Dragon has successfully achieved splashdown

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18273811?

by jgrahamc • 14 years ago

405 110 14 years ago

bbc.co.uk

j_col• 14 years ago

Fantastic achievement, well done to everyone at SpaceX and NASA! Hopefully the start of something very exciting in space exploration.

Arjuna3• 14 years ago

Dragon Splashdown Coordinates:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=27.0N,+120.0W+%28Dragon+Splas...

pavel_lishin2• 14 years ago

I hope someone on the recovery team snaps a photo suitable for StreetView.

pbreit• 14 years ago

This is pretty cool and I think the naysayers have it wrong (there aren't many but still; and the pre-launch reportage was pretty staunch in mentioning delays).

Launching a rocket, berthing at the ISS (commercial company first) and returning back to earth (no other current spacecraft does this) is extremely difficult. Doing it privately on a budget is just as noteworthy...or more so.

News stories have highlighted the delays but will have little room to criticize the mission now (the only glitch I am aware of was a laser guidance problem which was quickly and adeptly resolved by SpaceX staff).

And as a web developer, it's difficult to imagine what it's like to build something with very long feedback cycles, little or no ability to test in actual conditions and extremely slim error margins.

Great job, SpaceX!

ChuckMcM3• 14 years ago

I agree it is cool, the Soyuz actually does have a return to earth capability, its the Progress modules that don't. Now in their defense the Russians would be happy to return stuff in a Progress module but often they have trash in them and up until recently you could always bring things back in the shuttle.

All of that aside, SpaceX has hit one right out of the park here. They have effectively re-done all of the Mercury goals and most of the Gemini goals (the last being the whole man in space part). For comparison that took the Chinese 10 years [1] (some western observers would tell you it actually took them 20 years to get to the level that SpaceX is now but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt, and NASA couldn't talk to them.)

I am super excited about having someone who is commercially motivated to step into adjacent markets with space flight capability. It makes talking about doing things in orbit a much more serious thing than it was.

[1] http://www.sinomania.com/CHINANEWS/China_Space_Program.html

InclinedPlane4• 14 years ago

The soyuz has the capacity to return crew to the Earth, but Dragon is actually the only unmanned capsule capable of returning significant amounts of cargo.

stcredzero2• 14 years ago

They have effectively re-done all of the Mercury goals and most of the Gemini goals (the last being the whole man in space part).

How about developing an arm module with a separate reentry system that can hang out in the "trunk?"

krschultz2• 14 years ago

When NASA recovered capsules, they sent a carrier battle group.

When SpaceX recovers capsules, they send a barge with a crane, a single crew boat, a couple of inflatables, and a P3 Orion. [1]

That's pretty Lean.

[1] http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20120530

efsavage• 14 years ago

It's all fun and games until they bring an alien back with them!

kijin• 14 years ago

To be fair, NASA probably had good reasons to fear that the Soviets might try to intercept the capsules. SpaceX doesn't need to worry about that, unless they drop into the Somalian coast or something.

planetguy7• 14 years ago

I doubt the Soviets would have intercepted a manned American capsule any more than they would have gone around kidnapping random American citizens or hijacking American ships -- that'd be an act of war.

jgrahamc• 14 years ago

That might have been because NASA was a national project and so national pride was involved. Showing the military strength and size would have been part of the overall story that the NASA program was showing.

krschultz2• 14 years ago

Agreed, but the difference in scale is so extreme.

Looking out my office window, I can see a fairly major sea port. The Navy can't get 1 ship off the dock without a half dozen tug boats, plus several security boats, etc. The flotilla SpaceX sent out is smaller than what it takes to undock 1 ship, and a carrier battle group consists of 20+ ships.

I just find the contrast really illustrative of why SpaceX was able to do this for a fraction of the cost.

planetguy7• 14 years ago

Also NASA capsules had people onboard.

But yeah, you don't actually need a carrier battle group to retrieve a single capsule. On the other hand, if you've got a spare aircraft carrier sitting around the ocean you might as well use it. (You don't need the rest of the battle group to pick up the capsule, either, but you need it to protect the carrier in case a war breaks out.)

mikeash2• 14 years ago

NASA was doing this for the first time. They needed resources to deal with unpredictable failures and mistakes. Some NASA capsules missed their target by a hundred miles or more. One sank. Either of those problems would have been far worse if they had been Lean.

startupfounder• 14 years ago

"Elon Musk ‏@elonmusk Thrusters will also fire during reentry to adjust touchdown point. Next version will land w helicopter precision #Dragon"

You know whats leaner then battleships and speedboats? No need for speedboats... vertical landing is next and will reduce time and cost of reusing the capsule by an order of magnitude.

The $1.6b contract was dependent of safe landing and they weren't ready to pull out all of the stops with their "next gen" technology.

Now that they have their contract they can continue hitting their milestones at a blistering pace, get huge press coverage and increase their pace towards the goal of multi-planetary solar system domination...

protomyth3• 14 years ago

Beyond security, do you think the Navy would pass up the PR opportunity.

