SpaceX doing fairing landing tests with its ship, Mr. Steven
Link here. Apparently they are using a helicopter to drop the fairing from an altitude of 11,000 feet to simulate a launch return, and the ship is then attempting to catch it.
It is unclear however whether the ship has been successful with its catching attempts.
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Link here. Apparently they are using a helicopter to drop the fairing from an altitude of 11,000 feet to simulate a launch return, and the ship is then attempting to catch it.
It is unclear however whether the ship has been successful with its catching attempts.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
The Mr Steven is named for Steven Miguez , chief executive of Iberia Marine and father of Blake Miguez, Iberia Marine’s President and CEO of SeaTran, which owns the vessel and its sister Mr Blake.
More about the ship (a modified drilling rig support craft) launched in 2014
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/mr-steven-fairing-catcher-boat/
Technical specifications from SeaTran’s site
http://www.seatranmarine.com/vessels-1/mr-steven
Local paper chimes in about “bizarre ship”
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/22/whats-that-spacex-ship-with-the-massive-claw-arms-on-the-los-angeles-waterfront/
One last article
https://www.space.com/41614-spacex-mr-steven-catcher-boat-up-close.html
One might suppose that drop tests would have been done first, but I understand that if you have pieces of rocket falling out of the sky anyway, you may as well use that as a live test.
Blair Ivey wrote: “if you have pieces of rocket falling out of the sky anyway, you may as well use that as a live test.”
Doing a live test before the helicopter test gives an idea of the problems that actually need to be solved. Modelling can only go so far, but reality teaches better lessons. Once you know where the big problems are, helicopter drop tests can help solve the ones at the final approach phase.
Involving the ship, Mr. Stevens, in early tests likely tested the limits of the ship with respect to the behavior of the falling fairing. An early question to answer: can the trajectory/flight of a fairing be known well enough for a ship to get close to its splashdown site?
In retrospect, the creation of the following video may have come not from a desire to display the beauty and grace of spaceflight but from an early study of the behavior of fairings as they reenter the atmosphere (and you thought that engineering is dry and boring rather than beautiful and graceful):
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/the-evening-pause/spacex-the-blue-danube/
Neat stuff, Col. Thanks.