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SpaceX launches - Drone ship landings lost signal mystery

Uniqez
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Omegafanman Omegafanman
Thanks for all the info / video link from @Foo2rama was very informative. I am a SpaceX fan and would love to see them land on Mars - so I still like to push the details a bit / they can take it. The recovery / landing statistics are awesome but I also think from x3 Falcon Heavy launches they have never recovered a centre stage (in fairness one fell off after landing) - but it still shows things are tough compared to the outer boosters.
They even managed to recover fairing few times. Give Elon and the team some time, they'll come up with something for the center stage.
 
JimInOz
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Omegafanman Omegafanman
I get the signal issue but all ships (like warships) have to cope with heavy seas and vibration (as do rockets) but maintain communication - are we saying the drone ship and rocket stage loose all telemetry and communication during a landing / fully autonomous or is it just the video feed?

SATCOM is just one of the many of the comms modes employed by warships.

And if you saw the cost of the systems they have to employ to maintain multi-mode comms, your eyes would water.

SpaceX is based on economy/re-use, so a billion dollar TV channel would be counter productive budget wise.
 
JimInOz
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WatchCor WatchCor
THE booster has returned. Unless - that's a duplicate , or fake 👎


Credit: NASASpaceflight channel youtube


Hmmmmmmmm................😒

Scissors, gaffer tape, rattle can.............and!

tubeman.jpg
 
vbrad26
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I'm sorry but I can't pass up this opportunity.

 
Archer
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^^^ Right down the road from Tex and Edna Boyles organ emporium...
 
Omegafanman
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Omegafanman Omegafanman
Sorry being lazy again / about to sign off - I think 2 of the centre stages in effect crash landed or failed near or on the drone ship and one landed but fell off before it was secured - which shows it is tough. I imagine the trajectory / weight means it has to be a sea based recovery - I am sure they will get better at it. The faring catcher boat is super neat - only just spotted that.

Thanks for all the replies on this topic and the good links / sound engineering - I have a better understanding now and remain a team SpX fan.

Ref the link up, as per an earlier post from me I do think they must have some live telemetry feeds - so it would be good to give an indication on the success or failure of a landing quicker (within 4 minutes) - I don't think losing some of the centre stages makes the overall launch or the recovery concept a failure - but I would like to see quicker real time reporting on the centre stage landing during the broadcasts ….when it goes wrong. Hopefully there is no opportunity to test this / I wish them all good landings going forward - and that the next televised Falcon Heavy makes it home from the drone..
Edited:
 
take57
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Ars Technica just posted a good article about the Falcon 9 being the "secret sauce" of the entire SpaceX enterprise.

https://arstechnica.com/science/202...ocket-is-the-secret-sauce-of-spacexs-success/

It alludes to something of a "thinking out of the box" spirit that pervades the company. They mention the first Falcon 9 was in danger of a scrubbed launch due to heavy rains getting into the radio electronics. After some thought, the Sr. Dir. of Avionics climbed up a ladder and just used a common blow dryer to clear the moisture and get the mission back on track rather than a time-consuming swap out of the package.

I'm doing some work with a guy whose son is part of the "Mr. Steven" (now "Ms. Tree") marine recovery vessel team and he confirmed his kid said SpaceX has little objection to finding solutions that might be unorthodox as long as they're effective.
 
take57
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Omegafanman Omegafanman
I get the signal issue but all ships (like warships) have to cope with heavy seas and vibration (as do rockets) but maintain communication - are we saying the drone ship and rocket stage loose all telemetry and communication during a landing / fully autonomous or is it just the video feed?

FYI - I was told by the father of the "Ms. Tree" team member that at one point (it may now have been corrected) part of the issue was the telemetry was first being bounced off a "bird" then relayed to the vessel. There was enough delay to be problematic, so they worked on/are working on having the components to be captured link data directly to the ship.
 
pdxleaf
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Welcome home Bob and Doug. Watch their return and splashdown live:

 
Foo2rama
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pdxleaf pdxleaf
Welcome home Bob and Doug. Watch their return and splashdown live:

In about 10 minutes or so.
 
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