Watch a Mini SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Land on a Droneship in a Swimming Pool
Probably easier than landing the actual rocket, but not by much.
Elon Musk’s extremely well-publicized attempts to land the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on a floating drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean always make for a thrilling watch. To take an enormous rocket descending from space and land it on a floating barge is a daunting task, but when it goes right, among the other scientific and economic results, people also go completely nuts.
It makes sense, then, that we’d have people trying to replicate the feat, albeit on a smaller scale. Sure, you can play the immensely frustrating Falcon 9-to-droneship video game, but some Musk-fans have taken it a step further and built their own GoPro-drone versions of the Falcon Nine.
Enter YouTuber ajw61185, who attached what looks like a paper-towel tube to a mini quadcopter and painted the whole thing like a Falcon 9. He even built a perfect scale model of the Of Course I Still Love You droneship, complete with shipping containers and a camera attached on board for some epic up-close shots. This guy has it all figured out — backyard swimming pool, floating droneship, and an extremely cool rocket-drone (with adorable little fake-fire streamers underneath it). The thing even has pop-out landing gear that deploy when it’s coming in for a pass at the droneship!
Landing gear deployed.
Ajw61185 has made a hobby out of making micro-drone replicas of bigger flying things. He’s already done an awesome Star Wars B-Wing replica, so we’re sure this won’t be his last venture into the space-model drone market.
Watch the whole video below.