// security was a concern - that was the U-2 era

jonknee3• 14 years ago

To be fair, there were people in NASA's crafts. National heroes even. They sent out pretty lean teams to capture the SRBs for the Shuttle (which are much larger than the Dragon capsule):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWR_MHkuBMU

Also, carriers weren't used. Destroyers were (they're a lot more nimble) and we have a bunch chugging around doing exercises at any given point so that's probably a fairly cost effective method.

PerryCox• 14 years ago

>To be fair, there were people in NASA's crafts.

The Dragon capsule is designed to hold people, so SpaceX wouldn't need a bigger ship or crane to haul them in.

dmlorenzetti• 14 years ago

Those HN'ers in the SF Bay area may want to visit the USS Hornet (CVS-12), the aircraft carrier that recovered Apollo 11 and 12. In the hangar bay, they have an isolation unit used to hold the astronauts (basically just a modified Airstream trailer).

This page has a photo of the command module being hoisted aboard the carrier: http://www.uss-hornet.org/history/apollo/

davidcuddeback5• 14 years ago

Also, don't forget that the USA was in the middle of a space race (which was an extension of a broader arms race [1]) with the Soviet Union. I wouldn't be surprised if the US government considered recovering the space craft and crew to be an issue of national security. The stakes for SpaceX are much lower, so comparing their expenditures isn't fair.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Race

InclinedPlane4• 14 years ago

To be fair to NASA there are some good reasons to have used a carrier battle group. First, it's a strong deterrent against interference, from either the Soviets, proxy forces, terrorists, or some independent 3rd party (pirates?).

Second, it's handy to have 1st world medical care available immediately just in case. If a bad landing caused severe trauma, burns, or what-have-you, or if an emergency appendectomy was needed then care would be right at hand.

Third, speed of recovery was important, which meant big ol' helicopters, which means aircraft carriers.

Fourth, a worst case scenario survivable landing could involve the capsule landing significantly out of the drop zone, causing injury to the crew (partial chute failure, very hard landing), and sinking forcing the crew to evacuate the capsule. Potentially all without radio contact. In that scenario you'd want to be able to mount a robust search and rescue operation, which is just the sort of thing that a carrier battle group excels at.

With more experience, less geopolitical pressure, and more capable spacecraft we can ratchet that response way down, but it wasn't entirely unjustified at the time.

Edit: Case in point, the 2nd ever manned flight in the US (sub-orbital even) Liberty Bell 7 had the capsule sink and the astronaut, Gus Grissom, swimming without much assistance in the open ocean. If recovery had taken much longer (even by minutes) it's likely he would have drowned. That set the tone for the later recovery operations.

reitzensteinm2• 14 years ago

Just a nitpick; you have to have your appendix taken out to travel to Antarctica, so I highly doubt they're sending up astronauts without having the procedure done!

In 1961, this wasn't the case, and a surgeon was forced to operate on himself:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Rogozov

mithaler• 14 years ago

Makes me wonder: what system was in place in the time of the Apollo missions for determining the exact location of a reentering spacecraft? Was it just, "here's the probable drop zone, commence search-and-rescue"? I imagine GPS would make that a lot easier.

methodin• 14 years ago

The article mentioned in the future the capsule will use thrusters to land on the ground. Is this something that has been done before or is that a new advancement?

bad_alloc• 14 years ago

NASA is (more or less) using the same technique with the Mars Science Lab, currently en route to Mars. The only differences are that the rover is smaller and that they use a sky crane (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4boyXQuUIw&feature=relat...). Landing on Earth however is always done by parachute, as we have enough atmosphere to slow down the lander. So you can say it's a new advancement for landing on earth. As we have quite a lot of gravity here (compared to Mars or the Moon) SpaceX will probably have to sigificantly improve the technology required for a powered landing, especially when they intend to land their first stage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...).

john-n• 14 years ago

Not done by spacex, they made this vid to demonstration the idea - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSF81yjVbJE

I dont know of any ship that has the ability to land like that, except for craft in development like from blue origins - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NANePoo_p30

I believe the Soyuz uses rockets to slow its decent before it hits the ground, but thats to assist the parachute rather than replace them.

SideburnsOfDoom2• 14 years ago

For the first video, I get "Unfortunately, this video is not available in Germany, because it may contain music for which GEMA has not granted the respective music rights.". What an absolutely boneheaded, irrelevant, infuriating reason to block a video of a rocket landing. :(

Also, John Carmack's Armadillo aerospace have made prototype rockets that can land vertically on their own thrusters. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8eb_1318290493

josephagoss• 14 years ago

That Blue Origin ship was amazing, if they could send this into orbit and then land it like this with no parachutes, that would be incredible? No one else has done that, not even Space X?

Is blue origin going to compete with Musk? I don't think Jeff will leave Amazon and focus on this 100%?

