Launched!

SECO, Dragon separation!!!!

Looks nominal all the way; Dragon is in orbit. Congratulations to SpaceX!

Beautiful launch, beautiful separation and 2nd stage ignition. No oscillation.

Wow. It's not every day you get to see a dragon fly.

<sound of a tuba groaning in agony @Dan>...

Yeah, wow, Dragon popped right off the second stage like it's done it a thousand times! Very impressive.

Hope the rest of the flight is equally smooth.

CONGRATULATIONS SPACEX!

What an amazing time in which we live!


-- Pertinax

At todays post fllght news confrence, Elon Musk said that the dragon was carrying a secret humorous payload. He would reveal what it was tomorrow, but if you like Monty Python, you will think its funny.

HE LIKES ME! HE LIKES ME!

Dead Parrot and/or Spam

SpaceX photo of the Dragon capsule floating in the Pacific after successfuly reentry

Question: Was recovery of the first stage even attempted, or am I confused & thinking of F1?

At the conference, someone asked him if they had recoverd the first stage. He replied something like - Why do you have to add a sour note to an otherwise great day. Nobody has ever recovered a liquid fueled stage in good shape before. But on this flight we got much better telemetry from the stage and we had a black box with cameras and sensor data on it to find out where the weak spots in the design are, and we will fix them. Our goal is to recover and re-use first stages.

Brian

I should also add that they had 2 ships in the atlantic which I assume were ther for recovery opps since telemetry came from the cape and New Hampshire.

...thanks!

Yeah, that would have been extreme icing on the cake. Frankly, I'm a bit surprised they even tried given the necessary focus on Dragon.

I just want to know who the totally awesome mustachioed 70's dude in their webcast?
Click to view attachment

That would be Kevin Brogan, Space-X propulsion engineer, definitely a rocket scientist with a sense of style.

Thanks for the ID- SpaceX has certainly assembled an A-Team!

It's a wheel of cheeeese!

Whole flight report here: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=35548
On top of pictures there is a video (clicable picture link to the video) of the flight including Lift off, MECO,SECO, Dragon separation, video over Hawaii, splash down and recovery. Worth a look.

Will be interesting to see if SpaceX throw a Dragon around the Moon like Apollo 8. They could orbit a TLI stage with the Falcon 9 Heavy. A modified 2nd stage should be able to boost a Dragon into a free-return trajectory. Any suggestions for payload, since an unmanned test-run like the Russian Zonds would make the most sense initially?

It's an interesting thought and I suspect he might do something like that some day, but in the near term you are looking at years of development on your "TLI booster" alone, at a time when they are gearing up for ISS supply contracts. And I might add, to what end? SpaceX has been working steadily toward regular operation of commercially viable launch vehicles. The lunar orbiting stunt would make space fans everywhere cheer, but it would be capital intensive with not much new to add to their lucrative commercial Earth orbit target the company has laid out for the near term.

Down the road Elon has some great ideas on his wish list, but developing his launch company now to build infrastructure and capital for later things I believe is their present goal. It's no secret that “Mars is the ultimate goal of SpaceX," in Musk's own words. I could easily imagine them skipping the moon altogether.

'Any suggestions for payload, since an unmanned test-run like the Russian Zonds would make the most sense initially?'

A full HD camera, with lots of storage.

I guess, this enter in this topic.
Watch the video, Falcon 1st stage hit the barge right in the center:

http://spaceref.biz/company/spacex/elon-mu...isassembly.html

Best drone footage ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nDyns4EOEQ

Incredible!!

Such a great example of human tenacity.

Rocket cam landing: http://youtu.be/UuRqj4AeZq0

Latest performance figures for the Falcon Heavy indicates it can launch 2,900 kg on a Pluto bound trajectory - I'm assuming a Solar Escape, since a Hohmann would take decades. "New Horizons" could thus be followed up by something significantly beefier...

Falcon Heavy

May 26 - fourth sucessful landing (third in a row) of Space X's Falcon 9 first stage.
This is not routine, this is NOT routine, this ...

Youtube accelerated video of the landing, captured by the first stage itself [link]

Fernando

Amazing video.
With so much success they're gong to run out of room in their processing facility! Might have to stack them up on top of each other soon (not that I'd recommend it!)

I like the comment in the ars technical article:

"It's safe to say the future has arrived."

ars technica link

If they don't start reusing them then there wasn't much point in getting them back, was there?

Yes, now it's a question of logistics that not even the Shuttle had to worry, about given the slow launch pace in those days. The next rocket already is on the way to the pad!

I wonder what a used booster rocket would fetch on eBay.

On October 28, SpaceX released an update on the September 1st anomaly:

Fernando

Return to flight in early January 2017! Quoting from SpaceX's latest update:

Fernando

SpaceX released a report on the causes of the "September 1 anomaly". Their site has been updated (link) accordingly.



The target date for return to flight is January 8, 2017 with the launch of Iridium NEXT from Vandenberg.

Edit: launch delayed to at least January 14 to avoid bad weather and range conflict.

Edit 2: Success! 10 Iridium Next satelites delivered to orbit and first stage sucessfully landed on the drone ship "Just read the instructions", with a clear view of the descent up to and including touchdown.

Fernando

Not to be annoying about it, but this ISS resupply mission is off-topic for this forum and hardly a "private mission" since it's being paid for by NASA. I think there are more appropriate sites to follow SpaceX's progress.

ADMIN: Agreed re this mission, and all others in support of crewed spaceflight. Discussion of Falcon launch and recovery operations are fine; let's please stick to that rather rigorously in the future. Thread title will be updated for clarity.

You are right, of course, and I should have realized it beforehand.
I have removed the related texts, although I can't remove the posts themselves which, perhaps, a kind admin could do.
Fernando

KIND (OF AN) ADMIN: Done. Thanks!

Just to clarify, discussions of all Falcon launch and landing activities are fine, which includes Dragon capsule recoveries. Discussion of mission activities in direct support of crewed spaceflight, not so much.

I hope that was clearer...

Doug Ellison has a video of the 12/22//17 launch of the spacex falcon 9 on youtube. It's just gorgeous with the city in the foreground. Also very HD and vibration free. Great rig to do that!

[Admin: Link to Doug's video. ]

Along with about 1,000 youtube vidoes from California, Nevada and Arizona, from people who had no idea what was going on.

Check the videos from Arizona local news, there are a few stedi-cam helicopter images that are just breathtaking...

The official SpaceX launch montage is on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtdjCwo6d3Q...eature=youtu.be

Another video taken from a rooftop in downtown Los Angeles of the Iridium 4 launch. (Warning: occasional mild English profanity).

Narrated explanation of Doug's video here, going into detail on the optics/physics of what is happening at each stage of the flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ6nn8fZOmc
At 4:55 another video confirms the fairings separated and fired their own RCS thrusters! Any word on if they were actually recovered? I've seen no photos so my assumption is no.