ISS to be equipped with expandable habitat for first time

After SpaceX’s previous attempts to land a rocket at sea ended in failure, the company successfully landed its Falcon 9 rocket on Friday afternoon on a landing platform in the Atlantic Ocean.

After approximately 2 and a half minutes, the main portion of the SpaceX’s two-stage rocket separated and then turned around and headed toward a landing platform located in the middle of the Atlantic around 185 miles northeast of Cape Canaveral.

The resupply mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida, is the first for SpaceX since last June, when one of the company’s rockets exploded about two minutes after takeoff, destroying the rocket and the supply-filled Dragon spacecraft.

This is the first NASA supply delivery from the privately owned Space Exploration Technologies since a launch accident almost one year ago.

The Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon space capsule successfully launched shortly before 5 p.m. EDT (Photo/NASA TV). BEAM, made of layers of fabrics and covered in a flexible, Kevlar-like material, also will be outfitted with sensors to monitor orbital debris and micrometeoroid impacts.

SpaceX managed to land a first stage on land in late 2015, however had so far been unable to return a stage to their so-called “autonomous drone ship”.

Meanwhile, the launch is a huge moment for Bigelow Aerospace, the project of real estate billionaire Robert Bigelow.

The rocket lifted off on schedule at 16:43 local time (20:43 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

SpaceX Founder and Tesla tycoon Elon Musk also tweeted about the good news.

Sticking a sea-based landing is an important milestone for the company in its quest to develop reusable rockets. And Blue Origin, the space company founded by amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos, has now launched and landed the first stage of its suborbital New Shepard vehicle three times.

On the eve of the launch, Bigelow said the mission promises to “change the entire dynamic for human habitation”. The U.S. space agency NASA is keeping its fingers crossed that upcoming tests will prove expandable habitats, commonly called inflatables, are the way of the future. The rocket’s cargo ship, dubbed Dragon, is due to arrive at the International Space Station on 10 April.

I say potentially because we still don’t know what condition the Falcon 9 rocket is in and whether it will be resuable without expensive repairs.