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SpaceX landing on Falcon 9 rockets aboard drones in the ocean is an old hat, a feat already accomplished over three years ago. But a new video of the familiar descent puts it in a new light on Saturday morning.
Under the guise of darkness, it's impossible to see the first floor of the Falcon 9 rocket coming back from space and landing on Of course I still love youthe drone off the coast of Florida, but infrared cameras captured the landing during a mission flow, thus making it visible in monochrome. (A clip of the landing is isolated in the video above.)
What is even better for rocket enthusiasts is that the Falcon 9 that lands on the drone deck is actually very clear. During most missions that involve landing a drone ship, the SpaceX video glitches and stops when the rocket approaches the ship's deck, preventing the viewer from seeing a rocket land on a bridge. floating in the ocean. But that was not the case on Saturday. In HD, you can see the legs extend and splash blue-green water around the drone, from the point of view of a video camera mounted on the first stage of the rocket.
"It sounds great," said Jessica Anderson, Manufacturing Engineer at SpaceX, who hosted the nightly webcast, while Falcon 9 is screened on Earth a few minutes before 3:00 am ET. # 39; Is.
This latest launch of SpaceX was for CRS-17, a commercial replenishment service mission to the International Space Station, which included the shipment of human organ chips to the International Space Station. space, intended for research, as well as a radiation-resistant supercomputer built by university students. from Pittsburgh. The Dragon cargo capsule, containing more than 5,000 kilos of supplies and scientific equipment, will arrive at the ISS on Monday.
What's next for SpaceX: The Elon Musk aerospace company is expected to launch the Starlink Internet satellites for which it has just received FCC approval in mid-May.
The Falcon 9 reminder used on Saturday will be used again for two more missions on the ISS – CRS 18 and 19. Kenny Todd, head of the ISS Mission Operations Integration for NASA, said this.
"Frankly, we have a vested interest in this recall," Todd said at the press conference after the launch, reported Ars Technica. "The intention is that we use it for 18 years, of course, and potentially 19. For us, that made a difference."
Watch the full video of the CRS-17 mission here.
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