Dragon C2+ launch (SPLASHDOWN!!)

[Dr Mordrid]

Yeah, the champagne is probably flowing like the Nile in Hawthorn and McGregor.

The next Falcon 9 1.0 is already at the KSC and its Dragon ships there in a few weeks.



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[Dr Mordrid]

More from the landing.

The first was taken by sensors on NASA's P3 Orion observation aircraft with its infrared/lo-res tracking camera. Shows the parachutes right after deployment. The rest are just as she splashed down, in the water before recovery and on the barge after recovery.

The charring is normal - mostly burned off bits of the PICA-X heat shield that were deposited downstream. If you look closely some bits have already fallen off.

The white shell that covers Dragon is a thermal protection material new for this mission. The C1 Dragon was covered in ACUSIL, which is a silicone syntactic foam manufactured by ITT and used on missiles. Rather expensive. The C2+ Dragon was covered in SPAM (SpaceX Proprietary Ablative Material).

Yes, SPAM on a can, rather than in it.