SpaceX Releases Ultra-HD 4K Footage Of Falcon 9 Landing (4k.com) 68
An anonymous reader quotes 4K.com:
On June 3, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket was placed into low-orbit for the sake of launching its Dragon spacecraft into their eleventh Commercial Resupply Services mission (CRS-11) to the International Space Station... Last week SpaceX shared on their Youtube channel the remarkable 4K UHD footage of the landing, and since many of us are not used to watching this kind of footage except for Sci-Fi movies or video games, the landing seems almost Hollywood-level surreal, especially since it happens so quickly and accurately. You can watch the video at 4k and 60 fps here if you happen to own a 4K TV or UHD PC monitor with the right hardware specs... The footage above isn't SpaceX's first 4K video of one of its launches. The company has also previously released other videos of even more impressive landings directly onto the surfaces of drone ships.
The article also reminds readers that "If you are by any chance looking to send something or someone out of space, Elon Musk's company offers reasonable prices for their launching services, starting at $62 million for its Falcon 9 and $90 million for the Falcon Heavy."
The article also reminds readers that "If you are by any chance looking to send something or someone out of space, Elon Musk's company offers reasonable prices for their launching services, starting at $62 million for its Falcon 9 and $90 million for the Falcon Heavy."
eh? (Score:2)
If you are by any chance looking to send something or someone out of space...
If I knew where the hell "out of space" was, I might be interested.
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Beyond space and time, the papawos gizilog sat awaiting the launch of his hininon pardithon. Only through his secret alliance with the "Elon Musk" creature could he be sure that it would arrive at is whigog in the fifth dimension. He unfurled his zaaal nervously.
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That would describe my hard drive, but why Elon wants to charge me more than Apple leaves me a bit confused.
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Doesn't matter. Just bundle Trump in a sealed metal box, put it in the nose cone of a Falcon 9, and launch.
I don't care where it winds up.
Re: eh? (Score:2)
And then it will be received by some chaos lord who really hates "metal bawkses".
#FakeNews (Score:2, Funny)
Do they really think they can fool us by reversing the footage of a launch? This has about as much truth to it as Comey's testimony.
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I just don't know what is real anymore. Is that a real opinion or a joke, I don't know.
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Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.
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People called Romanes, they go, the house?
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I wonder, people who claim the landing was reversed footage, did they actually try reversing the video and see what it looks like ? Must be amazing engines to suck in all that smoke.
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Not necessary, just look at the waves.
More cool SpaceX videos (Score:4, Informative)
Here are some really cool videos of SpaceX landing the first stage of their rockets (on land and on sea). They've done it 11 times by now, and have already re-flown one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] (sped up barge landing)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] (real-time land landing)
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False basis.
1) Just because someone (actually several someones) did something fundamentally similar before you means they forever have claim to every derivative work. Furthermore, NASA is a government funded entity. It's R&D (among other things) is for the good of the country and its citizens which include Elon and the SpaceX investors. NASA did, and does, amazing things. SpaceX also does amazing things including some very impressive R&D. Would the situation be different without NASA? Sure. B
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You are discounting the technology that NASA has transferred. It's not just that someone has done something before, it's that they have the full set of research and development documents available to companies like SpaceX.
SpaceX is still entirely dependent on NASA for its existence today, because the money made from commercial satellite launches doesn't meet its burn rate.
NASA has funded more than just the ride at commercial-satellite prices. Consider the funding that we know about:
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NASA would not have been able to get this far without the experience built by Nazi Germany at great expense (see V-2 rocket.)
Very nice (Score:2)
I hope they start doing the entire stream in 4K
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Some parts would be very hard - Stage 2 cutoff is at ~160km altitude, and ~4000km away.
In principle, stage 1 could simply store to SD card.
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I'm sure they could do at least the takeoff parts in 4K, which is the most spectacular part of it anyway.
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How about 4K video of the last explosion?
That's what this is. It's just the explosion is controlled this time.
4k doesn't fix bad focus (Score:2)
If you watch the video mentioned in TFA you can see the top of the rocket (and the rest of the landing pad) visibly snapping into focus at the 10 second mark. I'm guessing that this is at the point where the auto focus system can finally latch onto something that it can use for a focal point.
But given that the camera is a fixed distance from the landing pad a fixed focus system would have been superior in this instance.
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Or you could select the resolution you want to use rather than letting YouTube adaptively change the resolution through the video
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Re:4k doesn't fix bad focus (Score:4, Informative)
Sounds more like that was the streaming quality adjusting upwards. If you use the settings to force HD (whatever your monitor can support), it will be in "focus" the whole time.
