Yeah… I’m pretty sure I spotted the livestream within minutes of it being made visible on their page, yet the timestamps were about half an hour out of sync… on a 28 minute stream…
Did they just not publicize the video until they were sure the launch had been successful?
Youtube clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcwrwKn6Gh8
Got to feel sorry for there cameraman though. Just when he gets inside the next stage blows off. That is a rough job.
So next launch is, as of exactly now, one day and seven hours out. This time they are launching the AsiaSat 8, a communication satellite.
Due to some rotation of the rocket booster inventory and due to the fact that this satellite must go to GTO, no landing legs on this one. While a descend for the first stage will be tried, recovery is unlikely.
So there was a two hour delay, but the launch was successful. The satellite is en route!
There seems to be footage of the previous flight from the NASA chase plane of the booster landing over water, I’ll try to find a good source for it (only a filmed off version exists on the internet right now).
I wouldn’t be too worried. When you’re doing something as ridiculous as riding an explosion for several dozens of km, and then try to see how much you can push the hardware, things like that are bound to happen. Now, no one is hurt, no precious cargo is destroyed, no real estate is devalued by raining debris, and they got plenty of data to be sure it doesn’t happen during an actual mission.
What I fear is that ULA uses that as an excuse in their anti-SpaceX lobbying.
Yeah this isn’t a setback as such, just a little unfortunate.
I’m not well versed in space rocket stuff so I had to google ULA, their wiki page seems to contradict itself slightly or at the very least is badly worded (yay wikipedia!).
ULA’s launch costs have been falsely reported by rival SpaceX to be approximately $450 million dollars each.
…
the cost to US taxpayers, per launch, balloons to over $459 Million dollars. This figure, based on simple math, directly contradicts the cost information released by ULA.
Youtube video of the failed test. Seems it was related to some sort of guidance system issue, turned on its side, and the rocket realized that it could not turn back on so it blew its self up.
http://www.spacex.com/news/2014/08/26/update-asiasat-6-mission
“Had the same blocked sensor port problem occurred with an operational Falcon 9, it would have been outvoted by several other sensors. That voting system was not present on the test vehicle.”
Just to let everyone know, SpaceX will be launching tonight at 11:14 PST tonight(Sept 19th) or 2:14 AM(Sept20th for you easterners) Just to remind everyone this is not a GSO so there will be an attempt to land the first stage. Whether it’s still on the water, on a barge, or on pad somewhere, we don’t know.
I can confirm the no landing legs bit from the pre launch press briefing. They will however try a sideways maneuver as an extra for the simulated landing.
Next launch should be the one where they try landing on the barge.
Notice for anyone that wants a more technical view of the launch: I have found the SpaceX subreddit at www.reddit.com/r/spacex to be a very good and solid source of news and facts. They always have stickied posts with all known information in them.
EDIT: Late update: weather was no-go, they’ll try again the next day however.
There is a video somewhere of the night video of the first stage splashing down in the water. As far as I know it was a success, but I don’t think they have officially announced it yet.