New Olympic sport: Synchronized Rocketry.

Perfect 10 on the boosters.

 

Thanks for posting. Awesome sight of the two boosters landing simultaneously.

 

that was cool.

 

Did the 3rd booster make it to the drone ship?

 

I almost gave up after a minute of nothing but the SpaceX logo. Eight minutes of the SpaceX banner was definitely too much. But worth the wait at the end of they day.

Any word on the center core recovery yet?

 

I want to know how the carry enough fuel to land those boosters without drag chutes.

 

The Verge is reporting the core was lost.

 

The Verge is reporting the core was lost.

Two out of three ain't bad...

 

I want to know how the carry enough fuel to land those boosters without drag chutes.

Since the majority of the weight of the rocket is the fuel, it's actually pretty light coming back down and since they are using the same engines that could lift and accelerate the rocket and it's share of the payload with full fuel, they have power to spare so it only takes a pretty short burn and relatively little fuel. I've looked before trying to find out how much of the total fuel load has to be reserved for recovery, but haven't been able to track down the number.

The penalty that they are paying for the reusability is having to have rockets that are bigger than they would otherwise need to be in order to carry the extra fuel (and the extra weight of the extra cubage associate with it). I don't know how much more powerful the rocket engines needed to be.

 

The Verge is reporting the core was lost.

That's a shame -- it's always nice to have a clean sweep.

Still a wildly successful launch. I don't know how much additional useful data they will get from the core recovery failure -- some I'm sure -- since they've largely gotten past that hurdle.

 

New Olympic sport: Synchronized Rocketry.

Perfect 10 on the boosters.

Talk about sticking the landing! Wow. That’s some good rocket science right there.

 

What is cool is that SpaceX now has heavy lift capability.

 

The penalty that they are paying for the reusability is having to have rockets that are bigger than they would otherwise need to be in order to carry the extra fuel (and the extra weight of the extra cubage associate with it). I don't know how much more powerful the rocket engines needed to be.

I suppose the accountants have decided that the extra fuel + heavier rockets + lighter payload < cost of new boosters.

 

What is cool is that SpaceX now has heavy lift capability.

Just wait till my AG module comes on line. You ain't seen nothing yet.

 

Talk about sticking the landing! Wow. That’s some good rocket science right there.

More like rocket surgery.

 

First time in history to hear and watch 2 rockets land in tandem. It was like a star wars movie.

 

First time in history to hear and watch 2 rockets land in tandem. It was like a star wars movie.

It brought to my mind the reverse of the scene in the movie Armageddon (I think) where they had two simultaneous shuttle launches.

 

On the core booster.... It was expected to make a three engine landing burn, but only the center engine ignited. Elon indicated 'it ran out of fuel', but those in the know translate that to mean the booster ran out of the chemicals (TEA/TEB) it uses to ignite the engine. If it had actually ran out of fuel, the center engine would have also not fired.

With insufficient braking thrust, the core hit the water at about 300 MPH. Apparently, it did not hit the barge, so no damage there.

 

I can't drive, 55!