re: #185 Bubblehead II

Don’t think landing on the barge is in and of itself the problem. If the legs are buckling under the stress of landing on the barge, they would probably do so on land. Wonder what material they are using for the legs.

Their ultimate plan is to push the stage backward and land near the launch site. That would eliminate the problem of the barge moving up and down. They depend exclusively on GPS for both the rocket and the barge—there’s no communication between them or radar or anything like that on the rocket.

GPS is only accurate to 3 meters—which is fine horizontally, but may be too coarse vertically, especially with up-and-down motion by the barge. Then there’s the matter of throttle response. They only plan on three short burns to reduce speed to a survivable point before landing, not continuously regulating the thrust till touchdown. I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they’d thought this whole thing out sufficiently, but now I don’t know.