Photo: SpaceX/Flickr
SpaceX, the dream of an entrepreneur named Elon Musk, managed to soft-land a rocket on a drone ship for the second time in a row.
Let that sink in. Landing a rocket on a drone ship. That’s an achievement, and it gets funny as the latter is called “Of Course I Still Love You.”
SpaceX has done this twice in a row with the same vessel and craft, and this is the second time ever that landing a rocket on a drone ship has been accomplished.
This time, SpaceX did not just launch their rocket, but also a Japanese communication satellite called JCSAT-14 on their Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
We must note that the company landed the first stage of the rocket on the specified drone ship with a James Bond-ish name, with a tad of Austin Powers influence.
As TechCrunch notes, the same drone ship performed SpaceX’s first rocket recovery. According to specialists, this soft-landing had “slim” odds of success, as “the mission requirements for this distinct launch” made things tricky. According to Elon Musk, their odds of success were “maybe even,” but he claimed the SpaceX team should “learn a lot either way.”
The difference between the two launches was that JCSAT-14, the cargo of SpaceX’s latest launch, needed to be settled into geosynchronous orbit at an altitude of 22,000 miles. The previous launch of a SpaceX rocket that ended in a successful recovery included sending supplies to the space station, which is placed in “low Earth orbit.”
This time, the SpaceX rocket returned at twice the speed of the previous attempt. We are talking about a velocity of around two kilometers per second (1,24 miles/second). One kilometer per second means 3,600 km/h (2,236 MPH).
The latest achievement from the SpaceX team marks the fourth successful flight this year. Along with the two drone ship recoveries, SpaceX performed a rocket landing on the ground as well. Elon Musk wants to reuse the rockets they recover, and the first one should fly again in four months.
SpaceX has done this twice in a row with the same vessel and craft, and this is the second time ever that landing a rocket on a drone ship has been accomplished.
This time, SpaceX did not just launch their rocket, but also a Japanese communication satellite called JCSAT-14 on their Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
We must note that the company landed the first stage of the rocket on the specified drone ship with a James Bond-ish name, with a tad of Austin Powers influence.
As TechCrunch notes, the same drone ship performed SpaceX’s first rocket recovery. According to specialists, this soft-landing had “slim” odds of success, as “the mission requirements for this distinct launch” made things tricky. According to Elon Musk, their odds of success were “maybe even,” but he claimed the SpaceX team should “learn a lot either way.”
The difference between the two launches was that JCSAT-14, the cargo of SpaceX’s latest launch, needed to be settled into geosynchronous orbit at an altitude of 22,000 miles. The previous launch of a SpaceX rocket that ended in a successful recovery included sending supplies to the space station, which is placed in “low Earth orbit.”
This time, the SpaceX rocket returned at twice the speed of the previous attempt. We are talking about a velocity of around two kilometers per second (1,24 miles/second). One kilometer per second means 3,600 km/h (2,236 MPH).
The latest achievement from the SpaceX team marks the fourth successful flight this year. Along with the two drone ship recoveries, SpaceX performed a rocket landing on the ground as well. Elon Musk wants to reuse the rockets they recover, and the first one should fly again in four months.
Rocket reentry is a lot faster and hotter than last time, so odds of making it are maybe even, but we should learn a lot either way
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 6, 2016
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