SpaceX - BFR - Anywhere on Earth in an Hour has been added as a related post - related requested by Mordhaus on that post.

SpaceX - BFR - Anywhere on Earth in an Hour has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579 on that post.

Here are videos of the stage's first flight and landing:
https://videosift.com/video/First-Stage-Landing-of-Falcon-9-Onboard-Cam
https://videosift.com/video/Spacex-Successful-Dragon-orbit-Ocean-Landing-Stage-1

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Tags for this video have been changed from 'space landing spacex barge' to 'space, landing, spacex, barge' - edited by eric3579

Two reasons - firstly and most importantly it would take too much fuel to return to the landing site from this mission's trajectory, and secondly using the barge “Of Course I Still Love You” means that they aren't risking the lives of their staff or the buildings around the launch facility. They actually discuss this in the video at one point.

The barge itself is pretty complicated too, using GPS and some nifty thrusters to stay within 3m of the intended landing site - http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/spacexs-landing-drone-ship-is-just-as-complicated-as-th-1769987148

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@eric3579 - Thanks for the thumbnail... updated.

Looks like Spacex updated the video after I posted it hence the time change.

I think the SpaceX attempts are more impressive, but wow, watching that thing decelerate as it heads towards the bulls-eye is amazing.

"Drive those launch costs down!" I agree, drive those costs down for flights that barely make it into space and in no way, shape or form get close to orbital. I congratulate Blue Origin for the reuse on their vehicle, it really is a great achievement. But they are no where near close to Spacex and the kind of technology they are driving, its like comparing apples and oranges at this point. When Blue Origin goes orbital I will start drinking the Bezos Kool-aid.

As was mentioned above, the cost of the fuel is a non-starter. Currently SpaceX uses a Kerosene / Liquid Oxygen fuel mix.

After the anomaly (the space industries way of saying accident) in June SpaceX did a complete vehicle review. They are now using a more advanced technique to cool the LOX which means for a denser LOX liquid in their tanks, which ultimately means they have more oxidizer on board for their flights now.

Coupled with the LOX improvements they have made upgrades to the engines which means 30% greater efficiency. Basically the horsepower per engine has increased.

This means they can get their payloads to orbit plus have more then enough fuel left over in stage 1 to return it to land.

The greatest efficiency comes from returning the stage(s) and then reusing them in future launches (not proven yet). ALL launchers (u.s, soviet, indian, ESA, Japan, etc) ditch ALL of their hardware into the ocean when getting payload to orbit. Bye, bye multi million dollars worth of engines and hardware.

If SpaceX can turn that scenario on its head and reuse those stages and MORE importantly the engines they will cut their costs per launch by a substantial amount. Ultimately that means cheaper per pound cost to get material into orbit.

All of the media uses the word "explosion" when describing the June anomaly which is funny because there was never an ignition of onboard fuels.

The LOX tanks have smaller Helium tanks inside them. The helium is released during launch. The helium rises in the LOX quickly, expands and pressurizes the tank to ensure the LOX is "squeezed" into the pipes in order to keep up with the turbo pumps.

One of the struts holding a helium tank inside the LOX tank failed. The helium tank shot up and blew threw the top of the LOX tank and took a good part of the top of the stack off. The engines actually fired for a few seconds after the anomaly and then sputtered out. The rest of the vehicle at this point is still fairly intact.

Without proper structural integrity the vehicle started to veer off course, dynamic pressures built up and the vehicle was essentially ripped apart by those forces.

At 3:20 the Helium tank rips off its struts. At 3:27 the remainder of the vehicle disintegrates:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuNymhcTtSQ

SpaceX mentioned that in June, the dragon capsule continued to relay telemetry until it smacked into the ocean. If the Dragon had better software onboard it would have detected the anomaly and recovered with chutes. Elon said that software would be active on Dragons from now on.

While the Blue Origin vertical landing is difficult and an accomplishment in its own right comparing it to Spacex is a little unbalanced:

http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/24/9793220/blue-origin-vs-spacex-rocket-landing-jeff-bezos-elon-musk

Twice the speed, twice the height, more burns, a more complex flight path and a much larger, thinner vehicle to name a few differences.

You may want to watch this video on what Spacex has planned for the remaining stages of its stack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSF81yjVbJE

To be fair that stack has the Dragon capsule on top and not a satellite delivery bus but the goal to return multi stages is part of the Spacex vision.

"If" Spacex can get the "heavy" version of their vehicle up and running with stage return they will be a force unequalled in launch across the entire industry. That is if they can turn around their stages without compromise to structural integrity.