zlacker

Is Musk planning to have his drones watch the landing? I'm guessing that's what the "recovery ship" would be doing, although his twitter feed is saying that heavy seas might make that difficult.

>>joezyd+(OP)
That would be awesome. I was astounded the first time I saw one of their McGregor, Texas rocket tests from the point-of-view of a hexacopter flying near the rocket's flightpath.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZDkItO-0a4

In this video, the copter is actually HOVERING ABOVE the rocket as the rocket descends back down to the launchpad. The only time I've ever seen something like that before was Hollywood (Apollo 13, and then when the footage was re-used in Austin Powers 2).

>>joezyd+(OP)
Quadcopters don't have the endurance to hover in the recovery zone, unless one of the SpaceX recovery ships were to deploy them.

Ideally, you'd use something like a Predator or Reaper with long endurance and stabilized optics. At $4MM per drone (new), that's not outside the realm of possibility.

>>toomuc+jr
You don't buy a single predator, you buy a set of them, along with all of the support gear including the ground control station, and support from the manufacturer. - former shadow 200 military drone pilot

>>SEJeff+Du
Can you rent time from a non-military agency? I know NASA has at least one Global Hawk.

>>toomuc+Hw
Addition/Edit: They own at least two: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/aircraft/GlobalHawk/in...

>>toomuc+Hw
Highly unlikely, the big UAVs tend to contain top secret avionics and we don't always want the world to know the capabilities of their payloads. It might be possible, but it would be a lot easier to call IAI or Northrop and ask if they would rent it to you.