An unmanned rocket launched by American firm SpaceX has successfully put a communications satellite into orbit and then landed back on Earth.
Advertisement
The landing follows the rocket’s successful launch of JCSAT-14, a commercial telecommunications satellite for Japan’s SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation, to a geostationary transfer orbit.
SpaceX wants to flawless the technique as part of its effort to re-use rocket parts instead of jettisoning the costly equipment into the ocean after each launch. The rocket was carrying a communications satellite – called the JCSAT-14 – that will be operated by a Japanese telecoms company.
It may seem an odd fit to discuss the SpaceX landing in Astronomy, but reusable launch vehicles could potentially drive down the cost of space launches, making space observatories cheaper and more viable. The previous launch of a SpaceX rocket that ended in a successful recovery included sending supplies to the space station, which is placed in “low Earth orbit”.
“Given this mission’s GTO destination, the first stage will be subject to extreme velocities and re-entry heating, making a successful landing unlikely”, SpaceX representatives wrote in a description of the JCSAT-14 mission.
Musk jokingly tweeted his company “may need to increase the size of [the] rocket storage hangar”. Blue Origin, the company led by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, has launched and landed its New Shepard rocket three separate times, but those milestones occurred during suborbital test flights rather than orbital launches. A landing at sea proved more elusive and required several tries. However, on Monday, CEO Elon Musk upgraded the chances to “maybe even” just before launch. The first recovered booster, from December, will grace the entrance of SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. But its ultimate goal is Mars.
Advertisement
He also runs Tesla Motors, the electric auto company.
