Late tonight SpaceX will attempt to launch its first rocket since the triumphant landing of its Falcon 9 first stage a month ago.
Advertisement
The rocket was able to launch a Japanese communications satellite into outer space and then land back on the Ocean Platform in the Atlantic ocean.
Friday’s mission required the rocket to travel to a higher altitude than it did last month, in order to place the satellite in a geosynchronous Earth orbit.
“Around 10 minutes after liftoff, the first stage of the Falcon 9 landed unscathed aboard the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You”, floating a few hundred miles off the coast of Florida”. The first occurred in April, when SpaceX was making a supply run to the space station for NASA.
Its more ambitious goal is to land an unmanned Dragon capsule on the surface of Mars in 2018 as the first step toward colonizing the Red Planet. It was carried into orbit more than 32,000 kilometers above Earth.
The launch trajectory of the Falcon 9 on Thursday night is seen in this photo by Shane Brosche, shared by Elon Musk on Friday morning.
The 23-story tall rocket that was launched on Friday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 1:21 am made its second journey after it completed its maiden journey this April. Tweet with another that said the company may need to increase its storage capacity.
Launches to extremely high orbits like this require more fuel, which is where landing on a drone ship comes in handy: They require less fuel than traditional launch pad landings on land. Last week the company also won its first contract to launch a USA military satellite, breaking a 10-year hold on the contracts by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Once settled into orbit, the JCSAT-14 will provide high-quality broadcast signals to Asia, Russia, Oceania, and the Pacific Islands.
It comes days after SpaceX shared a 360 degree video which allows viewers to watch the first successful landing. The main objective of this safe-landings after a delivery is to reuse rockets and lower the company’s costs.
Advertisement
The launch continues SpaceX’s comeback from a launch disaster last June in which a Falcon 9 blew up over the ocean.
