Tag: Reusability
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Rocket landing experiment on tap after SpaceX cargo launch
An aerial view of SpaceX’s rocket landing barge, named the Marmac 300 and unofficially christened the “Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship.” Credit: SpaceX SpaceX hopes to take a giant leap forward in rocket technology a few minutes after Friday’s scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 booster taking up 2.5 tons of critical supplies and experiments to…
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Photos: SpaceX’s autonomous spaceport drone ship
An ocean-going cargo barge modified to serve as a landing pad for SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster is set to depart the Port of Jacksonville for a journey into the Atlantic Ocean ahead of Friday’s launch of a space station cargo mission from Cape Canaveral. The barge will be stationed about 200 miles northeast of Cape…
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SpaceX hopes to recover rocket intact after next launch
SpaceX’s reusable rocket testbed — the Falcon 9R — touches down at the company’s Central Texas development facility after a brief vertical takeoff and landing test flight. Credit: SpaceX SpaceX will test out new stabilizing fins that could help land the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on a floating barge in the Atlantic Ocean…
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SpaceX’s Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship ready for action
The mystery behind the “floating platform” – set to welcome home a returning Falcon 9 v1.1 first stage – has been solved via a series of fascinating comments by SpaceX’s Elon Musk. Known as the Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship, the ocean faring platform will be the new propulsive landing target for a Falcon 9, possibly as…
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Recovering SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Ocean Landing Video – How it was done
When SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket last April, most eyes were on the vehicle’s passenger, the CRS-3 Dragon spacecraft, en route to another mission to the ISS. However, for many SpaceX followers, a hugely interesting aspect of the mission was its secondary objective – to bring the first stage back from space to…