This content provides a detailed, frame-by-frame analysis of a single-take SpaceX Falcon 9 launch and landing video, explaining the complex engineering and physics involved in each stage of the mission.
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you'll see this video that SpaceX put on
Twitter it's actually the entire single
take launch of the transporter 6 Mission
the mission that launched a little while
ago carrying 114 different payloads into
space now it's awesome because it's a
single take of this Rocket taking off
and going up and doing the flip and then
turning back around and coming back down
and landing at the lz1 back on the shore
but there's so many little interesting
things that you can see if you pause it
and play it again pause it play it again
so I figured that we would do a little
bit analysis of the video so we could
talk about some of the things that you
can see as we go through the thing
the first important thing is to figure
out where this camera actually is right
if you look at the rocket it's actually
up above the grid fins you'll see that
later on in the video but the grid fins
are just below it and it's looking down
the bottom of the rocket the first thing
you'll see now that you know that this
camera is up a little more than halfway
up the rocket looking down is that
you're looking at the pad infrastructure right
right
and the number one thing is right in the
middle of the screen you see some water
jets sort of going in that's part of the
Deluge system that actually starts up
before the rocket engines actually light
and it's there to absorb some of that
initial like ignition impact and so what
you do is you put some water in the way
and that energy coming out of the
engines hits that water and atomizes it
turns it to steam and sort of diffuses
and diffracts it so it's not just
bouncing straight back up at your rocket
the next thing that you'll see are
what's called rain Birds coming on in
the rain Birds you see across the top of
the screen and those are like sort of
nozzles that spray a little bit wider
fan in that comes on after the center
Deluge pipes come on the active
vaporizing that water from liquid into a
gas takes energy and that is energy
that's not going to come back at your
rocket or go off in all sorts of random
directions flame directions are a big
part of launching Rockets like keeping
control of that energy when you're close
to the ground is super important cough
cough Starship another thing that you
can sort of see is the transporter
erector the Tes on the right hand side
and that sort of leans back a little bit
in advance to sort of get out of the way
but you don't want it to be right next
to the rocket as the engines pass it and
spray flame all over it so what you see
happen right there after ignition and
liftoff is that transporter erector
throws back it's literally the
transporter the te throwback and it
throws back even further so that the
Flames of the rocket engine don't
directly impact the sight of it the
transporter erector actually carries up
some of the umbilicals like how they
fuel the rocket and how they get
electrical connections to the second
stage and all these different things
right and so you want to protect those
lines those hoses equipment whatever as
we get off of the pad a little bit here
there's a great shot of the flame
director the flame trench that's
controlling the direction that exhaust
goes now if you've seen that awesome
drone shot of Starship doing a static
fire down at Starbase you see there's no
flame trench there it's just a flat
piece of concrete underneath and
therefore the exhaust goes in every
direction right
here at pad 40 there's actually a built
thrust Direction trenched flame trenches
whatever you want to call it that
creates this big directional plume out
in One Direction and that sort of
controls where that exhaust is going to
end up it doesn't just go in every
direction and end up in all your other
GSE and into your dumpsters and whatever
it goes in a specific Direction you can
really see how that plume is I don't
know directed by the flame trench as you
continue to go up you see the Rockets
start to do a little bit of a roll there
you can see the space coast in the
background all the little roads there
the beach that's all part of Cape
Canaveral space force station and so the
first pad of Cape Canaveral space force
station that we see is over on the left
hand side of the screen that's going to
be slick 41 space launch complex 41
which is part of United launch Alliance
where they launched Atlas fives from and
where they're going to be launching the
Vulcans from so as we continue the role
in the rocket climbs higher and higher
launch complex 39a and 39b come into
view over on the left hand side lunch
complex 39a of course is where SpaceX
launches their other Falcon 9s from the
crew launches go from there and the
resupply missions going up to the
International Space Station go there
because unlike 40 which has no Tower or
