SpaceX’s Falcon 9 first-stage booster descends toward a landing on a ship in the Pacific Ocean after the Jason 3 launch. SpaceX says the booster tipped over due to a landing-leg failure. (Credit: SpaceX)
Rocket launches can sometimes turn into flame wars, as shown by last year’s Twitter tug of war between space-minded billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
That rivalry crossed over into the Twittersphere in November, when the Amazon founder used his first tweet to tout the landing of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spacecraft after its first test flight to an outer-space altitude.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rises into the fog from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, sending the Jason 3 sea-watching satellite into space. (Credit: NASA)
Less than a month after SpaceX’s first successful rocket landing, billionaire Elon Musk’s company tried to do it again today – but this time, one of the rocket’s landing legs failed, resulting in a tumble onto its oceangoing landing platform.
Oh, and the Falcon 9 rocket launched a satellite, too.
The primary objective of today’s launch was to put the Jason 3 ocean-mapping satellite into orbit for NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Eumetsat and the French space agency CNES. Jason 3 is designed to monitor changes in sea level from orbit, continuing a decades-long campaign of measurements.
The rocket rose into the fog from its launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, right on time at 10:42 a.m. PT. The launch was judged as a success, but SpaceX had been hoping for a successful landing, too.
An artist’s conception shows Sierra Nevada’s uncrewed version of the Dream Chaser space glider in orbit with a cargo module attached at the back. (Credit: Sierra Nevada Corp.)
NASA says it will add Sierra Nevada Corp.’s Dream Chaser space glider to its cargo-carrying lineup of robotic spaceships as early as 2019. It’s likely to be the first winged vehicle to fly in orbit for NASA since the space shuttle fleet’s retirement in 2011.
“Within a few short years, the world will once again see a United States winged vehicle launch and return from space to a runway landing,” Mark Sirangelo, corporate vice president of Sierra Nevada Corp. Space Systems, said in a statement about the Dream Chaser’s selection.
During a televised briefing today, NASA officials said it also will continue to use SpaceX’s Dragon and Orbital ATK’s Cygnus capsules to resupply the International Space Station in the 2019-2024 time frame. By that time, the Dragon could well be capable of touching down on land.
The upgrades in SpaceX’s robotic Dragon, along with the addition of the Dream Chaser, are expected to bring new capabilities to NASA’s orbital delivery system.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket fires its engines during a launch-pad test at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Monday evening. (Credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX fired the engines of its Falcon 9 rocket on its California launch pad on Monday evening, marking a seemingly successful rehearsal for this weekend’s launch of the Jason 3 ocean-monitoring satellite.
But the rocket’s trickiest maneuver – flying its first-stage booster down to a landing on a platform in the Pacific Ocean – can’t be practiced in advance. For that, SpaceX will have to draw upon past experience, including last month’s rocket touchdown in Florida.
A Falcon 9 booster descends toward a ship during SpaceX’s April landing try in the Atlantic. The attempt was unsuccessful, but SpaceX plans to try again in the Pacific on Jan. 17. (Credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX is planning something completely different for its next rocket-landing trick: After launching the U.S.-European Jason 3 satellite on a Falcon 9, it’ll have the first-stage booster fly itself back and try to touch down on a drone ship off California’s coast.
Well, maybe it’s not completely different: The attempt, scheduled for Jan. 17, follows up on last month’s spectacularly successful first-stage landing in Cape Canaveral, Fla. But this could be the first successful at-sea retro rocket landing in history, and the first West Coast rocket recovery.
Landing the booster would be considered a bonus rather than a requirement for mission success. The main objective is to send Jason 3 into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, adding it to a series of sea-observing satellites.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (in hat and sunglasses) pops open a bottle of champagne after Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket landing in November. (Credit: Blue Origin)
When Jeff Bezos welcomed SpaceX to the rocket landing “club” last week, it set off a round of twittering over whether Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture and fellow billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX were really in the same league. What kind of club was Bezos talking about?
