For the second month in a row, the aerospace company landed a rocket on an ocean platform, this time following the launch of a Japanese communications satellite.
Advertisement
Musk said that the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage has touched down on a ship about 200 miles off the Florida coast. Today’s first stage had to burn more fuel compared to the rocket used during the April 8 launch, when SpaceX stuck the droneship landing. SpaceX’s first four attempts at shooting a rocket into space, spitting out a satellite and lowering it down for a soft, errorless landing on a pretty small ocean barge failed. However, the conditions of this landing made it the rocket’s toughest challenge yet, leading to an incredibly joyous response from those watching the footage when it successfully completed its mission yesterday. SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk’s plans to reduce launch costs by using reusable rockets.
The unmanned Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the SpaceX launchpad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 1:21 a.m. EDT or 0521 UTC exactly on schedule.
Elon Musk is, in fact, a betting man, but his gambles are backed by the calculations of SpaceX’s rocket scientists. SpaceX has clearly mentioned a number of times that the success chances are now and Musk also talked about the odds.
Friday morning’s landing in darkness makes SpaceX’s ambitions to land most of its rockets look achievable. After Friday’s success, Musk tweeted that he might need more room to store them.
The difference lies in the Falcon 9 rockets, which feature a simplified two-stage design developed by SpaceX for maximum safety and with a view to human missions in space.
Already in the delivery business for Nasa, SpaceX hopes to start transporting USA astronauts to the International Space Station by the end of next year in the company’s next-generation Dragon capsules. This one placed a Japanese communications satellite into a very high orbit.
The Washington Post reports that as the first stage of the rocket fell back toward the Atlantic, it came down toasty.
The Asian company delivered the craft to provide high-definition television and broadband internet for the next 15 years to Asia, Russia and Oceania.
Advertisement
As mentioned above, expectations from Friday launch was low.
