12/8/10 SpaceX: SPLASHDOWN!!!
I dedicate the name of this post to a tweet @SpaceXer sent on December 8th, which for me signified the end of the historic launch which happened that very day. SpaceX had launched their Falcon 9 rocket for the second time flawlessly. Not only that, the Falcon 9 also had the mission to deliver the Dragon capsule which sat atop the rocket into low earth orbit. From there, the Dragon capsule had to make 2 full orbits around the Earth, and come back down to earth, which involves re-entering our atmosphere safely, and deploying parachutes correctly in order to provide the safe trip all the way back down. All done flawlessly. On top of that, 8 free-flying payloads were also put on the Falcon 9 and were deployed safely including the first army-built satellite to fly in 50 years. For safety reasons, on almost every system and component (parachutes, reaction control thrusters, avionics etc...) there was some level of redundancy to ensure that if some part failed, Dragon could still make it home safely. Amazingly, not a single redundant system was necessary since all systems worked nominally...nominally? I guess that is another way of saying FLAWLESSLY!
Why was this a historic launch?
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