NOAA DSCOVR (Falcon 9) mission


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It'll be historic in a lot of people's eyes. Even Arianespace and ULA, amid their grumblings, admit it'll be a major event.

After all, how often do you see a 14-15 story building fall out of the sky at hypersonic speeds and land upright with precision?

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FTS Safed means they disarmed the flight termination system shaped charge explosives. They unzip the tanks & blow the propellants if the launcher goes off course.

S2 cutoff #1.

Next is a coast, then an S2 restart for the L1 escape burn.

S1 splashdown!

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Another great rocket launch to watch. It was really cool to be able to see the 1st stage and the even the fairing after separation. I hope we get more launches in the evenings in the future. It sure did seem like S1 splashdown happened pretty quick after its first re-entry burn.

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Nice. High performance re-entry, <10m accuracy, vertical touchdown. After all that and now more waiting. Did I read somewhere that the Grasshopper programme was winding down or defunct? Maybe I imagined it.

And another succesful mission. Excellent.

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Grasshopper retired when F9R Dev-1 started flying. F9R Dev-2 starts flying tests to 300,000+ feet at SpacePort America in New Mexico this spring. That's also rumored to be where they'll test automated stage reuse processing and launch preps.

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Oh my,

@elonmusk

Planning a significant upgrade of the droneship for future missions to handle literally anything. Maybe give it a Merlin for good measure :)

@DanielLockyer

@elonmusk Build it into a flying aircraft carrier like in the Avengers

@elonmusk

@DanielLockyer We could actually do that...maybe we should

:rofl:

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Doc, that has to be one of the most profound images you've posted on your SpaceX threads yet. Thanks a ton. :yes:

 

Looks like someone pointing a dirty great big space cannon at Earth! :p

 

WE'RE DOOMED!!!

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