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posted by mrpg on Thursday March 30 2017, @11:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the calima dept.

Ars Technica reports SpaceX launches, and lands its "flight proven" rocket:

SpaceX did it. Its flown booster launched on Thursday evening from Florida, delivered its payload into orbit, and then returned safely to Earth by landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. During a brief interview on the SpaceX webcast, company founder Elon Musk was almost at a loss for words. "It's been 15 years to get to this point," he said. "It's taken us a long time. A lot of difficult steps along the way."

Ars will have a comprehensive, new story posted later tonight.

Cnet reports SpaceX launches recycled rocket in historic first:

A few minutes after sending the Dragon on its way April 8, [2016] the rocket successfully landed on the SpaceX drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You" in the Atlantic Ocean. It was the first such Falcon 9 landing attempt that didn't end in a spectacular explosion. Clearly, this rocket had to be the one.

The rocket was recovered, reconditioned and reloaded for its second launch, which happened at 3:27 p.m. PT Thursday.

Roughly ten minutes later the Falcon 9 made its second visit to "Of Course I Still Love You" of the coast of Florida, landing right in the center of the landing pad bullseye.

"This is going to be ultimately a huge revolution in spaceflight," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said immediately after the landing. "It's the difference between if you had airplanes where you threw away an airplane after every flight versus you could reuse them multiple times."

Way to go SpaceX! I have watched rocket launches from way back in the Mercury, Gemini, and Saturn days, as well as many Shuttle launches. That we have finally reached a point where we can successfully vertically land then re-use rocket boosters kindles a feeling of amazement and awe in me that I struggle to put into words! This certainly adds credence to Elon Musk's plans to reduce the cost of commercial space launches and bodes well for his Mars ambitions, as well!

[Updated: 00:55 UTC] Launch and landing are available on YouTube: SES-10 Hosted Webcast and SES-10 Technical Webcast.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @12:14AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @12:14AM (#486835)

    There was some gossip that maybe they would attempt to recover the nose cone (or payload fairing) today. Anyone know if that actually happened or not?

  • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday March 31 2017, @01:58AM (1 child)

    by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 31 2017, @01:58AM (#486881) Journal
    There was some gossip that maybe they would attempt to recover the nose cone (or payload fairing) today. Anyone know if that actually happened or not?

    I was able to find this: https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/spacex-may-try-a-daring-rocket-fairing-recovery-tonight-too/ [arstechnica.com] (emphasis added.):

    In a Facebook post today, Steve Jurveston, a venture capitalist and SpaceX investor, wrote [facebook.com] from Florida, "At the historic Apollo 11 Pad 39A for the first reuse of a SpaceX booster (and first attempt at a fairing recovery)." SpaceX spokesman John Taylor would not immediately confirm the possibility of a payload fairing recovery.

    However, fairing recovery is a goal SpaceX has had for some time. Last April, after the first Falcon 9 landing at sea, SpaceX founder Elon Musk talked about recovering the fairing in the context of making launches low cost and routine. "As for things in the future, we'll be successful, ironically, when it becomes boring," he said [youtube.com]. "There's still a few more things we want to try and do. We want to try and bring the fairing, the big nose cone, back. And that will certainly help because usually those cost several million (dollars)."

    I had no idea those were so expensive! Have not found any official word on an actual recovery attempt or how it may have faired.

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday March 31 2017, @08:17PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday March 31 2017, @08:17PM (#487298) Journal

    http://www.space.com/36291-spacex-used-rocket-launch-landing-success.html [space.com]

    SpaceX also successfully recovered the Falcon 9's payload fairing — the nose cone that protected SES-10 during liftoff — Musk revealed during a post-launch teleconference with reporters. The $6 million fairing achieved its own soft landing in the Atlantic Ocean using an onboard thruster system and a parachute, Musk said.

    "That was definitely the cherry on the cake," he said, adding that SpaceX intends to re-fly payload fairings just as it does Falcon 9 first stages.

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