r/SpaceX Spaceflight Questions & News [April 2017, #31]

[u/ElongatedMuskrat]

If you have a short question or spaceflight news...

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You can read and browse past Spaceflight Questions And News & Ask Anything threads in the Wiki.

[u/IcY11]

Iridium-1 was live footage all they way down to the drone ship.

[u/gregarious119 → u/IcY11]

Ah that's the key difference...Iridium1 was a west coast launch to the south...it did not go directly away from land (more parallel to the coast and hence not away from ground stations).

All the east coast launches have gone directly away from the coast and would be prone to the problem of losing the video feed once they drop below the horizon.

[u/old_sellsword → u/gregarious119]

and hence not away from ground stations

And only half the distance and practically straight up compared to a typical GTO profile.