Posted on 03/30/2017 3:47:10 PM PDT by Moonman62
After more than two years of landing its rockets after launch, SpaceX finally sent one of its used Falcon 9s back into space. The rocket took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, this evening, sending a communications satellite into orbit, and then landed on one of SpaceX’s drone ships floating in the Atlantic Ocean. It was round two for this particular rocket, which already launched and landed during a mission in April of last year. But the Falcon 9’s relaunch marks the first time an orbital rocket has launched to space for a second time. "This evening’s mission was a critical milestone for SpaceX"
This evening’s mission was a critical milestone for SpaceX, which has been working to make its rockets partially reusable since as early as 2011. Up until now, practically all orbital rockets have been expendable, so they’re basically thrown away once they launch into space. That means an entirely new rocket — which can cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to make — has to be built for each mission to orbit. SpaceX’s strategy has been to land its rockets after launch in an effort to fly them again and again. That way the company can partially save on manufacturing costs for each mission.
(Excerpt) Read more at theverge.com ...
Congratulations, SpaceX team!
Great work!
First??? Didn’t the shuttles take off all the time with used RS-25 rocket engines, and they recovered the SRB’s and reused them as well.
If you want to get technical about it, the Shuttle fuel tank was destroyed after every launch.
Yes, plus Blue Origin’s New Shepherd rocket has flown five consecutive times. Still, this is an impressive achievement, and is the last step to dramatically lowering the cost of space flight.
Still, this is an impressive achievement, and is the last step to dramatically lowering the cost of space flight.
...
Yes, the Falcon 9 is an orbital booster that’s been launching paying customers for many years.
I forget the exact number, but it takes something like 10 times the energy output of New Shepherd to throw something into Orbit. Everything Blue Origin has done so far is sub orbital. Pretty much everything SpaceX does is orbital.
What ever happened to Burt Rutan and his space efforts?
I can see SpaceX naming their rocket "Falcon 9", sounds masculine and strong. But naming their landing ship "Of Course I Still Love You"? Must have been one of their female execs that made that decision!
Don’t you jut love a company with a sense of humor!
A good job ought to be fun, at least some of the time.
Rutan has retired.
His old company, Scaled Composites, partnered with Virgin Galactic on the space tourism business and spun off “The Space Ship Company” to do the manufacturing. THey will probably do a suborbital flight of “Spaceship Two” this year.
Thanks!
“Of Course I Still Love You” is the name of one of the sentient planet-sized starships in Ian. M. Banks “The Culture” series of sci-fi books. All of the giant AI war machines chose odd or weird names for themselves in those books.
Rutan has retired.And the "Welcome to Mojave" sign now has a twenty-mule team on it instead of "Home of Discovery!" with a picture of Rutan's round-the-world-on-one-tank-of-gas airplane. :-(
That is sad...and very ungrateful!
I was privileged to visit Burt Rutan's 'Rutan Aircraft Factory' ( a small office & adjacent hangar) in the summer of 1976. Burt gave me a 45 minute tour of the place and the prototype Vari-Eze.
A cherished memory.
I bought a set of plans that day, but Life intervened and I never started the plane. :-(
Thank you for the info, good to know. I've been lax on reading sci-fi books for the last 3 decades. Now why couldn't they do like the hero in "Titan A.E.", who named his newly created planet "Bob"? Simple and easy!
Yes, Blue Origin and SpaceX have been working on the same goals from two directions.
recovered the fairing as well
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