SpaceX's VP reveals the reason behind abandoning fairing "catching" technique

SpaceX's Vice President of Launch, Kiko Dontchev, shared the company's innovative algorithm for problem-solving during a talk. He explained how SpaceX initially tried to catch falling fairings to prevent corrosion from seawater but faced low success rates due to challenging weather conditions. By challenging the requirement to catch the fairings, SpaceX realized that fairings float well and can be recovered from the ocean. This simplified the process, resulting in a 99% success rate of fairing recovery and rapid refurbishment for future launches. The algorithm involves making requirements less dumb, deleting unnecessary steps, optimizing, accelerating, and automating.