This is a feat! SpaceX was able to take off a Falcon 9 rocket and then, 11 minutes later, to recover the first stage of its launch vehicle, income soft landing on Earth vertically. A sequence as difficult as “throwing a pencil on top of the Empire State Building and make the land on his gum in a shoe box … in the middle of a storm,” said a spokesman for the Elon Musk society. And no, it’s not a fad billionaire.
A “revolution” hailed by NASA
The reading challenge was technological and economical both. It was for Elon Musk to regain control after a failure: the explosion of the Falcon 9 rocket on 28 June. A 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. SpaceX has not specified whether these supplies were due to resume soon, but his demonstration impressed NASA who pulled his hat on Twitter at Elon Musk.
The multibillion does not sulk his pleasure and evokes a “revolutionary moment”. “No one had returned intact to Earth orbiting a class bowler,” said the CEO of the California Space Exploration Society. Is right. The company had tried several times, unsuccessfully so far, to land the pitcher on an offshore platform.
For his return, the Falcon 9 rocket has even been improved and it is a new release 30% more powerful that took off on Monday. This power has enabled better control first floor when he returned at high speed in the atmosphere, while the second floor has dropped as expected its 11 satellites in low orbit around the Earth, the satellite communications company Orbcomm. We almost forget the …
The financial impact of this feat is enormous. Get a pitcher routinely to allow reuse could upset the launch of the industry by significantly reducing the costs of putting into orbit. This was, originally, a long-term goal and SpaceX Elon Musk … but they did not count with his rival Jeff Bezos and his company Blue Origin.
What says his rival Jeff Bezos?
In November, another billionaire many talents, founder of Amazon, had groomed him the pawn managing to land its New Shepard rocket after a non-manned suborbital flight, a first. The pitcher and pressurized capsule, capable of carrying six people were laid separately and safely close to the launch site in Texas.
However analysts had explained that he was not the same thing: it is much easier to control the return of a launcher such as Blue Origin, which flies less for a suborbital flight, the first floor of Falcon 9. The latter went into orbit before returning to land, vertical … Jeff Bezos on Twitter also welcomed the successful flight of SpaceX, without giving way No. 1 in the “club”.
The competition between the two new heavyweights Space does give rise to other exploits? For now, Elon Musk appears to have taken hold of this plan also, judging by the many tweets bringing Jeff Bezos on Earth. “You’re in space tourism, man …”, gives him a user, while another is talking about his talent and Paint expected following the soap opera, popcorn in hand.
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