{"id":18411,"date":"2018-08-06T22:15:24","date_gmt":"2018-08-06T14:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-launches-indonesian-satellite-and-kicks-off-new-round-for-rocket-reusability\/"},"modified":"2018-08-06T22:15:24","modified_gmt":"2018-08-06T14:15:24","slug":"spacex-launches-indonesian-satellite-and-kicks-off-new-round-for-rocket-reusability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-launches-indonesian-satellite-and-kicks-off-new-round-for-rocket-reusability\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX launches Indonesian satellite and kicks off new round for rocket reusability"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_439054\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-439054\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-439054\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/180806-spacex1-630x436.jpg\" alt=\"SpaceX launch\" width=\"630\" height=\"436\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/180806-spacex1-630x436.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/180806-spacex1-768x532.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/180806-spacex1-1260x872.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/180806-spacex1.jpg 1267w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-439054\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The glare of a Falcon 9 rocket launch lights up the night at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. (SpaceX via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>SpaceX sent Indonesia\u2019s Merah Putih telecommunications satellite into orbit tonight, marking the first reuse of its new-generation Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket booster.<\/p>\n<p>Liftoff came on time at 1:19 a.m. ET Tuesday (10:19 p.m. PT Monday) after a trouble-free countdown at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.<\/p>\n<p>Minutes after launch, the booster flew itself back down for an at-sea touchdown on SpaceX\u2019s autonomous drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n<p>The launch and landing kicked off a new chapter in SpaceX\u2019s quest to increase rocket reusability and reduce the cost of access to space. The company says its Block 5 booster can be reused 10 times, a significant step up from the now-retired Block 4 version.<\/p>\n<p>Tonight\u2019s focus on the refurbished, soot-stained booster stole the spotlight from Merah Putih, an SSL-built satellite that\u2019s designed to provide a range of telecommunication services from geostationary orbit, including mobile broadband access across Indonesia and Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n<p>The booster was the first Block 5 first stage to fly, and helped put Bangladesh\u2019s Banghabandu-1 telecom satellite into geosynchronous transfer orbit back in May. It was successfully recovered and spruced up for tonight\u2019s rerun of the GTO launch profile.<\/p>\n<p>As in May, the reflown first-stage booster relit its engines after stage separation, and went through a series of burns to set down on the drone ship, christened \u201cOf Course I Still Love You.\u201d Meanwhile, the second stage continued onward and went through its own follow-up firing to send Merah Putih into its intended orbit.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Falcon 9 launches Merah Putih and Falcon 9 first stage landing\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1VGYwtTX0Pw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Launch commentator Lauren Lyons said the booster would be prepared for its third launch later this year. \u201cThis is possible due to those Block 5 upgrades, which brings SpaceX closer to its goal of full and rapid rocket reusability,\u201d she said on tonight\u2019s webcast, which was watched by more than 25,000 YouTube users at its peak.<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX has tried to advance that reusability campaign by making as-yet unsuccessful attempts to recover the Falcon 9\u2019s nose cone, or fairing, after West Coast launches. But such attempts haven\u2019t yet been tried for East Coast missions like tonight\u2019s. The company\u2019s billionaire founder, Elon Musk, said engineers are also working on ways to recover the Falcon 9\u2019s second stage.<\/p>\n<p>Musk has said Block 5 will be the last major iteration for the Falcon 9. Attention will soon shift to the Falcon Heavy and the development of an even bigger launch vehicle known as the BFR, or Big Falcon Rocket.<\/p>\n<p>The Falcon 9 Block 5 and SpaceX\u2019s Crew Dragon are destined to be used for launching astronauts to the space station, starting as early as next April. Uncrewed tests of the full human-rated launch system still have to be completed, but each successful Block 5 launch gives NASA (and SpaceX) greater confidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The glare of a Falcon 9 rocket launch lights up the night at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. (SpaceX via YouTube) SpaceX sent Indonesia\u2019s Merah Putih telecommunications satellite into orbit tonight, marking the first reuse of its new-generation Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket booster. Liftoff came on time at 1:19 a.m. ET Tuesday [&hellip;]<\/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":[479,4434,316],"class_list":["post-18411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-falcon-9","tag-falcon-launch","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18411"}],"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=18411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}