Falcon 9: JCSAT-14 (mission thread)

[DocM]

100% pure rocket porn

Edited May 21, 2016 by DocM

[Draggendrop Veteran]

 

[DocM]

That tweet surprised everyone. Sounds like only a crash or photon torpedoes will kill that stage. The Astronaut Office is probably grinning ear to ear.

[BetaguyGZT]

Guess that settles that.  I personally wouldn't feel totally comfortable flying it again without repairing it first, but if Elon says it could do the job under normal launch & reentry conditions (and not the "blowtorch" reentry like this past launch was), then cool.

 

Fly it again with a dummy load just to set all questions to rest; that way there's no payload loss potential -- just the fuel, the fairings and the dummy load itself.

[BetaguyGZT]

  On 22/05/2016 at 19:05, DocM said:

Sounds like only a crash or photon torpedoes will kill that stage.

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Apparently not even fire will do it.   And fire tried. 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

I have observed a lot of assumptions, on various sites, on the state of damage. IMHO, it has gone a bit overboard and am glad that Elon made that tweet. I may be wrong, but I have not found anywhere, where SpaceX stated that the stage was not reusable, just that it had maximum damage for their baseline.

There will be a point, where the replaceable costs will deem a stage to be for parts only, and this stage is a maximum cost point to still reuse.

 

Lots of testing to do still, and it's only going to improve with time. Two launches ago, I had no idea when ASDS landings were to begin being reasonable. I am almost feeling comfortable that this will be routine sooner than expected....then we'll have Falcon Heavy to anticipate over.

[DocM]

It's not just that ASDS is becoming a comfortable option, but that they successfully performed the 3 engine suicide-slam on try #2.  Seeing a bright flash then POOF!, there it was, was a bit of a shock. 

[BetaguyGZT]

I'll never be completely, utterly comfortable with the landings no matter how routine they get. That's actually how it's supposed to be ... if we get complacent, we start to not pay attention and that's when the bad stuff happens. Treat each one like it matters, because it does.  

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Agreed...one can be comfortable in their capabilities, and it's the constant testing that brings about these successes and increases confidence. There will always be problems...or...Murphy's Law....but the probabilities increase. We knew the hover slam would have to be mastered to a reasonable level for fast and hot missions. They appear to be rapidly applying acquired knowledge and pushing progress...would not expect anything less.