January 17, 2016 at 22:28

SpaceX again tries to land the first stage of the Falcon 9 on the offshore platform [Launch successful, no landing]



    SpaceX is once again trying to land the first stage of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle on an offshore platform. The rocket itself flies into space in order to put the Jason-3 weather satellite into orbit.

    After that, the first stage of the rocket should land on an offshore platform owned by SpaceX. It is quite difficult to carry out such a landing, but the company has devoted all its efforts to creating a reliable system for launching a rocket and returning its first stage, with a view to reuse. So you can hope (with caution, mindful of the previous failure) for a positive result.

    Already there is an opportunity to observe the flight control center and cartographic information right here (broadcast in real time):



    It is already known that the second stage of the rocket separated from the rocket and continued to launch the device into polar orbit. The cargo is the Jason-3 satellite . The first in the Jason-1 series was launched in 2001, the second Jason-2 in 2008. The launch of this unit has been delayed twice. The initial term is July 22, 2015, but later it was moved to August 19 after problems with the device itself. Later, there were problems with the carrier: the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon CRS-7 spacecraft exploded 2 minutes 19 seconds after it was torn off the surface of the launch complex (thanks to atomlib ).

    The company, of course, also hopes for a positive result, but tried in advance to provide alternative ways to solve the landing problem. Apparently, SpaceX has permission both to land on water and on land.



    Why is SpaceX trying to complicate its life by trying to land a step on an offshore platform, which is harder to do than land it? This is described here .

    In short, landing on the sea requires less fuel than returning to the starting point on land. As a result, a payload with a larger mass can be launched into space, which requires more fuel. Here is the technical information on launch and landing. By the way, here is a visualization of the mission:



    As for previous attempts to land the first stage of the Falcon 9, only one was successful - on land . As for landing on the platform, the previous case was unsuccessful .

    UPD Unfortunately, the landing was not very successful, the first stage damaged one of the supports during the landing. One of the pillars broke. Therefore, it is highly likely that the first stage of the rocket fell. But there is no detailed information about what happened yet.



    The satellite separated from the rocket successfully. Solar panels deployed, Jason-3 is ready to fulfill its mission:



    A little more information about the fate of the first stage of Falcon 9 from Ilon Mask himself:



    The latch on one of the supports failed, which did not work on time. Because of this, the support was not fixed, and with a full load on all the supports, the problem became apparent, the “leg” broke, and the step simply fell and exploded.



    Here is a video of the rise and fall:


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