The weather at the landing site isn’t acceptable. Look like only chance of demo’ing the landing on this mission is if it gets delayed to February 20th or beyond.
[Update shortly after launch]
All seems to be nominal so far, a few minutes after a beautiful sunset launch.
[Update a couple hours after launch]
SpaceX reports that the rocket came down vertical within ten meters of the virtual target. IOW, the landing probably would have worked if not for sea state.
Bummer. They still hope to do a soft landing on the water to gain data. This is a much more challenging reentry profile so the chances of success were probably small anyway.
That’s too bad.
It speaks to SpaceX’s focus on first meeting the needs of the customer though. They are forgoing a lot of possible value in data, equipment and PR, that they could otherwise recover by delaying to another date. I doubt they are getting extra compensation for the opportunity cost.
Of course doing this is good for their reputation with customers.
Elon Musk isn’t going to get launch costs where we all want them unless something can be done about these delays.
The Air Force controls the Eastern and Western Test Ranges. Until they spend the money to upgrade the ranges, those delays are going to continue. No one controls the wind or the seas so those delays will also continue.
The airlines don’t seem to have problems with the wind or seas, with very rare exceptions. Good luck trying to run a commercial spaceline with these types of issues.
And that, Fenster, is why SpaceX has just signed an agreement with the Air Force for a landing pad, at the old Atlas launch pad to the South of LC-40. Today is an excellent example of why they want to bring the stages back to dry land. Now, if they can just get the AF to agree that they can land accurately and safely at the LC-13 site, the barge can be retired, and all landings brought to land. If there is weather within 10 miles of LC-40 to make 30 foot waves across the beaches, then they won’t be launching anyway.
Well, now you can see why Elon is building a launch facility in Texas.
The airlines don’t takeoff or land on the seas any more and even the airlines live crosswind limits. Until the Air Force modernizes the ranges, all flights from the Cape and Vandenberg will be subject to range restrictions and limitations. That’s just a fact of life that all American launch companies have to deal with. SpaceX is building their own launch site in Texas but their current agreement with the community is to limit flights to once a month. If demand is sufficient, they may get the community to let them fly more often but ultimately, there will still be limitations they have to deal with just as airlines have noise restrictions that limit operations at some airports.
NASA reports that the DSCOVR spacecraft is healthy and in a good orbit, heading towards its eventual destination at L1.
Elon tweeted that the Falcon 9 first stage made a soft landing on the ocean surface less than 10 meters from the target point. That means that if the ocean had been calmer, the barge landing would have been successful.
This was also a much tougher re-entry than they’ve tried previously, in terms of aerodynamic stress and heating of the stage. Even though they didn’t recover the stage this time, the data they collected is directly applicable to future downrange barge landings of the Falcon Heavy core stage. It was definitely not a wasted effort.
All in all, this looked like another flawless mission for SpaceX. Falcon 9 is 15 for 15, and this was its first flight beyond Earth orbit. I’m very happy with tonight’s launch.
Yeah it was a nice clean launch.
Geez Fenster, I bet in the days of DC-3s and Empire Flying boats and Pan Am Clippers they did have these sorts of problems.
The beginning of that era is about where we are in space right now.
Yeah, the last time a major airline landed on water, it was known as “The Miracle on the Hudson.”
I still can’t believe that The Miracle on the Hudson was 6 years ago. Just one of the many accomplishments of Brian Williams in the last 2 decades!
*snicker*
Did you know that he also cared for the family of the birds that were ingested by the engines?
Well I know what you are trying to say and to some degree I agree with you. But it’s important to remember that we have…what…2,3,4? launch facilities in the US? In the days you are talking about airports numbered in the hundreds – and landing facilities for the Clippers even more. There were many more flights per day going on and many of them simultaneously. You could have a weather scrub for a flight in a third of those areas but numerous flights elsewhere continued on. You had a flow of travel. And if an airplane ride was canceled there was always the train.
With Space launches we have no alternative that matches the train.
We are focused on one launch, at one facility at a time, so a scrub is essentially 100% of the traffic failing. Or 50% if the French are launching one at the same time or 33.3 if the French and Russkies are launching….still a massive fraction.
Just a couple weeks ago, airlines cancelled thousands of schedule flights due to bad weather in the Northeast. It happens. Currently, there are four operational launch sites in the US. The main one is Cape Canaveral AFS, controlled by the Air Force and under the authority of the Eastern Test Range. Next, there’s Vandenberg AFB and the Western Test Range. There’s also Wallops Island in Virginia and Kodiak in Alaska. Those don’t seem to fall under the Eastern or Western ranges or Air Force control, but the number of orbital launches at both of them put together is very small. Wallops does launch a fair number of sounding rockets.
The ranges are so old and inefficient that it isn’t possible to launch more than one rocket per day at either the Cape or Vandenberg. From what I’ve read, it can take a couple days (or more) to reconfigure the range to support a different launch. Perhaps if a company like SpaceX were to be able to launch several rockets on an identical trajectory (say, to GTO) back to back, the ranges could support a higher launch rate but that doesn’t happen very often. SpaceX is building their own launch site in Texas but agreements with the local government will limit them to one flight per month. Apparently, they’ll have to close a popular beach for each launch and the agreement was to keep the local citizens happy. Perhaps that will change in the future but until then, Brownsville will be limited to one flight per month.
Ultimately, they are going to bring one of these birds down, as God and Heinlein intended, and it will be a glorious sight. Ultimately I think winged landings will prove more cost effective but in the mean time, seeing rockets come down atop a pillar of flame cannot help but stir the blood.
“The problem with wings is they cost like crazy going up, increasing the time of flight, which increases the time that drag operates on the ship, etc.” – Jerry Pournelle
Wings also reduce the number of available landing spots, since long runways are much more expensive and harder to site than landing pads.
I’ve been on–or tried to be on–plenty of flights delayed by weather. If airlines had instantaneous takeoff windows, you can bet there’d be lots more delayed flights.
Anyone know why DSCOVR had an instantaneous launch window? I can understand ISS but you’d think L1 would be a less-demanding target. Maybe it’s a plane thing?
Yes, it has to be in precisely the right plane. If it had been a Falcon Heavy, probably more margin for a wider window.