Barge | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Tue, 12 Jan 2016 13:22:14 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png Barge | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Elon Musk: Falcon 9 will try to land on barge again this weekend https://www.kitguru.net/channel/science/jon-martindale/elon-musk-falcon-9-will-try-to-land-on-barge-again-this-weekend/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/science/jon-martindale/elon-musk-falcon-9-will-try-to-land-on-barge-again-this-weekend/#respond Tue, 12 Jan 2016 12:11:57 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=280403 Although Space X spent much of 2015 not launching rockets after a singular failure, it's starting 2016 off with a bang by launching a new payload into orbit this weekend. Better yet, after proving that its Falcon 9 first stage booster can be landed back on land, it's going to once again try and land …

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Although Space X spent much of 2015 not launching rockets after a singular failure, it's starting 2016 off with a bang by launching a new payload into orbit this weekend. Better yet, after proving that its Falcon 9 first stage booster can be landed back on land, it's going to once again try and land it on the automated drone-barge in the ocean.

rocketlaunch

Landing on an automated barge ship is something that Space X has been trying to do for a while. Several launches and landing attempts came close in 2015, before a mid-flight over-pressure event forced Space X to ground its fleet while testing was conducted. In the first launch since that catastrophe it managed to land the booster rocket on land, so now it's heading back out to the ocean.

But why land on something as small as an ocean barge, when ground based landings worked so well? According to Space X CEO and founder, Elon Musk, it's because high-velocity landings will still need to be conducted over the ocean for safety reasons. At least until the technology is more proven.

Beyond the barge landing though, this launch is important for science(!) too. It's taking the Jason-3 satellite into orbit, which will use its radar altimeter to measure the depth of oceans around the world, giving an accuracy within an inch.

In the mean time, if you'd like to take a stab at landing the rocket booster on the barge, you can try it out in 8bit here.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: It will be interesting to see what sarcastic remark Jeff Bezos makes if SpaceX does manage this landing.

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Here’s Space X’s drone barge after rocket explosion https://www.kitguru.net/channel/science/jon-martindale/heres-space-xs-drone-barge-after-rocket-explosion/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/science/jon-martindale/heres-space-xs-drone-barge-after-rocket-explosion/#respond Thu, 23 Apr 2015 11:00:06 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=246380 Space X's latest launch of a Falcon 9 rocket with the Dragon supply capsule payload went off without a hitch last week. At least, in that it achieved orbit and successfully docked with the international space station to deliver much needed food, science experiments and other important tools for the astornauts to make use of. …

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Space X's latest launch of a Falcon 9 rocket with the Dragon supply capsule payload went off without a hitch last week. At least, in that it achieved orbit and successfully docked with the international space station to deliver much needed food, science experiments and other important tools for the astornauts to make use of. When it came to landing the first stage booster on Space X's drone barge however not all went to plan and now we have an image of what it looked like after the rocket exploded.

spacexbarge

The image shows the barge's bullseye-like landing zone, along with debris from the booster which actually came quite close to landing perfectly. After completing its suicide burn, it was able to touch down gently on the pad. However, due to a stuck throttle valve, the booster came in with too much lateral velocity, so when it touched down, it overloaded one of the legs and from there it was only a matter of time before it toppled over. 

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhMSzC1crr0′]

In the video above, posted by Space X founder and CEO Elon Musk, you can actually see the Falcon 9's RCS thrusters attempt to stabilise the rocket, but it's not enough and within just a few seconds it falls to the floor and explodes; quite spectacularly. 

KitGuru Says: It's good to see that the explosion didn't damage the barge too much. There's now a two month wait until the next launch. Hopefully Space X will have fixed the valve issue by then and we'll see our first successful landing.

Image source: Petr Bourdais/Twitter

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TV news uses Kerbal Space Program footage for Space X landing https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/jon-martindale/tv-news-uses-kerbal-space-program-footage-for-space-x-landing/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/jon-martindale/tv-news-uses-kerbal-space-program-footage-for-space-x-landing/#comments Thu, 16 Apr 2015 07:59:08 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=245377 As much as Kerbal Space Program is a fun game and certainly quite realistic in terms of its orbital mechanics, nobody is quite ready to suggest it's an accurate simulator of the real world. Still, that didn't stop the US based, CBC News network from airing footage of the game as a “simulation” of what Space …

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As much as Kerbal Space Program is a fun game and certainly quite realistic in terms of its orbital mechanics, nobody is quite ready to suggest it's an accurate simulator of the real world. Still, that didn't stop the US based, CBC News network from airing footage of the game as a “simulation” of what Space X's landing of its first stage booster rocket on a drone barge could look like.

bandicam
You would think that they would have at least removed the “Bandicam” watermark

It seems a shame that no credit was thrown to anyone for the use of this video. The game's developer, Squad, doesn't even get a mention.

