SpaceX News

[DeltaV]

SpaceX OG2 landing [enhanced]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQCWQuM6p-w

[kunkmiester]

That was enhanced?

[Betruger]

Official SpaceX vid is even shakier and a bit under-contrasted.

[ladajo]

Thanks.
2 for 2.

I am very interested to see the platform attempt.
Although it looked like the rocket had a decent lean to it in the final sequence. I wonder if this was a factor of ocean surface cross winds.

[Skipjack]

Thanks.
2 for 2.

I am very interested to see the platform attempt.
Although it looked like the rocket had a decent lean to it in the final sequence. I wonder if this was a factor of ocean surface cross winds.

It straightens up right towards the end. They have done similar things with the F9R Dev vehicle in McGregor.

[GIThruster]

http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/19/spacex ... t=FaceBook

[GIThruster]

NASA insists that it wants to be able to select at least two companies to continue into this final CCtCAP phase so that in the future it will have two competitors providing services to keep prices down. Congress has never provided NASA with the full amount of funding requested for the program, however. Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate repeatedly make clear that their priority is for NASA itself to build the big, new Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft to take astronauts beyond low Earth orbit (LEO), not the commercial crew program to take them only to LEO and the ISS. . .

Not everyone in Congress has bought into commercial crew, however. Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) is a determined advocate of SLS, which is being built in his state of Alabama, and a commercial crew skeptic. The top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee and its CJS subcommittee, he included language in the committee-approved version of NASA’s FY2015 appropriations bill that would require CCtCAP winners to abide by accounting requirements associated with cost-plus rather than fixed-price contracts. Opponents call it a “poison pill” because complying could cost a small company like SpaceX a lot of money because it does not have a cadre of personnel in place to handle the paperwork, unlike big companies like Boeing. Boeing and SpaceX are considered the two top contenders based on the CCiCAP awards. . .

This is the dirtiest kind of poker being played in public, by the Military Industrial Complex, for personal gain by politicians.

http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/news/c ... ected-soon

[Skipjack]

NASA insists that it wants to be able to select at least two companies to continue into this final CCtCAP phase so that in the future it will have two competitors providing services to keep prices down. Congress has never provided NASA with the full amount of funding requested for the program, however. Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate repeatedly make clear that their priority is for NASA itself to build the big, new Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft to take astronauts beyond low Earth orbit (LEO), not the commercial crew program to take them only to LEO and the ISS. . .

Not everyone in Congress has bought into commercial crew, however. Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) is a determined advocate of SLS, which is being built in his state of Alabama, and a commercial crew skeptic. The top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee and its CJS subcommittee, he included language in the committee-approved version of NASA’s FY2015 appropriations bill that would require CCtCAP winners to abide by accounting requirements associated with cost-plus rather than fixed-price contracts. Opponents call it a “poison pill” because complying could cost a small company like SpaceX a lot of money because it does not have a cadre of personnel in place to handle the paperwork, unlike big companies like Boeing. Boeing and SpaceX are considered the two top contenders based on the CCiCAP awards. . .

This is the dirtiest kind of poker being played in public, by the Military Industrial Complex, for personal gain by politicians.

http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/news/c ... ected-soon

Absolutely agree and the Republican hypocrites are at the front of this. One should assume that they would be all over private and commercial space. After all they are all against "big gubbernment" usually. But that is only true if the beneficiaries of "big gubbernment" are not defense contractors. Shameless Shelby strikes again!

[AcesHigh]

only naive people think anyone involved with POLITICS is against big government.

btw, republicans also love huge spendings on the "defense"... but somehow, they forget to consider the army, navy and airforce as part of the "government".

[GIThruster]

3D in space: http://www.space.com/26899-spacex-3d-pr ... 1_30205316

[GIThruster]

Ooops. . .

http://www.dailydot.com/technology/spac ... paign=main

Sounds like they blew it up on purpose so it wouldn't explode on impact. And the press release is not making a strained explanation to say that this is exactly why they are doing this testing. Sure hope they learned a lot from what was certainly an expensive experiment.

[D Tibbets]

Ooops. . .

http://www.dailydot.com/technology/spac ... paign=main

Sounds like they blew it up on purpose so it wouldn't explode on impact. And the press release is not making a strained explanation to say that this is exactly why they are doing this testing. Sure hope they learned a lot from what was certainly an expensive experiment.

To keep it from exploding on impact is relevant, but primarily self destruct of a rocket is triggered either automatically or by a range control officer in order to keep the rocket- intact or in pieces from straying outside of the test/ launch range. The failure is not in the explosion but in the conditions that necessitated the auto destruct. Engine anomaly, guidance failure, structural failure, unexpected cross winds, etc. The headlines that I have seen are examples again of sensationalist news media. "The rocket explodes". A more accurate headline would be: ' the rocket failed and was destroyed for safety reasons'. Certainly a rocket can explode due to various causes, but from the little information thus far released, it seems the explosion was intentional due to some some other unacceptable flight performance issue, possibly either loss of thrust or flight control.

Dan Tibbets

[paperburn1]

This was also a test rocket with only three engines.

[Betruger]

NSF is all but leaking the details of why this is no issue for the upcoming non-Dev-1 launch to orbit.

[Skipjack]

Of course people are making way too much of a fuss about this. Tests that result in the destruction of a (very expensive, hand made) prototype are perfectly normal for car manufacturers. The "moose test" is one example, where they do a maneuver over and over again in ever tighter fashion until the car skids, or even topples over, often resulting in severe damage to the vehicle.