Grasshopper 744m Test | Single Camera (Hexacopter)

What Hacker News said

Recommends BrandonMarc · 2014-04 · on “SpaceX CRS-3 Mission”

That would be awesome. I was astounded the first time I saw one of their McGregor, Texas rocket tests from the point-of-view of a hexacopter flying near the rocket's flightpath. [this video] In this video, the copter is actually HOVERING ABOVE the rocket as the rocket descends back down to the launchpad. The only time I've ever seen something like that before was Hollywood (Apollo 13, and then when the footage was re-used in Austin Powers 2).

Cites lutorm · 2014-02 · on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2014)”

SpaceX, Hawthorne, CA - [LINK] (US citizen/PR only) You've probably heard of SpaceX -- we build and fly rockets! Check out [LINK] and [this video] . What you might not know is that we need software engineers. Some of the positions we are looking to fill currently are: Lead front-end software engineer - [LINK] Software engineer for Borg, our flight data logging and analysis system - [LINK] Simulations software engineer, writing the software used to fool the flight software into thinking it's in space - [LINK]

Cites User8712 · 2014-02 · on “Space Elevators Are Possible”

1. How fast can a satellite travel up the tether? Let's say 50km/h, and it's going to an altitude of 35,000km. That's a month just in travel time. Using the tether for that period of time would be extremely costly. Currently, around 125 satellites launch a year, so they would need to be going up the tether at 500km/h, one after the other, day and night. And if we need to wait for a platform to descend, they need to be moving at 1,000km/h. Otherwise, we need multiple space elevators, or multiple shipments climbing at once and passing one another to meet current demand. 2. What's the cost of building and maintaining a space elevator? 3. What's the cost of having a satellite climb the tether to

Cites piquadrat · 2015-01 · on “SpaceX Has Pinpointed the Problem That Caused the Falcon9 to Crash Land”

Grasshopper was "just" a test vehicle, it never went to space. Here's a video of what they were doing with it: [this video]

Cites adam12 · 2015-11 · on “New Shepard: Bezos claims success on second spaceship flight”

Elon's Grasshopper from 2 years ago: [this video] The New Shepard went much higher though (100.5km vs 744m).

Cites modeless · 2015-11 · on “New Shepard: Bezos claims success on second spaceship flight”

SpaceX has been launching and landing non-orbit rockets for a long time: [this video] There's nothing magical about 100 km that makes Blue Origin's rocket more useful. 100 km is just a round number. It's not useful until it's literally 100 times more powerful so it can get to orbit. Implying that Blue Origin's achievement is comparable to what SpaceX is attempting is disingenuous. But, predictably, that's exactly what the news media is doing.

Cites quentusrex · 2015-12 · on “SpaceX launch webcast: Orbcomm-2 Mission [video]”

Not only this, but the spacex grasshopper test was the first that I saw that had the rocket do a vertical takeoff, and then land. [this video]

Cites nickik · 2021-03 · on “Live feed of Starship SN10 flight test [video]”

The DC-X was a tiny compared to Starship. Starship uses revolutionary new Full-Flow Staged Combustion engines that have never flown. Starship is testing a never used before method of reentry and guidence. Starship is testing a never used before method of landing. Starship is testing never used before method of heat shielding tiles and how to attach them. Starship is not just testing the ship itself, but also the mass manufacturing line for Starship. Its not a test mule, its a mass production pipeline that is being designed at the same time as the product it produces. Will likely be the first Orbital rocket to use Methlox fuel. The DC-X was a fundamental dead-end, many of its engineers went t