Wow ….. that’s so cool, there must be some proper hardware/software at work on that.
I’m not surprised everyone was going nuts!

This reminds me of something… 😯

It’s so impressive, I’ve watched the video six or seven times already this morning. It’s a MASSIVE achievement.

Well done SpaceX! Very very cool. Already half way to creating Thunderbird 1 🙂

Wow, thats cool !

I really like the long exposure photos people have taken showing the take off and the landing.

There are a few on the Guardian website:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/dec/22/welcome-back-baby-elon-musk-celebrates-spacex-rocket-launch-and-landing

Anyone found a ground track of the Falcon 9? Did it do an orbit or just out to the Atlantic and back?

Fake

That’s the coolest thing I’ll see today. Ta and shared.

legend – Flat Earth Believer

Fake

FTFY

The Earth is flat though, a video on YouTube told me so!

Oh no, the internet is about to explode, because Twitter says it is real…

I like how it did a backflip over thunderbird 1

matt_outandabout – Member

Oh no, the internet is about to explode, because Twitter says it is real…

woah there cowboy! Lets not bring the (obviously fake) ISS into this!

What is the benefit of landing upright?
They must have to carry a lot more fuel.

That’s what I want to know too. It’s very clever and all that, but wouldn’t a parachute do an adequate job?

By the way, didn’t one of the other private space companies achieve a vertical landing recently? On land if I remember rightly – but still!

OK I’ve read the article now. I see they didn’t try landing on a barge this time, which must have helped, and this is the lot that landed a smaller rocket
New Shepard

not a rocket scientist but assume anything else would require extra boosters etc just for landing.

That’s proper 50s scifi that is – love it 🙂

A parachute wouldn’t allow you to choose where it lands, I’d expect. Maybe you could have some pop-out wings and undercarriage, so you could fly it back down. But I’d imagine they’ve done at least some sums here.

What is the benefit of landing upright?

You don’t dunk a lot of very expensive engines into the sea. Fuel is cheaper than engines. I guess it sacrifices a proportion of the payload but it won’t require a massive amount of fuel compared to the launch

I’m quite impressed – looking forward to seeing the falcon heavy in action.

I wonder if Spacex will buy Sealaunch?

By the way, didn’t one of the other private space companies achieve a vertical landing recently? On land if I remember rightly – but still!

They did, but it was a lot smaller and probably empty – whereas the Falcon 9 launched carrying $millions worth of satellites, dropped them off, flipped over and was back home 10 mins after launching. I’m sorry but that is just incredibly neat 🙂

The other [Amazon funded] lot will also be cool but will probably be used for delivery of goods ordered by Amazon ‘Astro Prime’ customers.

Lolz, open your eyes people. This is FAKE!!!

http://youtu.be/UNBCvIVIZtg

They did, but it was a lot smaller and probably empty – whereas the Falcon 9 launched carrying $millions worth of satellites, dropped them off, flipped over and was back home 10 mins after launching. I’m sorry but that is just incredibly neat

I loved the analogy they used for this on the webcast on the SpaceX website.

“It’s like throwing a pencil over the Empire State Building and half way down the other side it turns around, comes back over the building and then lands on a shoebox next to where it took off”

That’s pretty bloody impressive.

The other [Amazon funded] lot will also be cool but will probably be used for delivery of goods ordered by Amazon ‘Astro Prime’ customers.

I’ve often thought ballistic delivery would be the next thing to do.

What is the benefit of landing upright?

The idea behind the Falcon 9 is to make the first stage reusable to significantly reduce costs. The cost of rebuilding the first stage is a lot higher than the extra fuel they need to carry. Yep rockets and thrusters used rather than parachutes to control exactly where it lands. Again it’s quite expensive to recover the stage if it lands miles away or in the ocean.

SpaceX have performed many successful test landings before from smaller altitudes and with prototypes. This launch was from a proper commercial launch from full altitude which no one has done before.

Anyone found a ground track of the Falcon 9? Did it do an orbit or just out to the Atlantic and back?

Don’t know for certain but from what I understand it would have gone out to the Atlantic and back. The first stage went as high as 200km which I think is a way of from low earth orbit. So to go round the stage would have needed to carry enough fuel to go round the Earth which sounds hard and expensive.

Nicely done lads – they’ve been trying a fair while to get this to work and it looks properly awesome!

What is the benefit of landing upright?
They must have to carry a lot more fuel.

Dunno about the spaceX one, but I imagine the Blue Orgin one carries hardly any extra fuel. Seems to be in free fall for most of it’s descent, turns on the main rocket for maybe 20seconds and maybe only full power for a couple of seconds or so of that.

So to go round the stage would have needed to carry enough fuel to go round the Earth which sounds hard and expensive.

Well not necessarily – you just float around the earth after you’ve boosted yourself into the right altitude, direction and speed. 99 miles is the minimum altitude according to wiki.

Blue origin was a sub orbital landing, this was somewhat higher

Just watched the launch and landing, absolutely amazed by this!!
If I was a kid I would want to work for those guys when I grow up!!

http://www.spacex.com/webcast/