Superheavy does not have landing legs so any landing would need a catching structure similar to that at the launch site. Superheavy is very tall so would need a very tall catching ...
- 10.4k
4
votes
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How heavy is SpaceX's Octagrabber?
Bottom line: Octograbber is dead weight ballast that lowers the Falcon9 center of gravity. No rare earth magnets, suction cups or Velcro are needed.
Dry mass of Falcon9 1st stage is 25,600kg. About ...
- 27.9k
4
votes
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Has F9 landed on ships in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans?
There are two ASDS ships.
Just Read the Instructions (JRTI) which was first deployed on the Marmac 300 hull, never successfully landed a stage, had its wings removed and moved over to a newer hull (...
- 80.5k
4
votes
Accepted
How far from the launch site was the recovery drone for the center core of the Falcon Heavy test flight?
The Falcon Heavy demo flight simulation on FlightClub.io (produced before the launch with available public information) has the final downrange distance for the center core at 347km. I don't know how ...
- 172k
3
votes
Is this Falcon 9 on a drone ship in Port Canaveral really on fire?
The possibility exists that the photo represents a camera position directly in line with spotlight(s) that would otherwise overpower the shutter. By providing masking, the rocket permits such a direct ...
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3
votes
Why not use a rotorcraft drone or quadcopter using GPS navigation to live stream SpaceX booster landings on the droneship?
They have done this with a drone, recording a landing before.
Here is an example of a drone recording the landing at LZ-1, so on land and thus easier.
CRS-8 landing on the drone ship, from a ...
- 80.5k
2
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Has F9 landed on ships in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans?
Yes. Actually the Wikipedia article you cite has good info. :-)
Most of the successful drone landings have been on OCISLY (Of Course I Still Love You) in the Atlantic. However, on Jan 14, 2017, there ...
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2
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What if anything makes launching a recovered SpaceX rocket from a drone ship implausible?
The engineering issues you mention would not present any serious problems - in general anything you can build on land could also be built on top of a sufficiently large ship, and between Sea Launch ...
- 2,267
2
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What if anything makes launching a recovered SpaceX rocket from a drone ship implausible?
There are no fundamental physics problems with launching from a floating platform in the sea - the comany Sea Launch has been doing it for years, though in their case it's more a converted oil ...
- 1,705
1
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Is it possible to use the formula of the thrust equation for a helicopter on Venus?
A good OrderOfMagnitude method for calculating this is the momentum theory method used in this answer.
$$T = C_T \cdot \rho \cdot A \cdot \Omega^2 \cdot R^2$$
If we take $C_T$ identical to that on ...
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What if anything makes launching a recovered SpaceX rocket from a drone ship implausible?
The first problem I see are the frangible legs. Even if Falcon 9 could retract them (not sure if it can; doubt it) they absorb part of the shock by crumpling a part of internal structure, which then ...
- 56k
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