Published 04:31 IST, August 20th 2020
Elon Musk shares video of SpaceX team recovering rocket fairing from sea, netizens amazed
Elon Musk always has the coolest stuff to share on social media. A recent video shared by the SpaceX CEO has gone viral on the internet, watch it here:
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Elon Musk always has the coolest stuff to share on social media. A recent video shared by the SpaceX CEO has gone viral on the internet and shows a recovery ship using a large net to catch a Falcon 9 rocket fairing as it slowly descends towards the sea.
NASA explains that a rocket fairing is essentially the nose cone of a spacecraft and protects it from aerodynamic forces of pressure and heat until the spacecraft makes it into the orbit. After that, the fairing is simply extra weight for the spacecraft and is dropped. While rocket fairings are usually never recovered, they are expensive components.
As per reports, the rocket fairing for the Falco Heavy Rocket costs a whopping $6 million. In the video uploaded by Elon Musk, SpaceX retrieved the rocket fairing in one piece after it was dropped from Starlink-10 after a successful launch.
The video shows the fairing descend towards the ocean slowly thanks to a large parachute and a ship with a big net covering on top can be seen expertly placed right where the fairing is about to land. In the background of the video, one can hear soothing ‘elevator music’. Musk later in a follow-up tweet stated that elevator music was underrated.
The video has already been viewed more than 6 million times and has over 300 thousand likes. Take a look at the amazing video below:
Aloha, welcome back from space 💫 pic.twitter.com/xWPN09Wtaw
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 18, 2020
Some Twitter users were thrown off by the background elevator music and asked whether the video Musk shared was authentic.
Is this real?
— David Gokhshtein (@davidgokhshtein) August 18, 2020
To which Musk replied that the video was indeed authentic!
🤯 ok... that’s even cooler than I thought!!!! You’re making this look easy!
— Everyday Astronaut (@Erdayastronaut) August 18, 2020
SpaceX can catch fairings in a net from SPACE
— Everything SpaceX (@spacex360) August 18, 2020
SpaceX can land a booster on a drone ship from SPACE
SpaceX can deliver astronauts to the ISS
SpaceX can make a grain silo FLY
SpaceX can make their own SATELLITE CONSTELLATION
SPACEX WILL TAKE US TO MARS!!!
What can’t they do? 🤷♂️ pic.twitter.com/noVtHhIYF6
Paytm founder Vijay Shekar Sharma also shared Elon Musk’s Tweet and said SpaceX has once again changed the space industry forever.
This happened.
— Vijay Shekhar Sharma (@vijayshekhar) August 19, 2020
@elonmusk ‘s @SpaceX has changed the space industry forever.
This is Falcon 9 rocket’s fairing as it returned to earth 🌍 pic.twitter.com/LGMGLVnsE5
04:31 IST, August 20th 2020