SpaceX\u2019s drone ship \u201cOf Course I Still Love You\u201d is undergoing repairs at Port Canaveral following the return of Falcon 9 booster B1031.2 after launching the SES-11 satellite. While the touchdown was nominal, a post-landing incident resulted in a short fire at the aft of the ship, which also damaged the robot that was to be used to secure the booster. The fire was quickly extinguished.<\/p>\n
ASDS Landings:<\/p>\n
Highlighted by a SpaceX-produced blooper reel of failed landing attempts, the path to enabling Falcon 9 first stages to successfully return for a pinpoint landing on the deck of a drone ship in the ocean suffered some hard lessons in the early days of testing \u2013 including some \u201cRapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD)\u201d events, as Elon Musk called them.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/NSF_20171022_225926-350x225.jpg\")
Although the refinements to the technology finally resulted in the boosters successfully making it back for a touchdown \u2013 first at LZ-1 at Cape Canaveral, soon followed by the first drone ship landing after launching the CRS-8 Dragon \u2013 it was noted that not every future landing attempt would be successful, especially when undertaking the more challenging drone ship return.<\/p>\n
Amazingly, every landing attempt since \u2013 bar the Eutelsat 117 West B and ABS-2A dual payload launch in 2016 \u2013 has resulted in the booster making it back home intact, even landings that have pushed the limits of the boosters, such as the BulgariaSat-1 mission back in June.<\/p>\n
\u201cFalcon 9 will experience its highest ever reentry force\u2026 Good chance rocket booster doesn\u2019t make it back,\u201d tweeted Mr. Musk ahead of the launch.<\/p>\n
Although video of the landing has never been released, the booster did make it back without suffering a RUD, but only after dancing on one landing leg, before finally spotting its landing on the drone ship\u2019s deck \u2013 according to people who have seen the video.<\/p>\n
\u201cRocket is extra toasty and hit the deck hard (used almost all of the emergency crush core), but otherwise good,\u201d Mr. Musk tweeted after the landing.<\/p>\n
All recent landings have been relatively smooth, including the latest, which involved the return of the booster that launches the SES-11 satellite from KSC\u2019s 39A.<\/p>\n
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The return was the 18th successful landing of a Falcon 9 first stage, and the second landing for B1031.2.<\/p>\n
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With the SpaceX webcast returning its focus to the primary mission of the second stage flight towards the eventual deployment of the satellite, post-landing procedures were taking place onboard the ASDS (Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship).<\/p>\n
The exact series of events is unclear, but it is understood the booster leaked some of its residue RP-1 fuel, which flowed along the deck of the ASDS and pooled near the containers at the aft of the drone ship.<\/p>\n
The booster then continued post-landing operations, designed to safe the booster ahead of crews boarding the ship to complete the safing process ahead of the trip back to port.<\/p>\n
At some point shortly after landing there was an ignition of the pooled RP-1, likely via the purging of the Triethylaluminum-Triethylborane (TEA-TEB) that is used as the first stage ignitor. This has to be purged as part of the safing procedures for allowing crew near the rocket.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/NSF_20171023_144344-350x261.jpg\")
Fire hoses \u2013 staged on the deck of the ship \u2013 quickly doused the fire. However, the garage containing the robot \u2013 nicknamed \u201cRoomba\u201d or \u201cOctaGrabber\u201d (among other names) \u2013 was caught in the fire and damaged.<\/p>\n
This was confirmed by the lack of the robot in view under the rocket during the ASDS\u2019 return to Port.<\/p>\n
Engineers instead secured the booster with jacks, which they have previously utilized before the robot was designed to secure the booster in place without the need of a human presence.<\/p>\n
The robot also removes the need to weld hardware to the deck of the ship. (A \u201ctechnical\u201d overview of the robot\u2019s operations was created by Abby Garrett).<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/NSF_20171022_223337-350x240.jpg\")
Photos of the ASDS \u201cOf Course I Still Love You\u201d back in Port Canaveral in L2 showed the extent of the fire damage to the aft of the ship.<\/p>\n
No detailed report has been provided into how much damage has been caused, but it appears at least one generator required replacement.<\/p>\n
At least one of the ASDS azimuth thrusters \u2013 hydraulic propulsion outdrive units with modular diesel-hydraulic-drive power units and a modular controller to provide drone ship stabilization while waiting for the booster to land \u2013 also appears to be out of configuration, possibly via a related loss of generator power.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/NSF_20171022_150956-350x205.jpg\")
The OctaGrabber has also been spotted for the first time since OCISLY returned to Port Canaveral. It has been taken off the drone ship and is now on the dock to undergo repairs.<\/p>\n
Only its base chassis and tracks are on view, although it is impossible to know how much damage has been suffered by the hydraulics and electronics. It is understood the goal is to repair this robot, meaning it should be salvageable.<\/p>\n
However, while updated photos showed the drone ship from the weekend is already looking in far better shape than earlier in the week \u2013 with the damaged generator now replaced \u2013 it is unknown if the return of the robot will come in time for the next SpaceX launch, which is with the Koreasat 5A mission which is scheduled to take place at the end of the month.<\/p>\n
This mission will involve OCISLY for the return of Falcon 9 booster B1042.<\/p>\n
(Images: SpaceX and L2 imagery. To Join L2, which includes access to a vast dump of hi-res L2 SpaceX photos, *click here*)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SpaceX\u2019s drone ship \u201cOf Course I Still Love You\u201d is undergoing repairs at Port Canaveral following the return of Falcon 9 booster B1031.2 after launching the SES-11 satellite. While the touchdown was nominal, a post-landing incident resulted in a short fire at the aft of the ship, which also damaged the robot that was to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30302,"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":[3353,479,316],"class_list":["post-38672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-asds","tag-falcon-9","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38672"}],"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=38672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}