13 thoughts on “A Spaceship Has Landed”

1. Someone please tell Hillary that it is one of ours, even if it is a sign of intelligent life.

2. I’m a bit surprised that SpaceX isn’t going to try to launch the ORB2 first stage again. Demonstrating reusability is key to their plans, so why put it off? It’s nice to have it as a museum piece, but it’d make an even better exhibit after its second launch and landing.

   1. I agree, but hopefully the second landed stage will be along shortly and they’ll relaunch that one.

   2. One reason is that they do not know what it is they do not know. They probably want to get on with this year’s launch program and have other first stages land as well. Whether or not there’s a re-use of a first stage this year can depend upon what they find when they test fire this first one and then tear it down for inspections.

3. Recall that they had a previous engine failure which they think was the result of extra time on the test stand. Now they have nine engines with extra run time. The engines aren’t the same version but they’ll still want to be incredibly thorough with checking them out and retesting them.

   1. It’s pretty cool that they’re going to use the first returned stage to hot fire test pad 39A.

      1. So it will be a test of the returned and the mods they made to 39A? Neat.

4. This recovered stage is a gold mine of data. Even if they weren’t pursuing reusability, it will help them improve their design. Parts that suffered wear and tear will be beefed up, while they may find that they can shave weight from other parts that fared well.

   1. How would you differentiate from damage that occurred during ascent (which you’d care about regardless) versus damage that occurred during descent (which you wouldn’t care about if not pursuing reusability)?

      1. Conservatively.

      2. There is usually directional cues if done by debris, such as some ablation. Also, you may have telemetry to support mechanical damage sequences. And while I agree ascent damage is a higher concern, SpaceX certainly is worried about any.

         I definitely agree with Rickl that this vessel is a goldmine, and relaunching immediately would be a stupid stunt. At the very least, SpaceX needs to determine how much structural life was lost during this launch and return. Maybe they have the excess margin already in, but they would do better to check this on a test stand than another launch. Use the 2nd or 3rd booster for the first reuse.

5. Finally a good collection of numbers to play around with.

   1. Here is a really simplistic quick and dirty spreadsheet people can plug numbers into. Anything yellow can be changed.

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