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Some people are shaking in their Italian loafers.. (Score:2, Funny)
This is amazing footage of something that the "experts" said couldn't be done. This scares the shit out of traditional defense contractors like Boeing and the United Space Alliance.
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Actually, rocket experts all did know that you could land a rocket on its tail. After all, the lunar module landed that way. What they did not know is whether you can re-fly a booster at a net cost savings over just building a new one. And although SpaceX has proven that they can re-fly the booster, it will take some years of operation to actually show that they save money this way.
I think they'll do it. But we've got to be realistic and realize that it's not done yet.
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For those that think SpaceX is soaking up piles of investor's money, it should be pointed out that SpaceX hasn't had any additional investment since the Fidelity/Google round of investment that arguably wasn't even for operations but rather for the satellite constellation.
More to the point, I think SpaceX is laughing all of the way to the bank right now and making tremendous profits off of its rockets right now. That they might be earning even more profit from each launch due to reflown boosters and space
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When you talk about burning investor dollars, you're forgetting to consider SpaceX's fixed costs, which are huge. If they just had the cost of the rocket, they might well be profitable. But SpaceX has over 6000 employees now, with all of the facilities to support them, all of the ground support infrastructure, expensive leases, etc. If you only consider the salaries that many people would have, there is no way that income from rocket launches so far would keep up with it.
I think the present burn rate is at
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I counted launches this year and got 7. Apparently, each launch is priced at 65 million USD or more. 7 x 65 = 455. We're now in June, so if they got 7 more launches out, that's around the 1 billion you estimate the burn rate to.
Now, I don't know if you include materials in the burn rate, but if they manufacture the rockets in-house, I would guess salaries would be the dominant factor.
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On 3 June 2017, the CRS-11 capsule largely assembled from previously flown components from the CRS-4 mission in September 2014 was launched again for the first time, with the hull, structural elements, thrusters, harnesses, propellant tanks, plumbing and many of the avionics reused while the heat shield, batteries and components exposed to sea water upon splashdown for recovery were replaced.
Now, you could be correct that they outright lied about that but I fail to see why they would. Furthermore, that's t
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Where did you find that statement "capsule largely assembled from previously flown components"? That is probably an accurate statement. But what we've been hearing in the news has been much less qualified, mostly sounding as if they'd reflown the capsule without significant refabrication.
At the worst, rebuilding a booster could save materials costs only, but if you consider the cost of testing, it could eliminate any savings on materials. If you have to image an entire tank for cracks, for example, it can c
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Shotwell stated the cost of refurbishing the stage used for the SES-10 launch was "substantially less than half" the cost of a new stage, a figure likely to drop rapidly as they gain experience with the procedures required...provided they don't experience any failures that can be traced to damage from previous flights.
Another thing to keep in mind is that their flight rate without reuse is limited by production rate. Apart from saving the cost of producing a new rocket, reuse allows them to perform launches
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Actually, rocket experts all did know that you could land a rocket on its tail. After all, the lunar module landed that way
The hard part is dealing with the erratic atmosphere at supersonic speeds. It's a lot easier in a vacuum.
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The hard part is dealing with the erratic atmosphere at supersonic speeds. It's a lot easier in a vacuum.
Espescially if you are dealing with a perfict sphere.
Advertising (Score:1)
If SpaceX are going to tout their "reasonable prices" they should adjust them slightly:
"starting at only $61,999,999.99 for its Falcon 9 and just $89,999,999.99 for the Falcon Heavy!"
Re: Advertising (Score:2)
I eagerly await their Groupon or coupons in my Sunday paper.
Trivially related; I think it'd be fun to get a small group of people together and take a trip to space (out of space, editors? I am guessing they meant outer space, but I digress) for just a few days. I actually know some folks who can realistically afford that. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that they are the kinds of people with whom I'd like to share the experience.
Put the landing gear on ICBM's (Score:1)
Re: Put the landing gear on ICBM's (Score:2)
With the grid fins doing much of the work of guiding the stage one to the landing pad, you would not be unrrasinable to thing of it as a very very large smart bomb. It really is impressive the accuracy they have these days.
Re: Put the landing gear on ICBM's (Score:2)
From what I understand, the problem is that there is no way to tell the difference between and icbm smartbomb and an nuclear icbm. This could be quite a problem if a nuclear counterattack happens.
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Grid fins were designed by the Russians for missiles
Here is a photo of the grid fins on the MOAB: https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... [wikimedia.org]
Downloadable link? (Score:2)
Is there a link to download the video for people stuck on the wrong side of the "National Broadband Network"?
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Neil Armstrong also nearly killed himself when trying to perform a similar landing on the Earth [youtube.com]. You can see Neil Armstrong at the 2:30 time mark.