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[ScepticMatt]

A collection of liquid oxygen droplets ie. leftover fuel

Technically it isn't fuel, but an oxidizer.
They showed a video from the fuel tank too (more greyish in color)

 

[Jezbollah]

It's an aluminum can and mostly empty. Not very heavy.
It most likely hit the barge too hard for its legs and fell over, bursting into flames.

Yep. But still, the landing rocket not firing would have meant they would have aborted getting anywhere near the barge

 

[Jezbollah]

Technically it isn't fuel, but an oxidizer.
They showed a video from the fuel tank too (more greyish in color)

the OG fuel tank camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL-Oi9m2beA

 

[E-Cat]

No press conference, then?

 

[Darren870]

Aww lame, was really hoping for a success. My mate works for SpaceX and we've been talking about it the past week.

I'll have to give him shit of course, but all in good fun

 

[ScepticMatt]

No press conference, then?

cancelled, just read that:
https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacex/2015/01/10/dragon-in-flight-post-launch-news-conference-canceled/

 

[Melon Husk]

Technically it isn't fuel, but an oxidizer.
They showed a video from the fuel tank too (more greyish in color)

Technically you're correct But I still consider kerosene and lox both as "fuel". As it spends both to go forwards, it's not like the oxygen is a catalyst or anything.

Post-launch press conference cancelled.

 

[Protome]

Unfortunate but not surprising that they didn't get the soft landing, a hard landing on the barge is still pretty impressive though. If any organisation manage to nail reusable components I'd definitely put money in it being SpaceX.

 

[Crispy75]

Actually hitting the target was the hard part, so this is an excellent result

 

[Crispy75]

landing burn (from reddit, 15s exposure):

That's actually the "boostback" burn - done out of atmosphere to slow the stage down before re-entry. The photo was taken from near the launch site.

 

[jett]

Too bad they didn't get it.

 

[jotun?]

Actually hitting the target was the hard part, so this is an excellent result

Yeah, this result is surprising to me. They've done plenty of soft landings before, so I expected the most likely failure would be to just miss the barge.

This will probably turn out to be a stupid software bug, like someone forgot to merge in the change that adjusts for the height of the barge above the water

 

[MJLord]

Yeah, this result is surprising to me. They've done plenty of soft landings before, so I expected the most likely failure would be to just miss the barge.

This will probably turn out to be a stupid software bug, like someone forgot to merge in the change that adjusts for the height of the barge above the water

Can you imagine checking the repo and just being like "Nooooooooooo D:"

 

[Winterblink]

Man, I hope they release some footage of the landing sequence.

 

[DBT85]

Yeah, this result is surprising to me. They've done plenty of soft landings before, so I expected the most likely failure would be to just miss the barge.

This will probably turn out to be a stupid software bug, like someone forgot to merge in the change that adjusts for the height of the barge above the water

Lots of possibilities here, but it could be that it just ran slightly short on fuel to slow the descent due to a miscalculation. It doesn't use any chutes to slow it down so its entirely reliant on the fuel remaining in the first stage to slow down and land. Run out 50m above the platform and all the other work is for naught.

 

[TheRealTalker]

landed hard?

I wonder if the sea pad is still afloat

 

[Winterblink]

landed hard?

I wonder if the sea pad is still afloat

According to their tweets, the pad is fine. Other stuff, not so much

 

[Derwind]

I want to soft land my own person space rocket back home everyday from work!

Seriously though, this is really cool!

 

[blu]

Actually hitting the target was the hard part, so this is an excellent result

Exactly. They got within one inch of a groundbreaking success. Nobody has landed an orbital-speed device on a schoolyard pad in the entire human history yet. The closest thing to that was the Curiosity Mars crane, and there the entire delivery vehicle was designed with that sole goal in mind, and the crane was subsequently disposed of. F9's 1st stage landing is as tough rocket science as it gets.

 

[Lucky Forward]

Man, I hope they release some footage of the landing sequence.

Not gonna happen...

