{"id":15483,"date":"2016-05-28T22:26:35","date_gmt":"2016-05-28T14:26:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/ride-aboard-the-falcon-9-rockets-first-stage-on-descent\/"},"modified":"2016-05-28T22:26:35","modified_gmt":"2016-05-28T14:26:35","slug":"ride-aboard-the-falcon-9-rockets-first-stage-on-descent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/ride-aboard-the-falcon-9-rockets-first-stage-on-descent\/","title":{"rendered":"Ride aboard the Falcon 9 rocket\u2019s first stage on descent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4jEz03Z8azc\" width=\"675\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Take a virtual trip from space back to planet Earth with an sped up video clip showing the eye-popping on-board views from the Falcon 9 rocket\u2019s first stage booster Friday as it plummeted back to Earth, opened aerodynamic steering fins and fired its engines for a final braking maneuver just before touchdown.<\/p>\n<p>The 156-foot-tall booster detached from the Falcon 9\u2019s second stage less than three minutes after Friday\u2019s liftoff from Cape Canaveral at 5:39 p.m. EDT (2139 GMT) with the Thaicom 8 communications satellite.<\/p>\n<p>The video from a rocket-mounted camera shows the first stage opening four grid fins in an X-wing configuration for aerodynamic stabilization, then flipping around for a re-entry burn and a landing burn, targeting SpaceX\u2019s drone ship \u201cOf Course I Still Love You\u201d in the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n<p>The rocket flew arced to the edge of space \u2014 flying hundreds of thousands of feet over the puffy tops of thunderstorms \u2014 after reaching a top speed of more than 5,000 mph (8,000 kilometers per hour), then fired cold gas nitrogen thrusters to flip around and line up for re-entry.<\/p>\n<p>The pulses of white exhaust seen in this video are the cold gas nitrogen thrusters firing. A condensation cloud is briefly seen around the booster as the rocket decelerates below the speed of sound.<\/p>\n<p>Touchdown on the landing barge occurred about 8 minutes, 40 seconds, after liftoff approximately 420 miles (680 kilometers) east of Cape Canaveral.<\/p>\n<p>Portions of the on-board video were shown by SpaceX live on Friday\u2019s live webcast of the launch.<\/p>\n<p>The Falcon 9\u2019s upper stage continued into orbit with the Thaicom 8 communications satellite, successfully deploying the broadcasting station in a preliminary orbit stretching more than 56,000 miles (90,000 kilometers) above Earth.<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Take a virtual trip from space back to planet Earth with an sped up video clip showing the eye-popping on-board views from the Falcon 9 rocket\u2019s first stage booster Friday as it plummeted back to Earth, opened aerodynamic steering fins and fired its engines for a final braking maneuver just before touchdown. The 156-foot-tall booster [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1736,1573,479,991,311,316,1611,3697],"class_list":["post-15483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-complex-40","tag-drone-ship","tag-falcon-9","tag-of-course-i-still-love-you","tag-reusability","tag-spacex","tag-telecom","tag-thaicom"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15483"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}