Monday, December 21, 2015

As God and Heinlein intended.....

SpaceX launched several Orbcomm Satellites in their return to flight today. And SpaceX added a little something special.



Landing video



A rocket today landed on its tail as God and Robert Heinlein intended.

Congrats to everybody at SpaceX.

Additional Note:
One valuable thing about this is that by being able to return the first stage to land, the engineers will be able to examine the rocket without it having been dunked in seawater. Seawater is highly corrosive so this will be a big boost for SpaceX and others in improving the quality and performance of rockets.

5 comments:

Jeff said...

Woo Hoo! I didn't even know they were testing that! Thanks for telling us about it!

Dmitry Gerasimov said...

So far they have achieved something that seems to be devoid of any practical sense. A payload of just under two tons could be delivered by a rocket the size (and cost) of Falcon's 2nd stage.

Arlan said...

Thanks for using my “God and Robert Heinlein” phrase, from ANALOG, June 1993, in my article “Single Stage to Infinity!”

BigFire said...

re: Dmitry Gerasimov
Coming back 6 years later, SpaceX is now cleaning clocks of all competitors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oko8X7dMcvI

Robert Conley said...

:-)