Commercial space launch firm SpaceX has successfully completed the recovery of a rocket nose fairing at sea for the first time. I suspect that SpaceX will need both a bigger boat and a bigger net to get this method to work. From SpaceX on Twitter: Falcon 9 fairing halves deployed their parafoils and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean last week after the launch of Iridium-6/GRACE-FO. It's getting a bit tedious trying to get this approach to fairing recovery to work as planned. Credit: SpaceX.
My guess is that we'll soon see the formation of the SpaceX fleet of mid-air recovery aircraft--four surplus C-130 Herky Birds, two on the East Coast and two on the West Coast. SpaceX’s satellite launch on Monday almost went ... and even the landing of the booster on SpaceX’s drone ship went as planned. SpaceX made no attempt to catch the fairing on this mission and would attempt to scoop the fairing from the water. Closest half was about 50m from SpaceX's recovery ship, Mr. Steven. Headshot Member . SpaceX launched its fifth batch of Starlink internet satellites on Monday, Feb. 17 at 10:05 Eastern (15:05 UTC) from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Mr. Steven, SpaceX’s fairing recovery ship.
Posts: 877 From: Vancouver, WA, USA Registered: Feb 2012: posted 06-01-2018 05:02 PM Last Thursday, SpaceX performed its first full-blown fairing recovery test during the Falcon 9 launch of PAZ and two Starlink demonstration satellites.
SpaceX has launched ... the mission was accomplished about 15 minutes after launch when the 60 satellites stacked inside the rocket's payload fairing ... missing the deck of the recovery ship.
This net is not the catching net - It is in fact a secondary, smaller, net that … The webcast showed a video clip of the fairing catcher with the net raised.