The mystery behind the "floating platform"-- set to welcome home a returning Falcon 9 v1.1 first stage -- has been solved via a series of fascinating comments by SpaceX's Elon Musk. Known as the Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship, the ocean faring platform will be the new propulsive landing target for a Falcon 9, possibly as soon as the CRS-5/SpX-5 Dragon mission in December.
Returning Rockets:
SpaceX is currently working through an incremental evolution of its reusable rocket aspirations, continuing a path that should eventually result in the first Falcon 9 v1.1 core stage returning to land and being processed for a future launch.
Normally, first stages can only look forward to a one-time push uphill, ahead of the prospect of a watery grave in the ocean downrange of the launch site.
Mr. Musk classes the odds of successfully landing on the platform at 50 percent or less for the first attempt.
Landing a core stage on the platform would be a major achievement. However, Mr. Musk appears to have yet more plans for the Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship.
"Will allow (for) refuel and rocket flyback in future," he added to the unveiling of the ship.
While that fascinating detail hasn't yet been expanded on, it suggests a plan -- or at least the option -- to land stages on the Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship, refuel and then allow them to make the hop back to land. This would also show the additional value of the continued testing with F-9R Dev-2.
Such a technique could also solve a rumored note surrounding the Falcon Heavy, which suggested SpaceX had been looking at an island downrange of the West Coast launch site for returning the center of the three Falcon Heavy cores, in the event of high payload penalties negating a return to the preferred landing site at SLC-4W.
Returning a stage to an Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship positioned downrange of Vandenberg, allowing it to refuel and make the "hop" back to the West coast would become a potential solution.