{"id":14804,"date":"2017-03-13T18:59:45","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T10:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/photos-falcon-9-booster-minus-landing-legs-and-grid-fins-poised-for-launch\/"},"modified":"2017-03-13T18:59:45","modified_gmt":"2017-03-13T10:59:45","slug":"photos-falcon-9-booster-minus-landing-legs-and-grid-fins-poised-for-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/photos-falcon-9-booster-minus-landing-legs-and-grid-fins-poised-for-launch\/","title":{"rendered":"Photos: Falcon 9 booster, minus landing legs and grid fins, poised for launch"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 229-foot-tall (70-meter) SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stood on launch pad 39A at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center on Monday afternoon on the eve of a scheduled blastoff with the EchoStar 23 television broadcast satellite.<\/p>\n

The two-stage rocket will fly without the four landing legs and grid fins normally carried on Falcon 9 missions. That\u2019s because this rocket\u2019s first stage will not attempt a landing at sea, instead plummeting into the Atlantic Ocean in a practice normally used on expendable launchers.<\/p>\n

SpaceX has recovered eight first stage boosters in 13 tries since early 2015. The launch of EchoStar 23 requires all of the Falcon 9\u2019s lift capacity, leaving insufficient leftover RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants to reignite its Merlin engines and slow down for landing.<\/p>\n

The company intends to launch a previously-flown booster for the first time before the end of March on a flight from Florida with the SES 10 communications satellite. SpaceX believes reusing the rocket stage will reduce the cost of launch services.<\/p>\n

The EchoStar 23 communications satellite, cocooned inside the Falcon 9\u2019s nose cone, is beginning a 15-year mission broadcasting television programming across Brazil.<\/p>\n

The EchoStar 23 launch will mark the 31st flight of a Falcon 9 rocket, the third Falcon 9 mission of 2017, and SpaceX\u2019s second mission to take off from pad 39A.<\/p>\n

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Credit: Stephen Clark\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Stephen Clark\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Stephen Clark\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Walter Scriptunas II \/ Scriptunas Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Walter Scriptunas II \/ Scriptunas Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Walter Scriptunas II \/ Scriptunas Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Stephen Clark\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Walter Scriptunas II \/ Scriptunas Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Stephen Clark\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Stephen Clark\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Stephen Clark\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Stephen Clark\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Credit: Stephen Clark\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 229-foot-tall (70-meter) SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stood on launch pad 39A at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center on Monday afternoon on the eve of a scheduled blastoff with the EchoStar 23 television broadcast satellite. The two-stage rocket will fly without the four landing legs and grid fins normally carried on Falcon 9 missions. That\u2019s because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1819,291,3156,3311,479,1702,2897,316],"class_list":["post-14804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-brazil","tag-commercial-space","tag-echostar","tag-echostar-23","tag-falcon-9","tag-launch-pad-39a","tag-space-systems-loral","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14804"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}