SpaceX Iridium-1 Webcast [video]

[Tarrosion]

I feel incredibly...relieved. Whatever you may think of Elon Musk personally, SpaceX work environment, SpaceX vs. Blue Origin, Kessler syndrome, etc., etc., it seems pretty clear that SpaceX's work with reusable space vehicles is a huge step forward for general human spaceflight, and I'm glad to see them successfully return to flight.

[Animats]

Very nice. Space-X is back in business.

Now Space-X needs to catch up on their launch manifest and make some money. When they're not launching, they're not making money. They're about a quarter billion dollars behind from the pause in launches. Iridium alone has six more launches in the backlog. They don't put dates on their launch manifest any more; the constant slippage is too embarrassing.[1]

The first Falcon Heavy launch is supposed to be this spring. That was originally planned for 2013. There are at least three revenue Falcon Heavy launches in the queue. The crewed Dragon launch has slipped to 2018. The Brownsville launch site isn't scheduled to be used until late 2018.

Maybe 2017 will be the year Space-X starts to catch up. As a business, this is about launching in volume.

[1] http://www.spacex.com/missions

[michelb]

It's almost like it's rocket science...Slow and steady beats fast and faulty.

[MicroBerto]

Bullseye landing of Stage 1! This is always so inspiring to watch live

[rrmm]

Is this the first time the live video/split screen feed has followed stage 1 all the way down? I remember them releasing a time lapse after the fact, but I don't recall them showing it live.

[FLUX-YOU]

Some very inspiring video. Smooth from separation to landing.

[mwambua]

We live in exciting times!

[nickjarboe]

Here is the technical webcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WimRhydggo

Lots of good information on reddit (/r/spacex).

[blhack]

Much better, thank you!

[sigmar]

Here's a video of just the first stage landing for anyone that missed it:

https://streamable.com/la9m7

[the8472]

you can also seek backwards in the technical live stream[0]. they have uninterrupted footage of the first stage all the way from orbit to touchdown.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WimRhydggo

[ggregoire]

That's absolutely amazing. Thank you!

[sidcool]

Both stages looking great so far. Stage 1 landed perfectly. I was worried after the earlier explosion with FB satellites. This worked perfectly. Great job SpaceX. I wish to see Elon Musk's expressions right now.

[rrmm]

The weird thing is that fueling the vehicle was the worrying part not the landing.

[mabbo]

The countdown on the YouTube feed says "X minutes to live", but that's actually to liftoff. The feed usually starts 20 minutes earlier.

[ChuckMcM]

Schweeet! I really liked that they now have a complete launch to landing video of the first stage, from the first stage.

Congrats SpaceX team and welcome back to active flight operations!

[Fuzzwah]

I was skimming the recorded webcast and it seemed like the stream was stopped before they confirmed that all 10 satiltes were successfully deployed.

I chased down confirmation via this tweet:

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/820348655613800448

> Successful deployment of 10 @IridiumComm NEXT satellites has been confirmed.

[tehabe]

Now we have to wait if the Iridium people can also celebrate.

[caconym_]

Congrats to the SpaceX team. I'm looking forward to buying my ticket to Mars... after the kinks are worked out. ;)

[sprucely]

Anyone else notice the tumbling object ahead and to the left that appears at about 34:38? https://youtu.be/tTmbSur4fcs?t=2078

[nialv7]

Likely to be the fairing.

[cant_see_wc]

I just see a video of a spinning earth (with the count-up timer on top), no actual content. Anyone else having this issue? Any idea how to solve it?

[ygra]

Between launch/separation/landing and satellite deployment is a long coast phase of the second stage. That's what you see there. You can go back in time, though, to more interesting moments, or start watching at the very beginning.

[Narishma]

There's nothing to solve. There's just nothing happening right now until satellite deployments. You can see the timeline at the bottom.

[Analemma_]

Heh, I signed on just in time to see the landing. Smoothly done once again!

[dankohn1]

Yeah!

[popobobo]

This is very exciting. But somehow sad to me at the same time. I don't wanna explain my feeling.

[deadcast]

I guess I'm puzzled as to why somebody would find this great event saddening?

[estel]

Thanks for sharing.