Video of CRS-5 First Stage Landing Attempt
SpaceX posted what is possibly the greatest Vine in history this morning, depicting their attempt to land the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket on a barge in the Atlantic ocean. Click through, and watch with the sound on.
Elon Musk explained earlier in the week that the crash was due to insufficient hydraulic fluid for controlling the grid fin system that I talked about in an earlier post. The grid fins rotate to re-direct air flow and steer the vehicle, keeping it upright and on target for the barge. Shortly before landing, the grid fin system ran out of hydraulic fluid, and the actuators were no longer able to rotate the fins to steer the rocket. This caused the rocket to pitch over at a steep angle, which you can see as the Vine above begins.
The single engine that is firing during landing has the ability to gimbal to control the rocket's attitude, but the failure of the fins left the rocket far too tipped-over for the engine to compensate for. As a result, the thrust of the engine pushed the rocket sideways above the surface of the barge, crashing into the deck and careening over the side. Close but no cigar, as SpaceX put it.
Musk has already announced that they will include 50% more hydraulic fluid for the next Falcon 9 launch, and by the looks of it, that should be all they need for a successful landing. To even have hit the 170 foot wide boat from a starting altitude of 80 kilometers is impressive, and represents the most difficult part of the procedure.
The next barge-landing attempt is scheduled for 29 January (though that date is likely to slip a bit), with the launch of the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) spacecraft, which will be positioned between the Earth and Sun to provide advance warning of solar storms that could damage Earth infrastructure, as well as image the Earth from a distance. There'll be more on that in an upcoming post about the mission itself.
Besides the landing attempt, the rest of the CRS-5 mission went off without a hitch, with the second stage of the rocket delivering the Dragon cargo capsule to orbit. The capsule rendezvoused with the ISS a day later, and the unloading of important supplies and experiments is underway. You can watch the entire replay of the CRS-5 launch below, which includes some excellent shots from inside the propellant tanks, and of the solar panels deploying just as the sun broaches the horizon. Launch occurs at about 15:48 into the video.