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-launches-station-cargo-ship-but-landing-try-fails/

"Didn't get good landing/impact video. Pitch dark and foggy. Will piece it together from telemetry and ... actual pieces."

 

[cebri.one]

Elon Musk @elonmusk

Grid fins worked extremely well from hypersonic velocity to subsonic, but ran out of hydraulic fluid right before landing.

Upcoming flight already has 50% more hydraulic fluid, so should have plenty of margin for landing attempt next month.

Nice.

 

[Dilly]

I don't want to wait that long!

 

[HoosTrax]

Was that barge manned? I hate to be the guy that's sitting in the bridge, wondering if a big 'ol rocket booster was about to fall on my head.

 

[Mindlog]

Was that barge manned? I hate to be the guy that's sitting in the bridge, wondering if a big 'ol rocket booster was about to fall on my head.

Autonomous barge way out to sea for that very reason :]
It's great that they were able to find the probably cause so quickly. Quite something how they can manage costs developing this tech by piggybacking on what would otherwise be considered a normal launch.

 

[Trouble]

:3

 

[blu]

:3

They rock indeed.

 

[MauMau]

Eventually, SpaceX wants all of its Falcon rockets to fly themselves back to safety — at first at sea, and then on land. Musk has said this kind of rocket reusability is an essential part of his plan to reduce the cost of launching payloads to 1 percent of what it is today. Over the longer term, he envisions making spaceflight cheap enough to allow for the colonization of Mars, thus making humanity "a multiplanet species."

I love that space travel turned private. We've had more innovations in space travel in the 3 years it's been private than the 30 years prior.

 

[jellies_two]

the OG fuel tank camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL-Oi9m2beA

So why doesn't the SpaceX booster need all those baffles and what-not?
the sloshing fluid bounced back from the bottom of the tank in the CRS-5 launch when the engine stopped, but with nothing like the violence of the saturn video.

 

[Crispy75]

Exactly. They got within one inch of a groundbreaking success. Nobody has landed an orbital-speed device on a schoolyard pad in the entire human history yet.

Fact check :The 1st stage wasn't going that fast. ISS orbit is 17,000mph, but the the 1st stae only gets up to 4,000mph. Still plenty fast, but not "orbital speed" (and therefore no serious re-entry heating)

 

[jellies_two]

I'm a bit disappointed that with all the cameras they had they made an excuse about fog for no pictures of the smash-up in the atlantic.

Could it be that they would prefer not to show the carnage?

 

[Concept17]

Awesome how close they were. When can we expect the next launch?

 

[Lucky Forward]

I'm a bit disappointed that with all the cameras they had they made an excuse about fog for no pictures of the smash-up in the atlantic.

Could it be that they would prefer not to show the carnage?

I wonder if they could have gotten any useful video from a thermal imaging camera? They're supposed to see through fog well, but would all the heat from the rocket exhaust overload the sensors?

 

[blu]

Fact check :The 1st stage wasn't going that fast. ISS orbit is 17,000mph, but the the 1st stae only gets up to 4,000mph. Still plenty fast, but not "orbital speed" (and therefore no serious re-entry heating)

Yes, I looked that up after posting, so it appears a disposable 1st stage reaches 10M at MECO (main engine cut-off), but a reusable 1st stage gets to 6M at MECO. In either case 1st stage separates a few seconds past MECO.

 

[E-Cat]

Awesome how close they were. When can we expect the next launch?

January 29th according to this, though Elon was talking about "next month".

 

[jotun?]

Image of the barge being brought back to port

You can see some major damage to the containers and stuff at the back. Looks like the rocket either fell over in that direction or landed in the wrong spot

 

[antonz]

Turns out they managed some footage/photos of the landing or rather crashing.

Elon Musk ‏@elonmusk · 3m3 minutes ago
@ID_AA_Carmack Before impact, fins lose power and go hardover. Engines fights to restore, but …

@elonmusk · 2m2 minutes ago
@ID_AA_Carmack Rocket hits hard at ~45 deg angle, smashing legs and engine section

 

[Norml]

Testing something like that at night seems pretty stupid. I mean, wouldn't you want to get as much visual data as possible?

