Launch News Spacex Falcon9 v1.2 with Eutelsat 117 West B and ABS 2A, 15 Jun 2016

Actuators and the entire mechanism would have to be strong enough not just to take the weight of the rocket, the deck, but the impact itself. Having an actuator system that can compensate for say ~1 m waves and ~30° bank in two axes, while maintaining that kind of strength will be a bit tricky.

I don't think the deck needs to compensate for bank at all. The rigs already do that now. Maybe it could be used take out the last 1-2° to make it as stable as Florida. The moving deck idea was to reduce the forces by moving down by only a few m/s. Deep sea drilling rigs compensate for rough seas using vectored thrust and fast (and huge) ballast pumps. I wonder if the pumps alone could be used to make the deck travel downwards fast enough to make a difference. The agility of those rigs is quite awesome. They can stationkeep well enough to provide a stable platform for drilling in 10k feet of water. IIRC semi-submersible rigs are stable enough to operate in 8 meter waves.

As for the cost SeaLaunch used a rig to avoid plane corrections. I would have thought that recovering stages would be worth more than saving on developing the extra DV. But this is probably only worth the cost once the launch rates start racking up.
 
Drilling Rigs have a platform to compensate for vertical motion, but that is needed because the drill should obviously stay at constant pressure and orientation to the rock it drills. It is not needed for landing on a rig, the helicopter platforms are also not compensated.

Helicopters landing on ships also don't hover for landing gentle, but for not landing on a deck that is only slightly larger than the rotor area - the final meters are literally dropping hard on the deck and making sure you stay there.
 
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Everything you say is sensible, but to the extent that Elon Musk is a real life James Bond villain (I mean, come on, even his name sounds like it), I think he really needs a big hyper-expensive sea base to use for space vehicles like something out of the Thunderbirds, and one of those things looks about right.

Oh, well hell, if we're going for the trappings of a proper villain, that changes everything. By all means, build it!


  • Elon Musk name checks out
  • Rich check
  • Has numerous shell corporations to finance his nefarious deeds check
  • The perfect combination of overblown ambition and insanity check
  • Bond girls CHECK and CHECK (but is separated/divorced from both, which also checks)

'Jeff Bezos' does not sound like a Bond villain name...

His full name is Jeffrey Preston Bezos. No...that doesn't help at all. And he doesn't have a PhD so "Dr. Bezos" is out. "Mr. Bezos"? No.

He's a tough case.

But 'Richard Branson' could be one.

Sir Richard Branson - those knights of the empire are evil as hell. Definitely villain material, especially with the goatee.
 
As the armchair rocket scientist has mentioned before. ;)

1) Larger platform with stability compensation..
2) Single engine descent (have a dual as backup) starting engines from a higher altitude.

No more to be said !
 
Elon Musk said:
Looks like early liquid oxygen depletion caused engine shutdown just above the deck

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/743602894226653184/video/1

Cutting the fuel margin a little too tight it appears.


Not sure, but to me it seems that it came in rather slow. I wonder if it was underweight and basically reached zero vertical velocity a few feet above the deck? That's the operating envelope the control logic doesn't want to be in, right? Nothing to do at that point except run out of fuel and crash.
 
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Elon said the airframe was destroyed and the engines were 'accordioned'. Hopefully something still left for them to review when OCISLY gets back to dock.
 
Think it went something like this......

In his super villain lair deep in the Everglades Elon Musk is contemplating the outlines of his plot to control the world. Most people thought his company SPACE X was simply to launch commercial satellites and resupply missions to the International Space Station
cheaper than other rocket launch companies.

In actuality this was a cover for his real plan to conquer the world. SPACE X had been
secretly launching a orbital network of EMP satellites which when triggered would emit
a powerful electromagnetic wave to destroy electronics and the power grid.

<Cue Bond theme music>

Scene - Musk is seated at his desk in his lair. Standing next to him is his 7 foot tall
henchman, Nut Job.

Pushing button on his desk, "Send in the captain of the "OF COURSE I STILL LOVE YOU""

Glaring at the man, Musk points his finger at him, "Captain, your incompetence has cost me a rocket"

The barge captain begins to stammer out an apology, "S S Sorry Sorry sir, but one of
engines fail to deliver enough thrust and...."

Musk cuts him off in mid sentence, "Failure is not acceptable in SPACE X" while nodding to Nut Job .

Nut Job quickly slips off his size 20 lead weighted shoe and crushes the skull of the barge captain.

Musk orders Nut Job, "Take the body outside and feed it to the alligators ..."

<to be continued>
 
Our plans have been thwarted today...
But tomorrow ... TOMORROW.. Pinky, we'll take over the world and Mars !!!

Good idea BRAIN.. good idea...

:cheers:

---------- Post added at 10:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:45 PM ----------

The decent problem is obvious from that video.. and will always be when landing on a sea vessel.

The resolution angle of the sensors close to landing... so the computer knows where it is and what to do.. otherwise you're looking at ballpark figures and hoping for a hit. The probability stats are now becoming evident.

At sea, unless you have transmitters stabilised at laser distances from the barge.. you're not going to get the accuracy that you could get with a land based landing.

Any transmitters on the barge are subject to sea swell variances, which will effect accuracy in X,Y and Z co-ordinates.

Image processing of the landing target procedure.. I'm not sure whether it's viable due to the engine flames, smoke and thermals around the rocket which would create distortions in the imaging accuracy (not to mention radio/radar accuracy) - so probably is a non-event.

It's going to be a 50/50 affair and while it is possible to program hit/miss descents, will it be economically viable - the ultimate prize ??

Edit:- Sorry.. forgot to mention the armchair thingy :rofl:
 
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