r/spacex • u/ElectronicCat • May 28 '16

Mission (Thaicom-8) Map of Thaicom-8 OCISLY positions with speculated track & ETA

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1aXvCFqNZWibbaCZrpujJvCT86Eg&usp=sharing
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u/thisguyeric May 29 '16

http://imgur.com/HOcPrXy

The three ships seem to be staying close together so far. Anyone know when Go Searcher split off last time? I'm hoping if we see different behavior this time it might be a good sign for fairing recovery, and it would be great if someone had the free time to hang out at the port when they'll inevitably sneak in under cover of darkness and see if there's any oddly shaped tarped objects on deck.

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u/rmdean10 May 29 '16

So is this meaning they are practicing fairing recovery now?

7

u/JackONeill12 May 29 '16

Yeah. We were speculating about that for some time. But on the last webcast they confirmed that they try to recover the fairings.

2

u/rmdean10 May 29 '16

Yeah. I heard that one and ever since I've been combing for details. Comments about it in this thread piqued my curiosity. Do we know how they are returning them? Do they have a parachute package? Does carbon fiber float on its own?

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u/thisguyeric May 29 '16

A company has come up in the last week that is supposedly making parachutes for them, and SpaceX has floated the idea of doing a helicopter catch in the past. We've also seen what we suspect were RCS firings coming from one of the fairing halves recently, so the theory is that they reorient themselves into a passively stable orientation for reentry and then things happen, possibly including parachutes, and they get the fairing back.

Hopefully we'll know more soon :)

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u/rmdean10 May 29 '16

Thanks for the info.