Hacker News Reader

Next year, China says it will be testing a concept very similar to what you've described, with its Long March 10A rocket:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27TvGDpPLNw

It will be interesting to see how these two approaches fare vs. one another.

View on HN

That's exactly it, thank you! What worries me with the current one that landed is the gradient: because the arms are short and the spot is tight, the burden is on the booster to make very sharp corrections (especially on pitch) to get caught when there's literally a few meters left, with an increased risk at the worst time (no altitude, and structures around), as opposed to leaving the pitch as is and landing vertically. In other words: the possibility to screw a perfect launch by introducing irremediable risk in the last few seconds and meters.

Then again, I just watched the launch and that was the first thing that popped into my mind, and the first "design" that popped into my mind as I was replying to the thread, so not much thought went into it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com