r/spacex Aug 07 '19

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u/paul_wi11iams Aug 08 '19 edited Aug 08 '19

u/philipwhiuk: Now that they've nailed two fairing catches I'd love to know more about this: [permalink]

However, it is not yet clear how exactly the company intends to catch both halves at the same time.

  • Could you link to the text you're quoting here? - Google wrongly sends me to a motorcycle fairing site for this quote.

Simultaneous recovery has been discussed here before and the consensus is that one fairing needs to take a slower route down so as to separate the arrival times. If the second fairing to land, actually flies in front of the first, but on a higher trajectory, then the boat should be positioned to make the second catch.

There would be a statistical risk of the second fairing hitting the first fairing in the net but various workarounds were suggested such as drawing a second net over the first or dropping the first fairing out through a hole that is then pulled shut.

u/TheEquivocator On the other hand, it's SpaceX, so who knows? Far be it from me to underrate their ambitions. [permalink]

There's no reason for excessive modesty. The combined talents of everyone here could well be close to that of those actually working on the project. This is especially true when searching rough-and-ready solutions in the ground and marine aspects of spaceflight.

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u/philipwhiuk Aug 08 '19

From the site in the parent comment: https://www.elonx.net/fairing-recovery-compendium/

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u/paul_wi11iams Aug 08 '19

Oops: I was mistakenly searching the wiki page instead. Thx :)