From the looks of the rough seas, I wouldn't be surprised to see a successful landing followed by it tipping over due to the high seas.
That's actually what happened the first few times they tried this. They are working towards re-using the first stage, but in the meantime it's budgeted as disposable so if it tips over, just lessons learned.
The long-term plan I think is to return to an ashore landing site to minimize recovery costs.
Globerunner513
04-17-2016 03:25 PM
Originally Posted by rickair7777
(Post 2108437)
That's actually what happened the first few times they tried this. They are working towards re-using the first stage, but in the meantime it's budgeted as disposable so if it tips over, just lessons learned.
The long-term plan I think is to return to an ashore landing site to minimize recovery costs.
The first stage when landed has quite a low center of gravity. Just to be safe, as soon as possible after touchdown a crew boards the barge and welds shoes over the legs to the deck to secure the first stage.
As for landing on land, or at sea on the barge is completely dependent on what kind of flight profile is required for the orbit they are shooting for. The most recent barge landing failure was one such launch which velocity at separation was far too high to attempt a burn back to shore. Also, because of the requirements of that flight they had much less fuel in available for the landing. A 3 engine suicide burn was attempted which uses about half the fuel it normally would on landing. It was a fantastic attempt, but couldn't cut the speed in time....hence the damage to the barge.
Also with this landing, they were fighting aprox 50 kt winds which explains the slight off center position it finally came to rest in. Also you can see the rocket tilted over into the wind as it descends to compensate for the drift. Normally by that altitude it would be vertical. Pretty amazing software in my mind!
