SpaceX Falcon 9 launches satellite, sticks ocean landing
Showing gold medal form early Sunday, a SpaceX rocket stuck an ocean landing minutes after lofting a Japanese communications satellite from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
The Falcon 9 rocket's 1:26 a.m. launch successfully sent the JCSAT-16 satellite on its way to an orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator for Tokyo-based Sky Perfect JSAT, Asia's largest satellite operator with 17 now in space.
Less than 10 minutes after liftoff, the first stage of the Falcon 9 deployed four landing legs while firing one of its nine main engines to slow its descent, and touched down gently on the football field-sized deck of an unpiloted ship parked roughly 400 miles offshore.
SpaceX considers booster landings during launches to high orbits, like Sunday's, to have the highest degree of difficulty. The rocket flies faster than on missions to low orbits, and is subjected to more intense heating as it drops about 75 miles back to Earth.
But company engineers drew inspiration from an American gymnast's recent acrobatics at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
"We’re channeling our inner Simone Biles, and we’re hoping to stick the landing," said Kate Tice, a process improvement engineer, during SpaceX's launch Webcast.
The rocket stage did just that, making it the sixth time in SpaceX's nine missions since December that a Falcon 9 booster has landed intact — four times at sea and twice on land back at Cape Canaveral.
The experimental landings are advancing SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's vision to develop reusable rockets that could upend the launch industry.
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The next step is to re-fly a used rocket, something Musk has said he expects to happen by this fall. SpaceX has been in discussions with at least one undisclosed potential customer.
The booster landed Sunday likely will take three or four days to return to Port Canaveral on the modified barge or "drone ship" that served as its landing platform, which SpaceX has named "Of Course I Still Love You" (a science fiction reference). Crews will weld steel shoes over the landing legs to keep the stage upright during the journey home.
SpaceX has been storing recovered rockets in its hangar at Kennedy Space Center, but is landing so many that it is actively looking for more space to house and refurbish the boosters.
Sunday's successful launch was SpaceX's eighth this year, adding to its best year ever, and the second of those for Sky Perfect JSAT. The Japanese company's latest satellite, JCSAT-16, will start off as a backup in orbit for its fleet providing broadcasting and telecommunications services.
SpaceX could launch two more Falcon 9 missions next month, one from Florida and one from California.
But another middle-of-the-night Cape launch is just days away. United Launch Alliance is preparing a Delta IV rocket to fly between midnight and 4 a.m. Friday with a pair of national security satellites for the U.S. Air Force.
Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com. And follow on Twitter at @flatoday_jdean and on Facebook at facebook.com/jamesdeanspace.