SpaceX launch today
Discussion
Eric Mc said:
What's to control with a parachute?
Where the thing lands. SpaceX's aim is to land the stage within a fairly small area - on land, not at sea, to reduce the costs of recovering and refurbishing the stage. A parachute landing cannot be as accurate as a powered landing, so if using parachutes SpaceX would need to arrange for a huge expanse of land to be designated for landing, then transport the stage from wherever it came down to their facility for refurbishmentThe USA has quite a few "huge expanses of land" available so that isn't too much of a problem.
If you can target the re-entry to, say, descend into a landing ellipse target of about 10 miles long by five miles wide, that would be eminently doable and easy enough in places like the California High Desert area or White Sands, New Mexico.
The problem with a vertical landing is that you have to make sure that the landing area is dead flat with no serious obstructions. Also, with a tallish cylindrical shaped rocket stage there will always be the strong possibility of the whole thing toppling over - especially if there is any sort of wind about at the landing site.
A nice swooping horizontal landing on something like a parawing I think would be less risky.
The history of attempts to land rockets or aircraft tail first vertically on earth is not very good.
If you can target the re-entry to, say, descend into a landing ellipse target of about 10 miles long by five miles wide, that would be eminently doable and easy enough in places like the California High Desert area or White Sands, New Mexico.
The problem with a vertical landing is that you have to make sure that the landing area is dead flat with no serious obstructions. Also, with a tallish cylindrical shaped rocket stage there will always be the strong possibility of the whole thing toppling over - especially if there is any sort of wind about at the landing site.
A nice swooping horizontal landing on something like a parawing I think would be less risky.
The history of attempts to land rockets or aircraft tail first vertically on earth is not very good.
Although their attempt to soft land the booster stage from their recent launch failed, they are still experimenting with their vertical landing studies. I have to say, this is most impressive - as much for the photography as the successful test -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZDkItO-0a4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZDkItO-0a4
Dream Chaser appears to have had a mishap on its first glide test -
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1310/26dreamchaser...
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1310/26dreamchaser...
Eric Mc said:
Dream Chaser appears to have had a mishap on its first glide test -
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1310/26dreamchaser...
Waiting to see the video - apparently Brian Cox and his film crew just happened to be there during the test and filmed ithttp://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1310/26dreamchaser...
MartG said:
Eric Mc said:
Dream Chaser appears to have had a mishap on its first glide test -
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1310/26dreamchaser...
Waiting to see the video - apparently Brian Cox and his film crew just happened to be there during the test and filmed ithttp://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1310/26dreamchaser...
MartG said:
Eric Mc said:
I would have thought that the ability to land without crashing was not really a "non-flight issue".
Certainly from the perspective of the poor bugger who'll be flying the thing in the futurePity they didn't show the full landing.
Anomaly is a bit of an understatement.
I wonder if they had any sort of emergency blow down system?
Lowering the undercarriage is, to me, part of the "flight" of an aircraft fitted with a retractable undercarriage. If the undercarriage fails to deploy properly, that to me is a flight issue.
Anomaly is a bit of an understatement.
I wonder if they had any sort of emergency blow down system?
Lowering the undercarriage is, to me, part of the "flight" of an aircraft fitted with a retractable undercarriage. If the undercarriage fails to deploy properly, that to me is a flight issue.
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