crew access armor or anything like that
39a has the tower and crew access arms
that they can use to load I don't know
astronauts onto the crew capsule on the
way up the next pad over 39b we recently
saw launch from there that's where
Artemis 1 and SLS took off uh just a
little while ago and as we continue to
get higher away from the space coast we
see more things start to happen the
biggest thing that you really start to
see is how the fire coming out of the
back of the Falcon 9 starts to change
you know down on the ground you know if
you've ever drawn a rocket and you draw
like the little pencil flame coming out
of the bottom right that happens because
of the atmospheric pressure down at sea
level not at sea level there's all these air
air
it's not molecules air particles
whatever you want to call them right
densely packed in it's why you can
breathe pretty well when you're down at
sea level then you go up a mountain
you're like I can't breathe anymore
there's air is not as dense you're not
getting as much oxygen what that air
does is it actually keeps the flame sort
of like I don't know in a flame shape
coming out the bottom of the nozzle as
you get higher like climbing a mountain
the atmosphere gets a lot thinner right
and the thinner atmosphere has less of
an effect sort of pushing that flame
into the pencil flame coming out of the
back of the rocket and you see what's
called plume expansion the plume starts
to expand out the sides and of course
it's a falcon 9 it's got nine engines on
the bottom so instead of just one big
nebulous Cloud behind the rocket you
actually get sort of discreet little
expanding flame plumes coming out the
side of it of course there should be
eight of those right because you got
eight engines around the outside and
then one engine in the middle so the
higher and higher you get the thinner
and thinner the atmosphere gets and the
more and more that exhaust plume expands
out behind the Falcon 9 you really get
to see it there you get the main engine
cutting off and then all of a sudden
there's some things that you can't see
on this camera shot looking down the
rocket does a couple things you're gonna
see the upper stage separate that means
the second stage sort of separates from
the booster the parts that's going to
come back down to land at the cape and
the second stage is going to continue
going on also behind the camera for a
minute the fairings are going to
separate and those are those protective
AeroShell fairings up at the top that
protect the payloads while you're down
in the thick atmosphere but once you get
up high enough the atmosphere is thin
enough there's not so much air that you
can just get rid of the fairing don't
want to carry the mass of it anymore but
you don't also have to protect your
payloads from the atmosphere and so what
you see here all of a sudden is the
booster flipping around because this is
an rtls literally stands for return to
launch site right it's going back to
where it came from it's not going down
range to a drone ship or anything like
that it's going back to the k tape to a
landing pad call it LZ this one's going
to lz1 that's just a couple miles away
from where it launched so here you see
it flip around because right now it's
still ballistically falling away from
the launch site and it needs to turn
around if it's going to end up back
where it started so it does this flip
you see these cold gas thrusters sort of
spewing out the sides and that gives it
a little bit of force up at the top of
the rocket to help flip the rocket
around backwards once it gets flipped
around it literally did about a 180
there once it gets flipped around it
ignites the engines again not all of
them just a couple of them and it does
what's called a boost back burn the
Boost back burn actually keeps it from
falling down range it stops its progress
downrange and it starts to turn it
around so it starts to fall back towards
the cape instead of falling onwards to
the ocean down where the Drone ship
would normally be if it was a drone ship Landing
Landing
after the engine stops you can actually
see the grid fins deploy up at the top
of the Falcon 9 there's four grid fins
that sort of stick out to the side there
that almost look like little flippers
right the trick is up high there's not a
lot of atmosphere so the grid fins don't
really have anything to push against
they have air flowing through them but
when there's no air the grid vents are
just sort of out
they become more and more important the
lower into the atmosphere that the
rocket gets as you get closer down to
sea level there's more air molecules to
flow around the grid fins and that
allows the grid fins to you'll see them
turn side to side like this and help
direct the rocket without expending fuel
you can see the entire Coast of Florida
here you see the cape the bump of the
kit that's literally The Cape the Cape
is the part of the land that sticks out
from the normal Coast that's why it's
called a cave right there between the
