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Private Space Race: SpaceX Lands Rocket Month After Blue Origin
“Welcome back, baby!”, Musk said in a celebratory tweet. In its previous attempts, SpaceX had tried to land the rocket on ocean platforms, but with no success. Spacex has also suffered some major losses in its quest for successful landing of rockets.
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SpaceX said a few tweaks likely helped the rocket achieve its mission and land safely. The historic landing of the first-stage booster back at Cape Canaveral could potentially lead to an era of cheaper space travel through reusable spacecraft.
The 11 satellites were also successfully deployed about 20 minutes after the rocket’s launch, making it a dual-success story for Elon Musk’s space firm.
Though SpaceX has been trying a while longer, the Falcon 9 landing is the second landing this year of a reusable rocket – following Blue Origin’s successful launch and landing of its own rocket. Welcome to the club! Falcon 9’s accomplishment is arguably more significant, though, because it was successfully recovered after traveling farther and faster than any other rocket in history. “No-one has ever brought a booster, an orbital-class booster, back intact”.
Minutes after blastoff, the Falcon 9’s first-stage rocket separated from its upper-stage booster, which continued on into orbit to release ORBCOMM’s satellites about 800 km above the Earth. The thing that caught my attention most is just how massive the rocket is.
Many rockets use multiple stages, or engine sets, to reduce weight during launch. This landing happened on land rather than at sea on a special concrete pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
But SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is a much different rocket from the one flown by Blue Origin.
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ORBCOMM satellites provide global communications services used to remotely track for truck-based transportation of goods, including monitoring the climate conditions inside the cargo area. Elon Musk said shortly after the launch that though the company will test it, this rocket will be stored away somewhere safe.