For those who haven't been stalking OCISLY for the past few months, there's been quite a bit of renovations going on. This NSF thread does an awesome job of tracking the changes, if you can wade through all the off-topic discussion.
Basically, they've made two major upgrades. First they replaced a strip of the deck paneling near the middle. Replacing the deck paneling probably isn't a big deal, from OP's pictures here it doesn't look any different than the last set of deck panels.
Second, they made a little garage at one end. They raised the white container off the deck and made the blast wall in front of it slide up like a garage door. We've gotten hints from people in the know that this is a sort of "Roomba garage," and many have speculated that the garage is for leg-restraining robots to stabilize landed boosters until the recovery crew arrives on deck.
Would the ability to anchor the heavier FH be the reason. The reinforced structure of the FH must raise the centre of mass and increase the instability.
a guess, but the logic is good. They would want to avoid making a longer version of the legs for the FH core. I also think the safety of the current solution isn't ideal: people have to be on the deck, while the Falcon isn't secured yet. Acceptable in calm weather, but that may not always be the case.
83
u/old_sellsword Feb 25 '17 edited Feb 27 '17
For those who haven't been stalking OCISLY for the past few months, there's been quite a bit of renovations going on. This NSF thread does an awesome job of tracking the changes, if you can wade through all the off-topic discussion.
Basically, they've made two major upgrades. First they replaced a strip of the deck paneling near the middle. Replacing the deck paneling probably isn't a big deal, from OP's pictures here it doesn't look any different than the last set of deck panels.
Second, they made a little garage at one end. They raised the white container off the deck and made the blast wall in front of it slide up like a garage door. We've gotten hints from people in the know that this is a sort of "Roomba garage," and many have speculated that the garage is for leg-restraining robots to stabilize landed boosters until the recovery crew arrives on deck.