{"id":19017,"date":"2017-03-30T21:36:42","date_gmt":"2017-03-30T13:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/its-another-first-for-spacex-previously-launched-falcon-9-rocket-lifts-off-and-lands-a-second-time\/"},"modified":"2017-03-30T21:36:42","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T13:36:42","slug":"its-another-first-for-spacex-previously-launched-falcon-9-rocket-lifts-off-and-lands-a-second-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/its-another-first-for-spacex-previously-launched-falcon-9-rocket-lifts-off-and-lands-a-second-time\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s another first for SpaceX! Previously launched Falcon 9 rocket lifts off and lands a second time"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"SpaceX
SpaceX\u2019s first reflown Falcon 9 booster rises from its Florida launch pad. (SpaceX Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today SpaceX did something it\u2019s never done before: reusing a Falcon 9 rocket booster that\u2019s already been launched and landed.<\/p>\n

The Falcon 9 mission to send the SES-10 communications satellite into geosynchronous transfer orbit lifted off at 6:27 p.m. ET (3:27 p.m. PT) from Launch Complex 39A at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center, marking a milestone in SpaceX founder Elon Musk\u2019s drive to lower the cost of access to space.<\/p>\n

More remarkably, the booster landed once more at sea after sending a payload into orbit. SpaceX was even able to bring the rocket\u2019s payload fairing down for a parachute-aided splashdown in the Atlantic, Musk reported afterward.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an amazing day for space as a whole, for the space industry,\u201d he said just after the landing. He paid tribute to the SpaceX team, saying \u201cit\u2019s been 15 years to get to this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he spoke, hundreds of SpaceX\u2019s employees were cheering at the company\u2019s California headquarters, and the launch webcast was getting 140,000 simultaneous views.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=sPEPKGEQuiU<\/p>\n

If repeat liftoffs and landings become routine, SpaceX estimates that could reduce the cost of a launch by 10 to 30 percent, which could shave from $6 million to $20 million off the already-low $62 million list price for a Falcon 9 mission. Musk says that\u2019s the kind of reusability required to make trips to Mars affordable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to be, ultimately, a huge revolution in spaceflight,\u201d Musk said. \u201cIt\u2019s the difference between, if you had airplanes where you threw away an airplane after every flight, versus you could reuse them multiple times.\u201d<\/p>\n

SpaceX has recovered eight first-stage boosters after launch: three on land, and five at sea. The booster that was reused for today\u2019s launch made its maiden flight almost a year ago, sending a robotic Dragon capsule toward the International Space Station and then landing at sea.<\/p>\n

In the months since then, SpaceX refurbished the first stage, tested it and added a brand-new second stage to the stack. Eventually, the company aims to trim the turnaround time to a matter of weeks, days or even hours.<\/p>\n

Luxembourg-based SES got an undisclosed price break for being the first to go with a booster that SpaceX likes to call \u201cflight-proven.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first-stage booster sent the 5.5-ton satellite on the first leg of its trek to geostationary orbit, more than 22,000 miles above Earth. From that height, SES-10 will provide enhanced Ku-band video and data services to Latin America.<\/p>\n

\"SpaceX
A video screen grab shows the Falcon 9 fist stage standing on a drone ship christened \u201cOf Course I Still Love You.\u201d (SpaceX via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Minutes after launch, the Falcon 9\u2019s second stage separated and continued the ascent. The first stage then relit its Merlin rocket engines to slow down its supersonic descent, and maneuvered toward a floating platform known as \u201cOf Course I Still Love You,\u201d stationed hundreds of miles out in the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n

The video for the webcast was momentarily lost, introducing a few seconds of suspense. But an announcer called out that the landing was a success, and a restored video feed showed the booster standing tall on the autonomous drone ship, sparking a fresh round of cheers at SpaceX\u2019s headquarters.<\/p>\n

Cheers rose again about a half-hour later when the second stage relit its rocket engine and put SES-10 into its proper orbit.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/strong> What next? Elon Musk sees rocket reusability as the route to Mars<\/h4>\n

Musk said the relaunched, re-recovered booster will be brought back to the Florida coast, and would probably be donated to Cape Canaveral. \u201cWe think this one has some historic value, so we\u2019re thinking of seeing if perhaps the Cape might like to have it as something to remember the moment,\u201d Musk said.<\/p>\n

Over the past year and a half, Blue Origin has launched the same New Shepard rocket booster five times for suborbital test flights, earning accolades for the Seattle-area space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos. However, SpaceX\u2019s orbital launches are far more challenging, leading some to call today\u2019s advance in rocket reusability a \u201cWright Brothers moment for space.\u201d<\/p>\n

During a post-launch news conference, Musk said he expected other space companies to move toward full rocket reusability, just as SpaceX is doing. Blue Origin, for example, plans to have its New Glenn orbital boosters fly themselves back to an oceangoing platform that looks a lot like SpaceX\u2019s drone ship.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s that saying about the best form of flattery?\u201d Musk joked.<\/p>\n

Martin Halliwell, chief technical officer for SES, said he\u2019s already planning to have two more of his satellite payloads put on flight-proven Falcon 9 rockets, and he predicted that others will quickly follow suit.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy belief is, within 24 months \u2026 it\u2019ll be irrelevant if it\u2019s new or it\u2019s pre-flown,\u201d Halliwell said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SpaceX\u2019s first reflown Falcon 9 booster rises from its Florida launch pad. (SpaceX Photo) Today SpaceX did something it\u2019s never done before: reusing a Falcon 9 rocket booster that\u2019s already been launched and landed. The Falcon 9 mission to send the SES-10 communications satellite into geosynchronous transfer orbit lifted off at 6:27 p.m. ET (3:27 […]<\/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":[291,4434,20,316],"class_list":["post-19017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-commercial-space","tag-falcon-launch","tag-satellite","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19017"}],"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=19017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19017\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}