General Discussion

backscatter712

(26,357 posts)

20. K&R for this!

Sat Apr 19, 2014, 12:22 PM

Apr 2014

Things couldn't have gone better for SpaceX.

A picture perfect launch of Dragon and all the secondary payloads.

And a successful test of the Falcon 9's first-stage landing capability - for the first time, a Falcon 9 first stage sent its payload to orbit, then reentered the atmosphere and soft landed. A water landing, but in the conditions of the test, this was a hell of a success.

Next few Falcon 9 first-stages will attempt soft-landings closer to the Cape, and they'll be trying to recover them each time.

Eventually, a Falcon 9 will launch, deliver its payload to orbit, then the first stage will come back to Cape Canaveral, make a soft landing on a landing pad, and be used to launch a payload again!

This will cut the price of access to space by an order of magnitude!

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SpaceX live webcast is up, launch at 3:25 pm Eastern [View all] bananas Apr 2014 OP

Thanks for the reminder! It's on NASA TV too. :D tridim Apr 2014 #1

SpaceX and NASA TV have different streams - watch both! bananas Apr 2014 #4

very cloudy around here today -I would be surprised if it stayed anywhere near scheduled launch time DrDan Apr 2014 #2

There is only a 1 minute launch window. Atman Apr 2014 #7

These launch windows seem impossible. nt bananas Apr 2014 #9

Launched on time. malthaussen Apr 2014 #11

amazing - 30-40 miles north - not a speck of sun all day, windy, just went on an errand and was DrDan Apr 2014 #16

What are they testing? NuclearDem Apr 2014 #3

3rd ISS resupply mission, testing propulsive soft landing of first stage bananas Apr 2014 #6

Thanks! XRubicon Apr 2014 #5

Very cool hearing all the communications between various teams. Atman Apr 2014 #8

T-5 minutes. nt bananas Apr 2014 #10

That staging shot was so cool! I hope we get HD video of it later. tridim Apr 2014 #12

Perfect launch!!!! LongTomH Apr 2014 #13

Elon Musk: Data upload from tracking plane shows landing in Atlantic was good! Several boats enroute bananas Apr 2014 #18

Holy shit, historic! joshcryer Apr 2014 #19

Well, that was mighty impressive. Atman Apr 2014 #14

Damn CFLDem Apr 2014 #15

Archived video bananas Apr 2014 #17

K&R for this! backscatter712 Apr 2014 #20