MajorClanger Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 Elon Musk may have been getting all the publicity about his attempts to land a Falcon 9 first stage (all of which have so far ended in close-but-kerboom) but that other dot-com billionaire Jeff Bezos seems to have beaten him to it in terms of soft-landing a booster that got into space: Blue Origin First Successful Landing This video released today is a mix of flight footage from yesterday and simulation, but it does show flight, separation of the capsule, parachute recovery of the capsule and vertical rocket landing of the booster itself. (Warning: very cheesy music, but I suppose if you've flown your own rocketship you get to choose the soundtrack.) 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 Weee!!!!! That was fun I wouldn't have wanted to be in the capsule at main chute deployment or touch-down though, as they seemed a bit rough & ready, but the booster coming back down like a falling stone and then hovering out to a gentle touch-down was superb! In answer to the last question, I do want to go to space please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caerbannog Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 :wow: :wow: Amazing! Where is the Blue Orgin kit now? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 Best 3mins 13secs of my time on the Internet! Brilliant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bootneck Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 Excellent! progress, always progress (can we have an astronaut emiticon now please?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spitfire Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 Fantastic Cheers Dennis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorLars Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 (edited) Amazing! Where is the Blue Orgin kit now? Well, since we're talking about Blue Origin it would be fitting that a kit would be announced AFTER it's done and not before. Edited November 24, 2015 by NorLars Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jessica Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 Oh my, isn't that a ...suggestive shape. Is he compensating for something? All it lacks are Dr. Evil's two spherical fuel tanks. And in fairness to Falcon 9, there's a massive difference between a purely ballistic track up and down and an orbital insertion trajectory. The velocities involved are nowhere near each other. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MajorClanger Posted November 24, 2015 Author Share Posted November 24, 2015 Oh my, isn't that a ...suggestive shape. Is he compensating for something? All it lacks are Dr. Evil's two spherical fuel tanks. And in fairness to Falcon 9, there's a massive difference between a purely ballistic track up and down and an orbital insertion trajectory. The velocities involved are nowhere near each other. Yes, I found myself thinking Austin Powers too... Elon Musk was on Twitter congratulating Bezos but also pointedly noting that getting to 100km straight up is very different from getting into orbit. That being said, the Falcon 1 first stage is going nowhere near orbital velocity at separation. What's impressive is the landing accuracy. The booster came down close to, or nearly on top of, the cameras taking the landing footage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jessica Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 Not orbital velocity, no, but returning from 2 Km/s pointed Eastward is a lot different from 0 Km/s pointed straight up. I'd also like to see Blue Origin try to hit a barge instead of a stationary piece of desert. I don't like to sound disparaging, but the level of engineering and autopilot challenge here is very different. SpaceX first did most of what Blue Origin just achieved back in 2013. Having said that, private space flight! In my lifetime! Paging all Skiffy writers: Science Marches On! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicodemus Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 Now aint that something! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Mc Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Yes - it is a bit of an achievement. Landing a tall, unstable cylinder on a relatively narrow track undercarriage, balancing only on a rocket exhaust is a very tricky thing to do. However, as has been pointed out, what Blue Origin did this week is essentially a repeat of what the SpaceX Grasshopper did a couple of years ago - and what even the DC-X achieved over 20 years ago. But it's still impressive. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jessica Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 I think that the best part is that two separate companies came up with two different ways to accomplish the same thing. Having redundancy in methodology is a Good Thing 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Mc Posted November 26, 2015 Share Posted November 26, 2015 I still think having a parachute on board to arrest the rate of descent would be helpful. Those last few feet look awfully dodgy to me as the rate of descent only slows dramatically literally microseconds before touchdown. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jessica Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 Dear Blue Origin 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bentwaters81tfw Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 Very impressive. What's next? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jessica Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 Next they do it again, to prove the concept. Then in a couple of years, they put a crew on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Mc Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 Next they do it again - with a refurbished 1st stage. They probably will not refurbish this one as they will want to pull this one apart to see what type of battering it took on the way back in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GordonD Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 Unfortunately the latest SpaceX Falcon recovery attempt wasn't so successful: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-35340734 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SleeperService Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 I can't see the floating barge idea working too well. Far better IMHO to concentrate on landing the thing on a stable surface then, maybe moving onto an unstable platform if you really think it's a good idea (which I don't). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
little-cars Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 From the webcast it looks like that it isn't always going to be possible to get back to land,so they need the ships( Love the names!). It looked like it was just the leg failing that stopped it being successful this time, and it was quite choppy. It sounded like they are more than happy to learn from the failures, I also like them also using their own staff as presenters. Paul 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Learstang Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 That was an amazing landing - straight out of Buck Rogers, but real! I'm seeing things now when it comes to space travel that used to just be science fiction when I was young. I thankfully haven't lost my youthful fascination with outer space and space travel. Regards, Jason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Mc Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 (edited) The fact that it was landing on a barge doesn't appear to have been the problem. One of the legs failed to lock down properly when deployed. This leg then folded a split second after the successful touch down - which caused the rocket to topple over. The suspect is ice stopped one of the locking collets from sliding into position. They think that the freezing fog that existed all through launch morning might have been the culprit. Edited January 18, 2016 by Eric Mc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jessica Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 If the same problem kept happening they would have been concerned. The fact that each landing failure has had a different cause means that continuous improvement is happening. After all, it is rocket science we're talking about here. Time for a redesign... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SleeperService Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 All True and maybe my comment appeared harsher than I intended. There is a lot to like about the New Space Race and it definitely represents progress in a way that the Politically shackled space Shuttle could never achieve. My instinct is still to favour removing a variable if possible then re-introducing it once the other issues are contained but the Rocket Scientists must have better information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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