The gamble paid for Elon Musk and SpaceX. Six months after the explosion of a Falcon 9, the company of US billionaire has managed Monday for the first time to take off his launcher and then retrieve the first stage of its launch vehicle, income land safely on Earth after 11 minutes flight. Yet to most observers, it was an inflated bet, even risky, only six months after the end of failure in June The launcher model used on Tuesday, however, was different from the one that exploded June 28
The rocket took off at 8:29 p.m. (1:29 GMT Tuesday) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in the southeast of the United STATES. After a few minutes of ascent, the imposing first stage of the rocket, which gives it its power takeoff, broke away and began to fall back to Earth while the second floor continued to propel satellites into space . With engines that have slowed his fall, the first stage landed gently 11 minutes after takeoff, vertical, are we could see on the pictures of the operation broadcast live by the company Elon Musk. Until SpaceX had never succeeded, despite several attempts to land the pitcher on an offshore platform.
“Falcon has landed,” said the commentator mid enthusiastic cries of hundreds of guests who attended the operation from the command center in Hawthorne, Calif.
Satellites orbited
The second stage of the rocket has meanwhile managed within minutes to drop as expected its 11 satellites in low orbit around the Earth, the satellite communications company Orbcomm. “I do not believe it” , said during a teleconference after the launch, also founder Elon Musk electric car manufacturer Tesla. “I think this is a revolutionary moment. No one had returned to Earth intact an orbital launch vehicle class” , explained the CEO of California-based Space Exploration.
NASA hailed the feat. “SpaceX Congratulations on your successful return to Earth on the first floor!” Tweeted the US space agency.
The rocket reached an altitude of 200 kilometers before the first floor does back down to Earth and landed on a former rocket test center and the US Air Force missile that was used for the last time in 1978. Get the first floor of its Falcon 9 rocket will allow SpaceX to make substantial savings in the future. The company had tried several times, unsuccessfully so far, to land the pitcher on an offshore platform.
The financial benefits are enormous. Get a pitcher routinely to allow reuse, would greatly reduce the cost of setting orbite.Pour much will have to wait to see if the business model of a return to Earth on the first floor. “L The most difficult challenge is not to recover the first stage of the launcher but to redo the take off at an acceptable cost “, explained early 2015 the President of CNES? Jean-Yves Le Gall. The Americans have already faced this harsh reality with the space shuttle, which was to achieve an economic balance with 20 launches per year, says one at CNES. Is an unattainable dream for NASA at the time.
High economic issues
The challenges of launching Monday were high. This was the first flight of a rocket since the explosion SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle of a June 28 shortly after taking off from Cape Canaveral. The failure of a fastener that held a helium container in the second stage of the rocket is probably the cause of the accident, according to the survey. It was the first setback for SpaceX after eighteen successful launches, six of twelve planned to deliver cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of a contract of $ 1.6 billion with NASA. The Falcon 9 launcher, which flew Monday a new version is 30% more powerful, which would also improve the control of the first floor on his return at high speed into the atmosphere.
In November Another billionaire many talents, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, had managed to land its New Shepard suborbital rocket after a flight. A feat, but less difficult to accomplish than what Elon Musk realized that the pitcher went into orbit, according to experts. Jeff Bezos has also welcomed on Twitter successful flight SpaceX.
And France?
Faced with the threat of the US company launch SpaceX satellites owned by billionaire including Elon Musk, the France goes into battle order not to fall behind the competition in reusable launchers … even if today’s economic model has not yet been demonstrated. But operators of all kinds, including SES, desperate to reduce the cost of access to space to develop new markets, hitherto constrained by the prices of launches.
“ In a context of heightened competition, CNES and ONERA (aerospace research center, ed) have decided to pool their skills to consider the feasibility of future reusable launch vehicles “, explained the President of CNES, Jean-Yves Le Gall in a joint statement of the National Centre for Space Studies and ONERA released Friday. On its website, ONERA said that “so that Europe can continue to have on the long term of a launcher that remains economically viable and thus independent access to space, it is time to study and prepare a launcher that allows to take the next step in cutting costs, beyond the progress of Ariane 6 “.
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