The Dragon is in orbit and the first stage is standing on the drone ship, just a little to one side of the center of the landing circle. Amazing stuff!


The video of the webcast right at the first stage landing: https://youtu.be/7pUAydjne5M?t=35m47s

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Bernard Cawley
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Thank you for posting this! I don't watch television (the internet is my 'television'), but I'm an avid radio listener, and the hourly and semi-hourly international news reports mentioned Dragon achieving orbit, but *didn't* mention the first stage landing attempt at all. Until I saw your posting, I was wondering if it might have been omitted from this mission due to rough seas in the landing zone. Speaking of which:

The drone ship was visibly pitching up and down in that video. I hope the landed first stage doesn't tip over due to the pitching and/or the wind before they can secure it, although I imagine they've calculated all of those load factors (and the stage probably has a low center of gravity, with its heavy Merlin engines and their thrust structure at the bottom). Also:

The stage was significantly off-vertical even as it was quite close to touchdown, as the photo here shows (this page also contains another landing video link, see: http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/04/0...-status-center/ ), and SpaceX's website www.spacex.com has a full launch and first stage landing video for this CRS-8 mission up now. Below are links to the other "space...com" (including space.com itself, of course :-) ) websites' reports on this much-anticipated historic event:

http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/04/0...for-first-time/

http://www.space.com/32517-spacex-s...gon-launch.html

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/S...ti me_999.html

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pU...utu.be&t=27m16s

Posted on that other forum - a view of the landing from on board the Falcon 9(!) https://www.instagram.com/p/BD9d-HEF8SD/

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Looks like it landed close to centre but then slid across the deck a bit, maybe because of the heavy seas.

I didn't notice a slide after landing (I'll look again, as I might have missed such a motion), but it was windy out there, so that may have been a factor in the off-center touchdown. [ADDENDUM: The landing gear *did* appear to slide slightly across the deck right at touchdown, with respect to the circle and "X" deck markings. Maybe the stage was still mostly "jet-borne" briefly (the center engine's thrust exceeds the stage's weight at landing, and big liquid rocket engines don't go to zero thrust instantly at shutdown), giving the wind an opportunity to shift it a little before its weight settled fully on its landing legs' footpads?] Also:

That onboard video shows the "upper left" grid fin putting in a pretty large control input quite late during the descent, and in the external view of the final approach (see SpaceX's www.spacex.com video, to which kapton posted a link for the larger YouTube version in Reply #3 above), the stage can be seen changing its attitude, as well as translating horizontally, by significant amounts at very low altitude. Those movements of the first stage as it approached the ASDS, and the landing smoke blowing away quickly to the left (in the external view of the landing), appear to be consistent with the stage's apparent slight shift across the ASDS' deck right as--or *very* shortly before--the footpads contacted the deck surface (although wave action on the ASDS could have been the cause, or a contributing factor [along with the wind acting on the stage itself]). In addition:

I'm sure that SpaceX will analyze the videos and vehicle telemetry in order to try for "on the X" (or at least closer-to-center) ASDS *and* land pad touchdowns in the future, because the ASDS deck space doesn't allow very much room for error (their land pads aren't as constrained regarding allowable "center miss radii").

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That's the future, boys...

NASA is starting to look like they're standing still.

Later! OL J R

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"As God and Heinlein intended..." It's so nice to see those landing legs contact a deck instead of the ocean surface (as an earlier--and successful--targeted sea landing test showed)! Thanks too to kapton for posting the link to SpaceX's full-coverage video! (It's also on SpaceX's site www.spacex.com , in a smaller initial "viewing window" than the version on YouTube.)

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Summed up in two "words"... SpaceX 2X!

(another successful barge landing)

Blue Origin who?

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Thank you--this was a wonderful pleasant surprise! (I had prepared to read bad news today, since SpaceX had downplayed the odds of a successful landing this time.) This SpaceFlightNow article (see: http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/05/0...e-night-launch/ ) describes the much greater difficulty of achieving this landing, which involved much higher re-entry heating, required a high-deceleration *three-engine* landing burn, and had to omit the normal boostback burn to direct the stage toward the ASDS (because the landing propellant reserve margin was razor-thin). Also:

Here are Space Daily's (see: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/S...launch_999.html ) and Space.com's reports (see: http://www.space.com/32808-photos-s...et-landing.html and [video here] http://www.space.com/32810-spacex-l...ties-video.html ). The JCSAT-14 Technical Webcast is here (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lYZLxr3L4E ), the ~1 hour hosted webcast is here (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0bMeDj76ig [here's an abbreviated version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlnIT39NkVM <but it might be from the technical one--I haven't watched it yet>]), and here (see: https://www.youtube.com/results?sea...lcon+9+JCSAT-14 ) are numerous other videos of the JCSAT-14 launch and/or the first stage landing. In addition:

Regarding Blue Origin, keep in mind their motto, "Gradatim Ferociter" ('Step by step, ferociously'), which is matched by their heraldic device (which includes two tortoises). Their philosophy is one of gradual, incremental progress; of thoroughly proving innovative techniques, materials, and systems one step at a time, to ensure that they can be relied upon to provide a firm foundation for future developments. Blue Origin isn't "losing out" to SpaceX at all--they simply have a different outlook, a different customer base, and a different internal schedule. They are already advancing the state of the art in deep-throttling-capable rocket engines (the BE-3 LOX/LH2 engine that powers New Shepard's booster and will be used [with a vacuum-optimized nozzle] as an upper stage engine for orbital use) and in LOX/CH3 rocket engines (their BE-4, which will power ULA's Vulcan and Blue Origin's orbital rocket).

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http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR