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Re:SpaceX Soft Lands Falcon 9 Rocket First Stage by mmaunder on Tuesday July 22, 2014 @10:32PM (#8072641)
Icing is caused by supercooled raindrops freezing on the airframe. In this case the spacecraft came from a very high altitude so I'd expect the airframe to already be very cold and even if droplets aren't supercooled, they might just freeze on the cold surface of the lens. Pireps (pilot reports) are available globally where pilots report icing conditions they encounter. I suspect the SpaceX engineers anticipated this possibility and decided that they didn't want to add the extra weight and complexity of a heating or deicing system to the lens.

I have a feeling someone is working there right now to come up with a quick and dirty deicing system - considering how disappointing this video is. The fluid system the Cirrus SR22 uses comes to mind.

Re:SpaceX Soft Lands Falcon 9 Rocket First Stage by infogulch on Wednesday July 23, 2014 @02:53PM (#8076219)
I think some kind of disposable multi-layered lens cover that peels off automatically would work well. Pretty cheap, and easily replaceable. Effective against more than just ice.
Re:SpaceX Soft Lands Falcon 9 Rocket First Stage by discodave on Wednesday July 23, 2014 @04:36PM (#8076814)
I propose a revolutionary solution: a lens cap.

I'm assuming that they only need the video from when they get close to landing so the lens cap can be ejected once the rocket is low enough in the atmosphere that icing is not a problem.

Re:SpaceX Soft Lands Falcon 9 Rocket First Stage by eyeareque on Thursday July 24, 2014 @01:06AM (#8078284)
or some kind of heating element would work, too.