from Hacker News

SpaceX recovery attempt not successful: water landing instead of land

by dolfje on 12/5/18, 7:11 PM with 25 comments

  • by greglindahl on 12/5/18, 7:31 PM

    This twitch video appears to be shot from Jetty Park, so there's a hill in the way. The people talking in the video can't see that the booster is out over the water. This is actually what's supposed to happen if the rocket thinks it has a problem: it's pointed offshore until the middle of the final landing burn. If it's unhappy, it stays pointed at the ocean.

    This video from a plane shows how far offshore it was: https://twitter.com/flying_briann/status/1070392207696453632

    And Elon's tweet with SpaceX's video from the booster itself: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1070399755526656000

  • by th0br0 on 12/5/18, 7:34 PM

    ElonMusk just posted a video of the actual landing - including the fall.

    https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1070399755526656000

  • by dolfje on 12/5/18, 7:16 PM

    Although it didn't land as they wanted, primary mission is still success. Also the booster is in the sea and still transmitting and will be recovered, but only be used for internal spaceX missions. Unfortunately the live spaceX webcast tuned away from the failing booster. But Elon has given his word it was wrong to tune away.

    The issue is apparently with the hydraulics system of the grid fins that had a problem. It was nice to see that the gimballing engines recovered the spin before the sea landing.

  • by vvillena on 12/5/18, 7:39 PM

    It's been just 3 years since the first rocket landing, and we're so used to it to the point that today's mishap will get more coverage than yesterday's achievement. Seeing the renewed speed of the space launch industry puts a huge smile on me.

  • by ChuckMcM on 12/5/18, 7:28 PM

    This is the best video of the failed landing attempt I've seen so far. Elon tweeted a grid fin hydraulic pump stalled.

    I understand for "marketing" reasons why they stopped the video feed from the first stage but since there wasn't any danger to humans here I was disappointed that they cut away from that and pretty much went into the damage control speak of "the primary mission is going well."

  • by craftyguy on 12/5/18, 7:42 PM

    > SpaceX recovery attempty not successfull: water landing instead of land

    Perhaps some mod can fix the typos in the title?

  • by Latteland on 12/6/18, 7:11 AM

    Did they actually have a plan to divert to water if they knew they couldn't safely land?

    They aren't clear about whether it was an accident that they ended up in the water or was it by design. They could have planned ahead for this situation, if they detect that they have a problem and can't do a normal safe landing (the out of control spin) and then they could send it for a 'safe' and hopefully controlled water landing like they did. Or it could just be that it was way off course because they couldn't control it and it was just luck.