Really amazing times.

huhtenberg2• 14 years ago

> Soyuz uses rockets to slow its decent

That's how they land tanks. Parachutes first, and then one second before the impact boosters go off and slow the cargo down for a soft touchdown.

thematt3• 14 years ago

Speaking of Blue Origin, if anybody is interested in working for us, we're hiring :)

http://www.blueorigin.com/careers/careers.html

pavel_lishin2• 14 years ago

Soviets used to land manned capsules on land, but I believe they just used parachutes. I don't really see the advantage of landing on thrusters alone.

A combination, though, to aim your parachute to a precise location, would be cheaper than thrusters alone, and less chancy than a parachute alone ("Sir, sir, calm down, what do you mean, 'a space ship just landed on my car'?")

excuse-me• 14 years ago

Parachutes are weather dependant - it's hard to land a big object on parachutes with a crosswind.

They may use parachutes at higher altitudes to slow the craft then thrusters at the final landing

InclinedPlane4• 14 years ago

The advantage of a powered landing is significant.

First, precision: landing on a pad is operationally vastly superior than landing in a several mile drop zone. The latter must be in some depopulated area for safety, which has obvious downsides. Being able to land without bringing into play a whole search and rescue aparatus is huge.

Second, turnaround time. Parachutes are fussy, and re-installing new, carefully packed chutes along with all the pyro bolts and whatnot and verifying the whole system checks out is an expensive and complex thing to do for each flight. Landing on rockets means that you only need to inspect and refuel before the next flight, which you would need to do regardless, is very much streamlined compared to the use of parachutes.

orbiter• 14 years ago

Off topic. Why is bad_alloc's comment marked [dead]?

bad_alloc 42 minutes ago | link [dead]

ChuckMcM3• 14 years ago

Because you've enabled 'show dead' in your profile and so you see posts from accounts that are not normally shown.

One of the reasons why it is helpful to put a contact email in your 'about' section of your profile is that if your posts are showing up dead, folks can contact you.

dangrossman• 14 years ago

Considering he's not hellbanned, the most likely explanation is that he posted the same comment twice. HN will automatically kill the duplicate, which is what you see. Then, realizing he posted twice, he deleted one of the copies... but chose the original. It doesn't appear [dead] on his screen so he didn't realize he deleted the wrong one.

TeMPOraL• 14 years ago

They probably refered to Super Dracos - engines SpaceX is developing as a part of rescue technology:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiZel9DLeRs

The idea is for Dragon to have engines that would allow the crew to abort mission at any point (launch included) and land anywhere in the solar system (e.g. I read [1] that because of thin atmosphere on Mars they're making Super Dracos capable of firing when the vehicle is supersonic).

EDIT

[1] http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2012/05/spacex-...

"The escape system's motors will allow the capsule to land anywhere in the solar system, whether it has an atmosphere or not - and that's pretty cool. These motors can even fire supersonically which is important for Mars: in the higher altitudes of Mars the atmosphere is so thin that parachutes are completely pointless. So retro thrusters have to be able to fire when you are supersonic so they have to be very high thrust."

henrikeh• 14 years ago

Why is that possible, when the Curiosity must use an elaborate floating crane?

mikekij• 14 years ago

So unbelievably bad ass. Way to go Elon.

robomartin3• 14 years ago

This seems very appropriate:

"On small step for man; one giant leap for mankind" -Neil Armstrong

This truly marks the start of a new era.

vecinu2• 14 years ago

I'm not sure if I would say it marks the start of a new era.

robomartin3• 14 years ago

Really? What event would you use to mark the start of private space exploration?

planetguy7• 14 years ago

What's next? Here's a list:

http://www.spacex.com/launch_manifest.php

Looks like they've got plenty to keep 'em busy for the next five years.

rwhitman• 14 years ago

I wonder what their financials look like. Curious to know what the profit margin is on a rocket launch...

planetguy7• 14 years ago

Wait for the IPO next year and you'll find out!

stcredzero2• 14 years ago

What is that crooked line in the picture?

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/60628000/jpg/_60628685...

Is that from the parachute?

dag11• 14 years ago

Yep, the parachute and its lines were deployed out of there.

horsehead• 14 years ago

So I live in western Virginia .... I'm thinking this occasion merits a viewing of Apollo 13 and a trip to the national space museum.

I sincerely hope we can expand our reach into space soon. And hopefully the commercial space industry will further that mission.

And while I'm not a fan of Obama's policies, I do appreciate his decision to increase the role of the private sector in space. Kudos all around !

techiferous• 14 years ago

Although not really "nearby", you can also try to view a launch yourself: http://www.marsspaceport.com/

I saw a satellite launch from this site a few years ago. It's one of my favorite memories.

srik• 14 years ago

When they progress onto human transportation if, god forbid, there happens to be any catastrophic casualties, would the public be as forgiving as they would if it was NASA.

Fizzadar• 14 years ago

A fine finish to an awesome mission, at last commercial space flight seems a reality; we're one step closer to holidaying on the moon :)

Dragon has successfully achieved splashdown

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