NB: Skip forward to 2:39 to see the KSP footage.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCpI0KpKUpg#t=159′]

It's not clear from the footage whether it's an intentional use of Kerbal Space Program and the reporter simply negated to mention it, or whether this was the ‘simulation' that the guys behind the scenes cooked up for their bosses. We do know however that this wasn't made in-house, but is actually a video produced by Redditor and Youtuber, FutureMartian97, who posted the video four months ago.
That may be why the video was cribbed for the news broadcast, but it could also be because it's named with the KSP acronym, which may have been overlooked by those looking for simulator footage.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzkaVTeguNk']

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Although the video no doubt comes under fair use for a news organisation, it would have been polite to at least provide a source link. Come on CBC.

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Space X barge landing best yet, still needs to improve https://www.kitguru.net/channel/science/jon-martindale/space-x-barge-landing-best-yet-still-needs-to-improve/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/science/jon-martindale/space-x-barge-landing-best-yet-still-needs-to-improve/#comments Wed, 15 Apr 2015 08:06:11 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=245159 Yesterday's launch of the Space X Dragon module supply run to the International Space Station went off without a hitch, sending around three tonnes of scientific experiments, food and other essentials to the orbiting station. However, arguably the bigger news was how well the first booster stage of the rocket was able to come down …

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Yesterday's launch of the Space X Dragon module supply run to the International Space Station went off without a hitch, sending around three tonnes of scientific experiments, food and other essentials to the orbiting station. However, arguably the bigger news was how well the first booster stage of the rocket was able to come down right on top of the automated barge recovery system. It fell over, but it did technically land.

readthem

The last time Space X tried the recovery system of the first stage back in January, the booster came down far too hard because it ran out of hydraulic fluid. That was corrected for this launch and it looks from footage retrieved from the drone barge that the booster did land on its legs, but because it came in with too much sideways movement, it wasn't able to balance correctly and summarily fell over.

While it could be argued that Space X should simply bring the rocket down directly over the drone ship, called “Just Read the Instructions,” scientists are wary of an engine failure at high altitude, which could send the rocket crashing down into the ship, doing immeasurable damage. Hence why the booster comes down at a bit of an angle and has to correct at the last moment, as seen in the short Vine clip that Space X CEO Elon Musk posted.

He later went on to quip that when he'd perfected this landing that it was time to treat himself to a Volcano lair. “It's time.”

Space X has many more Falcon 9 launches planned throughout the rest of the year, so there will be plenty more attempts at landing its booster stage on the barge. Musk expects that by 2016 they'll have the procedure down so well that they could expect an 80 per cent success rate.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Making the booster stage reusable could save millions of dollars per launch and has the potential to revolutionise space travel by making it far more affordable. 

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Space X sea-barge landing too ‘hard’ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/science/jon-martindale/space-x-sea-barge-landing-too-hard/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/science/jon-martindale/space-x-sea-barge-landing-too-hard/#respond Mon, 12 Jan 2015 08:47:21 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=230044 Commercial space organisation, Space X, attempted a frequently delayed unmanned mission to the International Space Station on Saturday, delivering supplies and important cargo to the orbiting station for the first time in months. While the launch itself went off without a hitch, the big scientific experiment with it was to see whether the first stage of …

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Commercial space organisation, Space X, attempted a frequently delayed unmanned mission to the International Space Station on Saturday, delivering supplies and important cargo to the orbiting station for the first time in months. While the launch itself went off without a hitch, the big scientific experiment with it was to see whether the first stage of the rocket could be landed safely on a sea-barge to allow for the re-use of certain parts which could bring down costs. Unfortunately, the landing was simply too hard.

barge

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX tweeted shortly after the rocket's launch, “Rocket made it to drone spaceport ship, but landed hard. Close, but no cigar this time. Bodes well for the future tho.” He went on to state that some of the safety equipment on the unmanned barge would need to be replaced, but that ultimately it wasn't too much of a failure.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33BZi6JC5ZU']

In-fact, while it sounds from his description that the Falcon 9 rocket stage did hit hard enough that little will be reusable, the fact that it was able to accurately target the barge at all is a great achievement. Previous tests have given the rocket stage a margin of error up to 10 kilometres wide, having it hover above the ocean before cutting power and crashing into the water. In this instance, Space X was trying to land the large rocket booster and fuel tank on a platform just 300ft by 100 ft and it sounds like it did that, but just didn't slow down enough.

All of this was possible because of the unique design of the Falcon 9 booster rocket, which is able to reignite its engines after stage separation – after sending the payload and its smaller engine(s) and fuel reserve into an orbital trajectory – and uses that power combined with fins to control its descent. It also has landing legs, which is unusual for a first stage booster.

The point of this is to make the rocket as reusable as possible, which can therefore make it much cheaper to operate – since the engines don't need to be rebuilt for each launch. Whether everyone that wants to hire Space X for trips into a near earth orbit will be happy to use a second-hand rocket, remains to be seen, but that's a bridge to be crossed when it is actually possible to recover the rocket. No doubt this latest test will just be one of many going forward.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitrGuru Says: It's interesting to note that while the US shuttle program was able to re-use the shuttles themselves, the complexity of their engines and the amount of parts that needed to be replaced, ultimately led to little financial gain to their recovery. The Falcon 9 on the other hand, could save a lot if safely returned. 

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