After the added pressure of two failed landing attempts, SpaceX successfully sent its Falcon 9 rocket to space and then proceeded to get it back to land in a gentle controlled landing.
SpaceX wants to cut down the costs of reaching space, and it wants to achieve that using reusable rockets than can fly, land, and fly again. Sadly, after some initial good test runs, the latest landing attempts on a floating barge didn't end up well - which only put even more pressure to today's flight.
This time we didn't have a test flight but an actual cargo mission, that intended to deploy 11 ORBCOMM satellites in orbit. The landing phase was just it's secondary objective, being also the first time the Falcon 9 would be landing on solid ground. And thankfully, everything worked as intended.
Though Elon Musk wants to keep this Falcon 9 on the ground, the idea is that it would soon be ready to fly again after some minor revisions and maintenance (it will still be tested and fired to prove it would work and could reach space once again). Seems he wants to keep this piece of space History safe for the upcoming generations. :)
Reaching space is a tiny bit easier but we're still waiting for the day we can send things up there via a space elevator and requiring no fiery columns of fire and smoke to get there. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment