How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster

Speaking of not being ashamed of failures, I've always liked their compilation of them (with sound it's even better): [VIDEO]

Agree it is strange. I love their "How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster" film. [VIDEO] Watching the countdown net it seemed plausible that they didn't know whether it had successfully landed either.

Everyone is commenting saying how mundane it has become to see the landings. Hence you might enjoy this official SpaceX Blooper reel from 2017 that shows the numerous spectacular failures that they worked through. Innovation is a type of gamble. People forget that. "SpaceX: How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster" [VIDEO] (and regular reminder that these things are 12-storey high explosive tubes)

If you happen not to have seen it, "How Not To Land an Orbital Rocket Booster": [VIDEO] from SpaceX.

Take a look at all of the failed landings[1], even after they land on the barge they still go boom(or RUD if you prefer that term) when the structural integrity is lost. [1] [VIDEO]

It's not like SpaceX didn't break things either: [VIDEO] . The real trick is knowing when it's OK to break things in experimentation and the acquisition of knowledge, and when everything needs to run smoothly.

Possibly booster landings were judged much less reliable than parachute landings when they originated the concept. Nobody had propulsively landed a booster that had been to space until Blue and SpaceX did it at around the same time. Before that things didn't always go so well: [VIDEO] SpaceX were going to land Dragon 2 with rockets and it looks like NASA wasn't interested. Parachutes are still the safe, proven option. With orbital class boosters potentially being landed every couple of weeks and Blue having flown their vehicle multiple times I would guess future vehicle generations will benefit from that experience. SpaceX's BFS is going to combine a second stage and crew/cargo vehicle. If successful, competition might be pushed in the same direction.

I mean, seems pretty hard to be honest. They got the trajectory down pretty close for the vast majority of these (otherwise would be too far away to see with cameras). But so much extremely expensive space hardware destroyed in the pursuit of this goal. They earned it: [VIDEO]