 

[NetMapel]

Testing something like that at night seems pretty stupid. I mean, wouldn't you want to get as much visual data as possible?

Not sure if they have a choice, to be honest. They got a very very small window for launch for the delivery. So they gotta do what they gotta do.

 

[antonz]

Testing something like that at night seems pretty stupid. I mean, wouldn't you want to get as much visual data as possible?

All about the launch windows I guess. They are doing progression as cheap as possible by piggybacking the tests on the back of paid launches to deliver supplies. Fortunately they know what went wrong and already have it potentially fixed for the next mission.

 

[Trouble]

Not sure if they have a choice, to be honest. They got a very very small window for launch for the delivery. So they gotta do what they gotta do.

Kerbal Space Program has taught me this. You go when the time is right to achieve the orbit you need. Taking any old orbit, then performing two Hohmann transfers would require a lot of extra delta-v which requires extra fuel, which requires extra delta-v to get that fuel into orbit which...

 

[Norml]

^^^^^ Ahh, I didn't know they sent some stuff to the space station.

 

[Adam Scott Aukerman]

Testing something like that at night seems pretty stupid. I mean, wouldn't you want to get as much visual data as possible?

In addition to what people have already pointed out about paid launches and laugh windows, I would think that they must have telemetry data of the crash, and in which case, that will always been more useful than visual data from a camera.

 

[Norml]

In addition to what people have already pointed out about paid launches and laugh windows, I would think that they must have telemetry data of the crash, and in which case, that will always been more useful than visual data from a camera.

Yeah,but can still be useful. I was thinking about the Columbia footage that showed the shielding falling off and hitting the wing.

 

[Vexxan]

SpaceX just tweeted a vine of the ship landing, looks like it tipped over at the very end.

 

[jett]

SpaceX just tweeted a vine of the ship landing, looks like it tipped over at the very end.

"Close"? I guess it crashed where it was supposed to land, but that seems like a disaster to me. I wonder what happened. Was that really meant to land perfectly vertically? It almost looks like it was upside down...but isn't. It's going to be truly amazing when they manage to do this.

 

[fallout]

"Close"? I guess it crashed where it was supposed to land, but that seems like a disaster to me. I wonder what happened.

They were out of hydraulic fluid, which means no more steering. That's why it comes down at the weird angle. If they had not run out, there was a good chance it would have come down correctly and landed properly.

 

[evilpigking]

"Close"? I guess it crashed where it was supposed to land, but that seems like a disaster to me. I wonder what happened. Was that really meant to land perfectly vertically? It almost looks like it was upside down...but isn't. It's going to be truly amazing when they manage to do this.

Uhh you missed the point in which even having the rocket come down in a small targeted area at all was the huge achievement. Before they just aimed to have it burn up in space or fall in the ocean somewhere.

 

[Jezbollah]

Indeed. Thanks to the small fins at the top of the stage they went from landing in an extremely window area to a barge. It's a big step forward even though it doesnt look like it.

 

[Roude Leiw]

"Close"? I guess it crashed where it was supposed to land, but that seems like a disaster to me. I wonder what happened. Was that really meant to land perfectly vertically? It almost looks like it was upside down...but isn't. It's going to be truly amazing when they manage to do this.

the rocket ended up on the pad. i think thats already quite the achievement. now they need to work on the landing.

 

[jett]

They were out of hydraulic fluid, which means no more steering. That's why it comes down at the weird angle. If they had not run out, there was a good chance it would have come down correctly and landed properly.

That's too bad, guess they miscalculated. Did someone at SpaceX use imperial instead of metric?

Uhh you missed the point in which even having the rocket come down in a small targeted area at all was the huge achievement. Before they just aimed to have it burn up in space or fall in the ocean somewhere.

Yeah I know, I guess the footage just makes it look like a horrific crash.