Safe Sea Landing
Apr. 8th, 2016 07:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerI knew in a general sort of way another Falcon 9 rocket was going to launch another Dragon supply capsule (containing, among other things, the first small "inflatable space structure" I've been hearing plans for for quite a while now) to the space station soon, but my schedules got sort of scrambled when I fell somewhat sick this week. Now that I'm managing to mend I'm paying a bit more attention to the news, but I didn't manage to hear the launch had been a success until it had happened. Then, I noticed reports "the first stage had landed," and supposed it must have been able to fly back to solid ground again, knowing how many explosions there have been on SpaceX's fannishly if somewhat obscurely named barges.
As I checked a bit further into the news reports, though, I saw the stage really had managed to land on a barge; I even managed to see a bit of video showing just how fast the final stage of the landing happens and the barge bobbing back and forth afterwards. Just as it took SpaceX several tries to get a rocket into orbit, perseverance seems to have paid off for once. This pretty much tops "inflatable space structures," at least for the moment.
As I checked a bit further into the news reports, though, I saw the stage really had managed to land on a barge; I even managed to see a bit of video showing just how fast the final stage of the landing happens and the barge bobbing back and forth afterwards. Just as it took SpaceX several tries to get a rocket into orbit, perseverance seems to have paid off for once. This pretty much tops "inflatable space structures," at least for the moment.