Falcon 9 launch puts Dragon in orbit
The competition heats up: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket has successfully put its fifth Dragon cargo freighter into orbit, with a docking at ISS scheduled for Tuesday.
Spaceflight Now’s status update above also noted that this is the 13th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket since 2010. All these flights have successfully put their primary payloads into orbit as promised, an amazing track record for a new rocket built by a new company only in existence for less than a decade.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The competition heats up: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket has successfully put its fifth Dragon cargo freighter into orbit, with a docking at ISS scheduled for Tuesday.
Spaceflight Now’s status update above also noted that this is the 13th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket since 2010. All these flights have successfully put their primary payloads into orbit as promised, an amazing track record for a new rocket built by a new company only in existence for less than a decade.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Bravo. Looking forward to hearing the results of the booster landing test on this go around.
There was no first stage soft splashdown this time. I noted this fact last week. They didn’t explain why, but I suspect it was because of the Falcon 9R failure last month, combined with their effort to launch this rocket in a short turn-around.
I think one of the posts in the webcast said booster reentry attempt with low probability of success.
http://www.spacex.com/webcast/
I can see them testing the landing equipment they do have on board. Why waste the materials effort and time when you could get a few bits of extra information out of what you have?
I just can’t see a recoverable/reusable rocket coming from this landing.
The first stage flown on this launch did not have landing legs. They were very clear about that. As they were very close-mouthed about the whole thing it is possible they still attempted a soft splashdown anyway, but I got a very different impression.
Nonetheless, if they did try it, all to the best. I will gladly look forward to more cool videos and good engineering data.
On this CRS-4 mission both the first and second stage were re-fired to sample as much test data as possible for re-usability. Landing legs were not attached but soft landing was attempted.
I had a bet with somebody about this. I’m sure I’ve earned my soda by now.