This is amazing. And yet, it has become so routine it hardly made the news.
While the center booster recovery failed, they did manage for the first time to catch half of the rocket’s nose cone. In a giant net held up by a boat out in the ocean. Seriously.
Who does this? Capitalists, that’s who:
“Imagine you had $6 million in cash in a palette flying through the air, and it’s going to smash into the ocean,” Musk said last year. “Would you try to recover that? Yes. Yes, you would.”
3 replies on “SpaceX Delivers 24 separate payloads during ‘Most Difficult Launch Ever’”
So routine so quickly.
They did manage to catch the fairing this time, which was a first! Yay Mr. Steven! … er, Ms. Tree!
I had to catch the replay this morning, in the interest of getting enough sleep to be functional today, but I usually delight in watching SpaceX launches livestreamed whenever possible (often with my sons, if they’re home from school/camp and the hour isn’t insane). The Falcon Heavy launches have been particularly exciting feats. I credit recovering 2 out of 3 first-stage boosters (same as the first Falcon Heavy flight) as a good launch. The spectacularly precise twin-booster landings are even better appreciated in daylight, but I must admit the flame patterns in the night sky as the side boosters separated and their boostback burns interacted with the center core’s plume was something spectacular of another kind to behold.
SpaceX are at the forefront of building vehicles that will one day free us to move beyond the confines of Earth, and for that they have my devoted enthusiasm. I look forward to the Starship Hopper tests and their further milestones to come!