16:12
For the second month in a row, the aerospace upstart SpaceX landed a rocket on an ocean platform early Friday, this time following the successful launch of a Japanese communications satellite.
A live webcast showed the
first-stage booster touching down vertically in the pre-dawn darkness atop a
barge in the Atlantic, just off the Florida coast. The same thing occurred
April 8 during a space station supply run for NASA. That was the first
successful landing at sea for SpaceX, which expects to start reusing its
unmanned Falcon rockets as early as this summer to save money and lower costs.
Because of the high altitude needed
for this mission, SpaceX did not expect a successful landing. But it was wrong.
As the launch commentator happily declared, "The Falcon has landed."
SpaceX founder and chief executive
Elon Musk was even more exuberant. "Woohoo!!" he exclaimed in bold
letters via Twitter.
"May need to increase size of
rocket storage hangar," he added in a tweet.
Musk said this was a three-engine
burn for the booster's return, "so triple deceleration from the last
flight." Before liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida, he put the chances
of a successful touchdown at "maybe even" because the rocket was
coming in faster and hotter than last time
Musk contends rocket reusability is
key to shaving launch costs and making space more accessible.
SpaceX is the only company to
recover a rocket following an orbital launch. It achieved its first booster
landing—on solid ground at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station—in December. A
landing at sea proved more elusive and required several tries.
Blue Origin, led by another wealthy
high-tech entrepreneur, Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, has landed and even reflown
its booster rockets, but those did not put anything into orbit.
photosource: spacex shows the company's falcon rocket.
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