SpaceX Droneship After Hard Landing of a Booster

The third landing of the B1051 booster was a hard landing but it was just within the safety margins the crush cores provide. The fall might have been caused by the drone being at the bottom of a swell or a last-second anomaly with the booster’s landing engine.

Above is a picture of the drone ship after the slightly damaged booster was removed

16 thoughts on “SpaceX Droneship After Hard Landing of a Booster”

  1. We might see better stabilization with the new thruster mods they are preparing. They bought a set of 8 chonking big azipod thrusters for the two barges it seems. Probably use the repair downtime to install the first set of 4…

  2. Funny as rapid firing guns on ships like heavy AAA has often been stabilized this way since WW2. Far simpler than an tank gun as you have more room and the movement is pretty periodic.
    For larger guns firing slower rate system just wait for the angle to match before firing.

  3. I may have used the wrong word, hydrofoil, as these (edit: controllable) thingys will actively transfer momentum to the water it is going thru, to keep an even keel, so to speak. Not primarily for lift, just control. If you are sitting stationary, that becomes impossible, and you are stuck with inertia or engines, as Musk does. Now, it seems moving will create its own instability, but it is worth checking out the idea!

  4. It’s a former Stena freighter. I don’t think hydrofoils will make much difference. The stability will be better just from having a larger ship with the bow pointed into the waves. This picture is pre-modification:

  5. The video detail was missing, but that looked like a State 4 Sea (check your Bowditch) with large swells, which is no joke. Even a State 3 would have crests way over your head when in the troughs.

  6. Bezos plans to have the ship and lander moving fast downrange, so the stability will come from hydrofoils(?) interacting with the water it runs thru.

  7. looking at the photos,
    workers not standing leaning on a shovel anymore, now they are looking down at a phone.

  8. It’s amazing how much technology is changing life. The thought of that level of wizardry in a sea environment…

  9. At some point I suspect it’s going to be worth adding a dynamically stabilized platform to the drone ships, if they’re going to continue in use. Though as the accuracy of landing continues to improve, maybe just a robot arm to catch each leg, as the booster comes to a halt *above* the deck.

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