Fwd: SpaceX launch and attempt to land first stage on a floating barge!

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: January 7, 2015 at 8:21:39 AM CST
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: SpaceX launch and attempt to land first stage on a floating barge!

Thanks to the below info from don prevett and some other data and photos from mike conley,   the landing barge appears to be quite large and stable to handle modest sea states.     Should be exciting to see ,,,hopefully the landing will be televised. …..

 

 

 

From: Donald Prevett
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2015 1:46 PM
To: Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)
Subject: Re: SpaceX launch and attempt to land first stage on a floating barge!

 

Hey Larry,

 

ref Frank's question: at the Monday prelaunch press conference, the Spacex rep stated that the barge was relatively stable due to its large size.  There apparently is a landing sea state LCC, second line from bottom on attached wx slide:

 

 

Elon Musk interview this morning:

How will you secure the first stage of the Falcon 9 to the barge when it lands? Gravity or some mechanism?
Mostly gravity. The center of gravity is pretty low for the booster, as all the engines and residual propellant is at the bottom.
We are going to weld steel shoes over the landing feet as a precautionary measure

 

Would not like to be the deck crew doing that welding, but sounds like they do have a plan.  Best regards,

 

Don Prevett

 

On Jan 6, 2015, at 1:22 PM, Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411) <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov> wrote:

 

Great question from Frank.   And   From what I have been told…the plan by spacex is to land the first stage in the vertical and then to tow the barge/landing platform with the first stage of the SpaceX rocket back to port in the vertical position!   No doubt there will be plenty challenges with this whole attempt.

 

The attempted landing will be one worth watching.

 

 

From: Frank Parker 
To: Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)
Subject: Re: NASA News --my version

 

Larry – do they expect the rocket 1st stage to remain erect after landing on that platform in the ocean?  It's got to be rolling and pitching unless there is a calm sea.  

 

From: Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)

Sent: Tuesday, January 6, 2015 9:32 AM

To: Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)

Subject: NASA News --my version

 

Hope you can join us this Thursday at Hibachi Grill for our monthly NASA retirees luncheon.  Don't forget Gene Kranz's talk at the Gilruth tomorrow too at 11:30am in the ballroom.