SpaceX lands Falcon 9 booster on Just Read the Instructions drone ship

Re:SpaceX lands Falcon 9 booster on Just Read the Instructio... by vidanay on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @10:35AM (#17609557)

Has there been any talk of a night time booster recovery? I can't think of a reason this wouldn't be possible; I don't think the landing system uses visible wavelength cameras (other than for human consumption).

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Re:SpaceX lands Falcon 9 booster on Just Read the Instructio... by stronglikedan on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @10:39AM (#17609592)

> I don't think the landing system uses visible wavelength cameras (other than for human consumption).

I can't imagine they'd taste very good.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist and have karma to spare.)

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Re:SpaceX lands Falcon 9 booster on Just Read the Instructio... by wlesieutre on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @10:48AM (#17609673)

Yep, several of them. And at least one spectacular nighttime explosions. Telestar 19 is a recent success: https://youtu.be/xybp6zLaGx4?t=1274

Landing happens at about 23 minutes, but the video connection from the drone ship drops out as usual. Link goes to an earlier time because it's neat to see the grid fins silhouetted in front of the engines at night.

Here's today's Iridium-7 NEXT night landing, again without good video: https://youtu.be/vsDknmK30C0?t=1749

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Re:SpaceX lands Falcon 9 booster on Just Read the Instructio... by cloudwalking on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @10:39AM (#17609598)

Today's recovery was at night.

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Re:SpaceX lands Falcon 9 booster on Just Read the Instructio... by detritus on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @11:19AM (#17609927)

As was last week's launch of the Telstar 19 satellite.

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Re:SpaceX lands Falcon 9 booster on Just Read the Instructio... by vidanay on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @10:47AM (#17609653)

I missed that point. Thanks

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Re:SpaceX lands Falcon 9 booster on Just Read the Instructio... by nicolapcweek94 on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @11:07AM (#17609836)

Funny enough, the first landing (Orbcomm OG2 Launch 2, December 2015) was at night (well, 8:30 PM in december, close enough)!

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Re:SpaceX lands Falcon 9 booster on Just Read the Instructio... by antpls on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @10:48AM (#17609669)

Launch of the 22th July was at night too and they recovered the first stage as usual

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Re:SpaceX lands Falcon 9 booster on Just Read the Instructio... by jandrese on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @11:11AM (#17609861)

If only we had some kind of technology that could light up a dark area in the night. Maybe some kind of luminous bulb powered by flowing electrons?

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Re:SpaceX lands Falcon 9 booster on Just Read the Instructio... by fixermark on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @01:14PM (#17610938)

Sounds complicated. Maybe we could put a bunch of combustible fuel in a big tube and squeeze it out when we get close to the area we want to illuminate. ;)

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