The club that Bezos had in mind was precisely defined: It consists of ventures that can launch a rocket booster from the ground into space, and then bring that booster back intact for a vertical landing.
Blue Origin was the first to become a member, during a November test flight of its suborbital New Shepard spaceship in Texas. SpaceX followed in December, with the successful landing of its Falcon 9’s first-stage booster after the launch of 11 Orbcomm telecommunication satellites.
Lots of folks have pointed out how much more difficult it is to bring back a booster after an orbital launch, as opposed to New Shepard’s up-and-down suborbital trip. The Falcon 9 stage is more than 10 times as powerful and rose twice as high as New Shepard. The implications are greater, as well: Musk says total rocket reusability could lower the cost of delivering satellites and other payloads to orbit by a factor of 100, and eventually open the way for building a city on Mars.
Based on Bezos’ narrow definition of the club, Blue Origin may have been the first member, but this month SpaceX took the lead.
An animation shows a lander separating from the rest of the Mars Colonial Transporter. Later concepts suggest that the entire MCT would land as a unit. (Credit: Michel Lamontagne / ESA via YouTube)
In the wake of SpaceX’s successful rocket landing, some of the company’s most ardent fans are guessing at the shape of the biggest thing to come: the Mars Colonial Transporter.
The MCT is a crucial piece in SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s grand plan to send tens of thousands of colonists to the Red Planet, potentially starting in the next decade or two. Such a venture would mark a giant leap toward establishing a second cosmic home for humanity. Musk believes that’s a must if we’re to guard against extinction due to pandemics, asteroid strikes or other planet-wide catastrophes.
Brig. Gen. Wayne Monteith, commander of the U.S. Air Force’s 45th Space Wing, said the Florida landing “clearly placed the exclamation mark on 2015, by closing out another successful year for the Eastern Range in historic fashion.”
The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket was launched on Monday night from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, successfully sending 11 communication satellites into orbit for Orbcomm.
That would have been significant enough, coming nearly six months after a Falcon launch failure forced SpaceX to hold up on its space missions. But the first-stage booster’s return to a converted missile range, now dubbed Landing Zone 1, marked the first time that a rocket returned safely to ground after launching an orbital mission.
The Blue Origin space venture demonstrated a similar rocket return during asuborbital test mission last month, but SpaceX’s feat carries even bigger implications for lowering the cost of access to orbit. Bottom line? The pace of the commercial space race is heating up – so enjoy the show on SpaceX’s Flickr site and YouTube channel,
The Falcon 9 rocket’s first-stage booster sets down at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1. (Credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket for the first time in six months today, and then brought he first-stage booster back down for a first-ever Florida landing.
“The Falcon has landed!” SpaceX’s launch commentator announced.
Hundreds of SpaceX employees cheered the touchdown at the company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. “USA! USA! USA!” they chanted.
The flight’s main objective was to send 11 satellites into low Earth orbit to boost Orbcom’s OG2 network for machine-to-machine communications. The landing attempt was a bonus, aimed at furthering SpaceX’s goal of bringing down the cost of spaceflight dramatically.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket stands on its Florida launch pad. (Credit: Orbcomm)
SpaceX has delayed the launch of its Falcon 9 rocket with 11 Orbcomm telecommunication satellites for a day, to wait for a better chance to land the rocket’s first-stage booster after liftoff.
The commercial rocket company’s billionaire founder, Elon Musk, said the decision to put off Sunday’s scheduled launch attempt was made after a review of the mission parameters. In a tweet, he said an analysis of probabilistic Monte Carlo simulations showed there was a “10 percent higher chance of a good landing” on Monday night.
As a result, the countdown was delayed 24 hours. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida is now scheduled for 8:33 p.m. ET (5:33 p.m. PT) Monday. Forecasters said there was an 80 percent chance of favorable weather conditions for launch.