grid Fin and the body you can actually
see Port Canaveral where the cruise
ships come in and where the stages that
end up on drone ships come back in if
you've seen any of our Fleet cam videos
you can also see other parts of Cape
Canaveral space force station and then
all of a sudden you get these supersonic
retro propulsion the entry burn that is
the atmosphere starting to get thick and
so Falcon 9 fires up more engines to
start to slow down and aim at The
Landing Pad it's not quite there yet but
it's helping slow itself down before it
gets into the thicker atmosphere
now watch closely when they do the entry
burn here you'll see one engine light
and the Flames get bigger as they light
two more engines just like before and
then you get shut down
all right all right now here's something
that we always get in the comments this
thing over here
that's actually a piece of ice whenever
we get the thrusters firing whenever we
get the engines start to uh light up
again there are little bits of ice that
have formed on the outside of the pipes
and tubes and things like that and when
they get this force of the engines
firing up sometimes it knocks a couple
little chunks of ice loose there's also
stiffener Rings there's a couple
different things that come off the
rocket stiffen rings on the second stage
on the way to orbit but all the time we
get people in the comments saying oh
geez UFO it's like everything can be a
UFO if you're really bad at identifying
flying objects that one was ice now the
cape gets closer and closer in the rear
view remember the camera's looking down
and the rockets sort of going down
towards the LZ pretty soon a lot more
quickly than you might think the round
lz's up here it's going for lz1 for this
landing and they used to have the SpaceX
logo on them I'm not sure they still
have this maybe they kind of have the
SpaceX logo but here you'll see the
final Burns this is the landing burn
when the engine's light one more time
and they help guide the rocket right
down to The Landing Pad there's some
thrust vectoring that happens so
literally the engine's sort of wiggling
a little bit in either direction to help
you know push the tail of the rocket
this way or push the tail of the rocket
that way you see those grid fins doing
work they're tilting back and forth
helping direct the airflow but the trick
with that is as the rocket slows down
the grid fins become less and less
effective if you don't have a lot of air
moving past the grid fins very quickly
you don't get as much Control Authority
off the grid fins so you've got this
really precarious balance where you need
to slam on the brakes but you don't want
to lose all your Control Authority and
you better be in just the right spot
when it's time to touch the ground
you may be wondering where are the legs
the entire launch of the rocket the legs
have been folded up onto the side of it
and even though the landings pad is
right there you still don't see the legs
right before touchdown with like as
little time left over as possible you'll
see those legs sort of your little puff
off the side and then they follow the
rest of the way down there's a little
push to help get them going but a lot of
this is just the rocket slamming on the
brakes and the legs wanting to keep
moving and that makes them unfold like
if you're in the car and you press on
the brakes it sort of pushes you forward
in your seat belt think of you know
you're next to you in your car having a
landing leg and you slam on the brakes
and the leg tries to keep going forward
as the car wants to stop it's the same
thing that's happening here the leg
tries to keep going and that's what
makes it unfold like you see now finally
if they've done everything right the
rocket touches down with just a little
bit of fuel left and shuts off all the
engines and you can see sometimes we
call it suddenly rock at the rocket has
appeared on the landing pad this is not
a suddenly rocket situation because they
gave us a single cut entire take of the
rocket from takeoff all the way back to Landing
Landing
from here on out there's a lot more
things that SpaceX has to do there are
things that need to be vented or cleared
from the rocket of course I have to
bring a crane over there they're going
to attach a crane to the top of it of
the cap and pick it up and lean it over
and put it on a transporter and move it
over for more processing but I think
those are a lot of the really
interesting things that you can see in
this video massive thanks to SpaceX for
putting this out I hope you enjoyed it
if you thought this explanation was
interesting or informative or I don't
know whatever leave a comment down below
if you want us to do more things like
this we don't do a lot of commentary
like this but maybe it's something we
should do more of in the future my name
is John Galloway for NASA space flight
and we'll see you nerds later foreign
foreign [Music]
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