Since a number of cool things are happening in space exploration these days, we'll widen the scope of this thread a smidge. Conversation about all things space exploration are welcome, whether it be from NASA, SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, or anyone else. Chances are most of the discussion will still be about SpaceX since they love to make things public and fun, but nothing's off limits. I'll eventually get around to modifying the OP to include resources for other companies too, but in the meantime, feel free to post any cool stuff you run across.
Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut) - A "random dude" who got really into space (particularly SpaceX). He's a great resource for simple explanations of this stuff, as well as live hosting launches.
USLaunchReport - Lost of videos of the more mundane stuff (e.g., booster recovery operations). Not a ton of commentary.
NASASpaceFlight - Live hosting of most launches including a ton of video of Starlink operations.
Glossary
Spoiler!
Space discussions tend to get a little bogged down in jargon, so here's a list of terms you might encounter. (Others, please let me know of others that should be added.)
ASDS - Autonomous Spaceport Droneship - The "barges" that they sometimes land rockets on.
Dragon - The cone-shaped capsule that sits at the top of the rocket for ISS-bound launches that holds the cargo (or, in the future, humans).
F9 - Falcon 9, the name of the rocket itself.
FH - Falcon Heavy, the three-booster version.
GTO - Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, a type of orbit that will eventually result in the satellite orbiting the earth as it turns so that it seems to be in the same spot from the ground (such as DirecTV or Dish satellites). These types of launches are particularly challenging because they require a lot of power to get them into the right orbit, leaving very little fuel left for landing.
HIF - Horizontal Integration Facility - the building near the launch pad where they put all of the pieces of the rocket together before rolling it out to the pad.
ISS - The International Space Station
JRTI - Just Read The Instructions, the name of the "barge" that they land on for west-coast launches.
LEO - Low Earth Orbit, a fairly low orbit shared by many satellites and ISS. These launches usually require less power to achieve the proper orbit, so the first stage can often be landed back on land rather than on a drone ship.
LZ1 - Landing Zone 1, basically a big open slab of concrete at Cape Canaveral where the first stage will attempt to land (for some launches).
NET - No Earlier Than, basically the date they're hoping to launch, but rocket launches have a tendency of getting delayed.
OCISLY - Of Course I Still Love You, the name of the "barge" that they land on for east-coast launches.
RTLS - Return to Landing Site, a mission where the first stage comes back and lands at LZ1.
Starship - SpaceX's next-generation rocket (and spacecraft) that will hopefully one day take us to Mars. Starship is the "second stage" that will carry cargo or people, but also refers to the whole system. (It's confusing, but think of it like the Space Shuttle, which was both the shuttle itself and the entire launch system.)
Super Heavy - The giant booster that will carry Starship to space.
It's actually a joke of sorts. Elon is well-known for hating acronyms, so it's ironic that he uses that one (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly) rather than just saying "it blew up."
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OP is updated for the next launch in 30 days. I BELIEVE this one will be a landing at LZ-1 (on land), so hopefully that means it'll be a high probability of success! [Reply]
The other ones didn't hover like that as far as I can remember. It's almost like they were seeing how long they could do it for, kinda showing off or something. [Reply]
Yeah, I definitely don't recall seeing it come to almost a complete stop like that. I wonder if they were trying to slow it down a little more after the last one almost broke a leg and overdid it. I still hope we'll get on-board video at some point to see what exactly happened and why it looked like it had landed safely for a few seconds.
Here's the full string of tweets about it from today:
Turns out the landing was not as fast we thought, but still hard enough to destroy the primary airframe and accordion the engines
The joint Mars venture they're doing with NASA is an exciting next step in space exploration. Very cool to see and hopefully SGSS sees some benefits. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Buehler445:
I wish I could have a year of experimentation with multi million dollar spaceships.
Musk is such a badass.
The beauty of it is that it's not really even costing them anything (at least in terms of how you'd normally think of it). They're still getting paid the same price for these launches as they were when they were just letting the booster burn up in the atmosphere.
There are still plenty of costs involved (R&D, costs of the ships, crew, added costs for the landing-specific stuff like legs and grid fins, a little extra fuel), but those are insignificant compared to the cost of the rocket itself. [Reply]
If you're feeling like a night owl, the next launch attempt is slated for Sunday night/Monday morning at 11:45pm Central. This one is an ISS-bound launch, so the launch window is instantaneous (meaning that scrubs are a little more likely than the past few).
For the first time since the first successful landing back in December, they're trying to land this one back at "Landing Zone 1" in Cape Canaveral rather than on the barge, so it should be quite a show for anyone fortunate enough to be down there to watch.
If it's not up already, I'll be sure to bump the thread on Sunday, but I figured some might want a heads-up if you care enough to plan to be up a little late that night. [Reply]
I started putting together a glossary for the OP to help new people figure out WTF we're talking about in here. Let me know what other stuff I should add (preferably in the same format as in the OP so I can just copy and paste stuff in there).
I also cleaned up the OP a bit for the same reason - just to be clear what info is there. Let me know if there are suggestions for improvements. [Reply]
