Heard a "recovery vessel AOS" in the callouts a bit ago. Guess that means they're still experimenting with fairing recovery. No one has seen the crazy spider arm ship on the east coast, though, so tough to tell what they're trying.

Perfect. Now bring on FH dammit!

Holy shit...

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This rocket was meant to test very high retrothrust landing in water so it didn’t hurt the droneship, but amazingly it has survived. We will try to tow it back to shore. <a href="https://t.co/hipmgdnq16">pic.twitter.com/hipmgdnq16</a></p>— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/958847818583584768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 31, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Holy shit that is awesome. Even when they aren't trying they succeed.

Curious. How far ahead of everyone is spacex time wise. It doesn't seem like any other company is anywhere near ready to land rockets yet (out side of blue origin but they are still pretty far from spacex's scale). How far before other people catch up. Over or under 5 years?

Blue Origin is a weird one. On the one hand, they're far behind. But on the other, they have done a ton of R&D that hasn't come to anything yet, but probably will soon. Couple that with a basically endless pile of money that Bezos could throw at it, and it wouldn't surprise me to see them catch up in 5 years.

I don't think anyone else has a chance.

This was the first launch I've watched live, YouTube sent me a notification about 30 prelaunch or I would have missed it. Really insightful and informative coverage. Exciting first 10 minutes. I was pulled away so I missed the fairing separation, I'll go back and try to find it.

Can someone explain the significance of how difficult it was to recover the booster? Elon sounded like it was pretty impressive it survived

Rocket boosters - especially empty rocket boosters - are very strong vertically, but they're really weak horizontally. If you watch the old explosive landing videos, a lot of them almost land, but when they hit the deck horizontally, the entire thing immediately ruptures.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p9FzWPObsWA?rel=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The expectation is that the booster would tear and explode after hitting the water, but this one apparently slid down into the water so smoothly that it remained pressurized and intact.

Mind you, this booster is trashed and will absolutely never fly again. The salt water will damage pretty much everything even ignoring it'll be dragged through the water 100 miles.

But they might be able to get some good data from it or otherwise learn from it.

Cool shot of the flames from today.

https://i.redd.it/feiz1zmiaid01.jpg

SpaceX confirms it will try to land all of Falcon Heavy's boosters

Elon Musk's outfit has confirmed that it will attempt to land all three boosters on Falcon Heavy's launch, which is now slated for a 2.5-hour window starting at 1:30PM Eastern on February 6th.

https://www.engadget.com/2018/02/03/...nding-attempt/

Any guess how likely it is the FH will launch the 6th or 7th? I'm thinking of taking my 7yo down, but really worried about wasting the money.

Pure gut feeling, I'd say 60% for the 6th and 75% for the 7th. It's definitely a risk.

Weather will be a Sunny 75 degrees with 10 MPH winds. The weather will not delay this launch. Any of the South beaches or the Titusville river front parks will give you a good view without the sun in your eyes.

24(ish) hour bump for FALCON HEAVY!!! Looks like we're gonna have all sorts of cameras on the car and its passenger...

<blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/BezcvpzAgYI/" data-instgrm-version="8" style=" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:658px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);"><div style="padding:8px;"> <div style=" background:#F8F8F8; line-height:0; margin-top:40px; padding:50% 0; text-align:center; width:100%;"> <div style=" background:url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAACwAAAAsCAMAAAApWqozAAAABGdBTUEAALGPC/xhBQAAAAFzUkdCAK7OHOkAAAAMUExURczMzPf399fX1+bm5mzY9AMAAADiSURBVDjLvZXbEsMgCES5/P8/t9FuRVCRmU73JWlzosgSIIZURCjo/ad+EQJJB4Hv8BFt+IDpQoCx1wjOSBFhh2XssxEIYn3ulI/6MNReE07UIWJEv8UEOWDS88LY97kqyTliJKKtuYBbruAyVh5wOHiXmpi5we58Ek028czwyuQdLKPG1Bkb4NnM+VeAnfHqn1k4+GP T6uGQcvu2h2OVuIf/gWUFyy8OWEpdyZSa3aVCqpVoVvzZZ2VTnn2wU8qzVjDDetO90GSy9mVLqtgYSy231MxrY6I2gGqjrTY0L8fxCxfCBbhWrsYYAAAA AElFTkSuQmCC); display:block; height:44px; margin:0 auto -44px; position:relative; top:-22px; width:44px;"></div></div> <p style=" margin:8px 0 0 0; padding:0 4px;"> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BezcvpzAgYI/" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">Starman in Red Roadster</a></p> <p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A post shared by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/elonmusk/" style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px;" target="_blank"> Elon Musk</a> (@elonmusk) on <time style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;" datetime="2018-02-05T05:50:31+00:00">Feb 4, 2018 at 9:50pm PST</time></p></div></blockquote> <script async defer src="//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js"></script>

I believe this is unofficial, but should be pretty close. Doubt the fairing recovery is ready for prime time yet, though.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DVQXGgHV4AAtcrf.jpg

What's the liftoff time?