SpaceX lands fourth booster after successful Falcon 9 launch
SpaceX on Friday landed its third consecutive rocket on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean, during a mission that successfully launched a commercial communications satellite to orbit.
“Falcon 9 has landed,” a member of SpaceX’s launch team confirmed about 10 minutes after a 230-foot Falcon 9 rocket's 5:39 p.m. blastoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
About 20 minutes later, the rocket's upper stage deployed the Thaicom 8 satellite in orbit as planned.
"All looks good," reported SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
Later, Musk said the rocket's first stage had landed at close to the top speed it was designed to handle, possibly undermining its stability on the ship floating more than 400 miles offshore.
"Prob ok, but some risk of tipping," he said on Twitter.
If it stayed upright, crews planned to board the unpiloted "drone ship" to weld shoes over the rocket's four landing legs and sail it back to Port Canaveral within a few days.
Musk's comment was a reminder that despite a remarkable run of three straight booster landings and four in the company's last six missions, the landings remain experimental.
SpaceX's goal is to cut launch costs by reusing rockets. Musk eventually wants to achieve aircraft-like operations, with teams needing only to hose down down and refuel rockets between flights.
But the rockets landed Friday and three weeks ago have sustained more damage, possibly too much to allow them to fly again.
That's not surprising, since their landings were considered the most difficult yet to pull off. Both missions launched communications satellites on their way to orbits more than 22,000 miles over the equator, requiring more speed.
After completing their engine burns and separating, the roughly 14-story boosters dropped more than 70 miles, hitting the atmosphere at about 4,000 mph.
Descending at that high velocity, the rockets were seared with heating five times more intense than on missions to lower orbits, like SpaceX’s launches of cargo to the International Space Station.
And the rockets had less fuel to spare for engine firings that slowed their fall.
Despite those challenges, the Falcon 9 booster on Friday again deployed its legs and touched down on the football field-sized deck of the ship named "Of Course I Still Love You," prompting another celebration from employees gathered at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
If it returns to shore, the Falcon 9 booster will join three others stored in a hangar at Kennedy Space Center, beginning to strain its capacity: the hangar can only hold five.
The first recovered booster, landed Dec. 21 on a pad at Cape Canaveral, may soon move to SpaceX headquarters for display as a historical artifact.
SpaceX says it hopes to re-fly a rocket for the first time later this year, using the stage landed in April during an ISS resupply mission.
Boeing, SpaceX progressing toward crew launches
Whatever their condition, each recovered booster gives engineers a chance to learn more about how systems fared during flight, potentially leading to design improvements.
SpaceX plans to launch another commercial satellite mission before its next ISS supply run, which is scheduled for no earlier than July 16. That mission will be the next attempting to return a Falcon 9's first stage to land.
Friday's successful launch grew Thaicom PLC's satellite fleet to five.
The roughly 7,000-pound Thaicom 8 satellite, built by Orbital ATK, is designed to beam high-definition TV channels and data services to Thailand, India and Africa for at least 15 years, complementing two other satellites already in orbit.
Thaicom said the spacecraft and launch cost about $180 million combined.
"Its mission is to enable Thaicom to meet the fast growing demand of the broadcasting industry in Asia markets as it transitions from standard definition to high definition, and ultimately, to ultra-high definition broadcasting," said Thitipa Laxanaphisuth, a spokeswoman for Thaicom. "With the launch of Thaicom 8, the company continues to be one of the leading providers of satellite services to the broadcasting industry in Asia."
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