For this try, SpaceX’s new drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You" will be waiting. It takes over the role originally held by "Just Read the Instructions," the company’s first autonomous vessel. The names of both ships are a nod to the Iain M. Banks novel "The Player of Games."
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Mar 02, 2022 · Why Is The Drone Ship Named Of Course I Still Love You? Elon Musk sparked the trend six years ago with a tweet where he announced the name of the company’s first spaceport drone ship. As time passed, he revealed that he was inspired by Iain M Banks, he was able to clarify the meaning of the name shortly afterwards.
Mar 03, 2022 · Why Is The Drone Ship Named Of Course I Still Love You? It began six years ago with Musk announcing via Twitter that “Just Read the Instructions” would be named a company spaceport drone ship. A short time later he explained the meaning behind the name, showing respect for Iain M Banks by doing so.
SpaceX repositioned Of Course I Still Love You from Port Canaveral, Florida, to the Port of Long Beach, California in June 2021. Just Read the Instructions droneship was previously based in California until mid-2019 but was repositioned to Florida as launched out of Vandenberg slowed down. This meant that SpaceX no longer had a dronship to support Pacific Ocean operations.
Jun 23, 2017 · The autonomous drone ships used by SpaceX are named after the sentient ships in Banks ... Of Course I Still Love You operates off the coast of …
Of Course I Still Love You was built as a refit of the barge Marmac 304 for landings in the Atlantic Ocean. Its homeport was Port Canaveral, Florida from December 2015 to June 2021, after being ported for a year at the Port of Jacksonville during most of 2015. In June 2021, OCISLY began heading towards the Port of Los Angeles to begin supporting launches on the west coast. Of Course I Still Love You worked successfully as a landing platform after the Falcon 9 rocket brought astronauts to space on the crewed mission Launch America on 30 May 2020.
The landing platform of the upper deck of the first barge named Just Read the Instructions was 170 ft × 300 ft (52 m × 91 m) while the span of the Falcon 9 v1.1 landing legs was 60 ft (18 m).
Active, expected usage in few months. An autonomous spaceport drone ship ( ASDS) is an ocean-going vessel derived from a deck barge, outfitted with station-keeping engines and a large landing platform and is autonomously controlled when on station for a landing.
SpaceX first launch vehicle landing barge ( Marmac 300 ), and also its third ( Marmac 303 ), were both named Just Read the Instructions ( JRTI ). In fact, some of the parts from the original hull/barge were used to build the Marmac 303 ASDS. The original, Marmac 300, was scrapped after the SpaceX CRS-6 landing failure on 14 April 2015.
A fourth ASDS, A Shortfall of Gravitas ( ASOG ), was announced in February 2018 and was originally planned to enter service in mid-2019. In October 2020, Elon Musk re-affirmed plans to build a ship of this name. In January 2021, Marmac 302 was spotted at Bollinger Fourchon site.
The first flight test was 10 January 2015 when SpaceX conducted a controlled-descent flight test to land the first-stage of Falcon 9 Flight 14 on a solid surface after it was used to loft a contracted payload toward Earth orbit. SpaceX projected prior to the first landing attempt that the likelihood of successfully landing on the platform would be 50% or less. The landings went from being landing tests towards being routine parts of missions.
The Falcon 9 first-stage performed a successful landing on OCISLY in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida at T+9 minutes and 10 seconds after liftoff of SpaceX CRS-8, the first-ever successful landing of a first stage on an Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship.
S paceX is a spaceflight company focused on building big-ass rockets capable of taking people to Mars, but it’s also a strangely famous purveyor of so-called “drone ships,” autonomous platforms floating in the ocean. By now, the world has seen the company manage to vertically land several rockets on one its two ocean drone ships.
See, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is a pretty big fan of science fiction. One need look no further than his adoration for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for proof. He literally named his company’s future Mars-bound spacecraft Heart of Gold for this reason.
If these colorful names have you scratching your head, you’re not alone. SpaceX’s fleet of drone ships are named to honor the science fiction author Ian M. Banks. Specifically, his novel The Player of Games, in which OCISLY and JRtI are sentient spaceships.
A merlin is a variety of medium-sized falcon. Since the Merlin engine is currently used to power Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, that fits nicely. SpaceX’s other rocket engines have equally avian monikers: Kestrel and Raptor.
Space exploration is serious business. Missions cost tens of millions of dollars and frequently put human lives on the line. That’s probably why rockets and spacecraft tend to have serious-sounding names.
Since the Merlin engine is currently used to power Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, that fits nicely. SpaceX’s other rocket engines have equally avian monikers: Kestrel and Raptor.
While this one sounds like it’s straight out of a 13-year-old's D&D game, it’s actually named for another bird. A merlin is a variety of medium-sized falcon. Since the Merlin engine is currently used to power Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, that fits nicely.
The bold and unprecedented maneuver — which came after the Falcon 9 had sent SpaceX's robotic Dragon capsule toward the International Space Station on a cargo run for NASA — nearly worked. The rocket stage succeeded in hitting the drone ship, but it came down too hard and exploded. "Close, but no cigar this time.
Banks. Late last month, SpaceX's billionaire founder and CEO Elon Musk announced that he had named the company's first spaceport drone ship "Just Read the Instructions.". The second autonomous boat, which is ...
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Late last month, SpaceX's billionaire founder and CEO Elon Musk announced that he had named the company's first spaceport drone ship "Just Read the Instructions.". The second autonomous boat, which is under construction, will be called "Of Course I Still Love You," Musk added.
SpaceX has earned enormous respect over the years for paving the way for reusable rocket boosters. After all, who would want to invest in a vehicle that's only capable of being used once? SpaceX founder Elon Musk took it upon himself to name each and every one of the famous SpaceX drone ships that carry the rocket boosters.
The trend started six years ago when Musk announced via Twitter that he had named the company's first spaceport drone ship "Just Read the Instructions." Soon enough, he clarified the meaning behind the name, revealing that he did so in honour of Iain M Banks.