Explain … SpaceX – France Info

While SpaceX was able to recover the first stage of its rocket safely this weekend, France Info explain what this company.

SpaceX is the space race at the time of the “Recycling”. This American company to reuse model rockets and cargo space. It was created in 2002 by a charismatic man who at the time was 30 years, Elon Musk.

Breaking with Tradition Space

The idea of ​​SpaceX is to invent an inverse model that practiced for decades by the space industry, namely rocket launch, putting in orbit a satellite, the stages of the rocket fell into the atmosphere, disintegrate, and alone, the satellite remains, turning around the earth. It costs horribly expensive.

Recovery

The result, SpaceX wants to recover the rockets. The first exploit was held in December 2015 when the Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. After 2 minutes 30 flight, the first stage of the rocket (70 meters high) has halted its thrust, broke away from the rest of the launcher and returned to earth in reverse with the engine ignition in retros fashion , which slowed the fall and made possible the landing on land 9 km from the launch pad.

This weekend (Saturday, April 9, 2016), the Falcon 9 rocket has followed the same pattern except that the first floor is placed on a floating barge in the ocean off the coast of Florida.

also Freighters

On April 9, the Falcon 9 rocket launched another reusable craft of SpaceX, a Dragon capsule, which is a cargo of space intended to resupply the international space station ISS.

And here is the same. The book machine three tons of food, water and scientific equipment for the astronauts. It recovers waste and returns to earth. SpaceX is once again at odds with its competitors since the Russian Progress cargo ship disintegrates in the atmosphere once it has refueled the space station, as well as the European space freighter ATV.

Chess

Before this success, there have been many failed and especially the last in June 2015 with the explosion of the Falcon 9 rocket shortly after lift-off. The SpaceX company also failed to file for bankruptcy in 2008.

That said, we must not forget that at the beginning of the space race, when the Americans wanted to catch up on the Soviets at the end 50s, it was failure on failure.

But today, if the launches with back of the first floor begin to function, the head of SpaceX, Elon Musk, believes it can divide by 100 the cost of launches.

Elon Musk, the winner

Elon Musk was born in South Africa, but he lives in the US since 1992 and is 45 years old today. cool look, black T-shirt under the jacket, square jaw, this man has achieved a great deal by reselling in 2002 the company PayPal, online payment, of which he was part owner.

With the money, he founded SpaceX, which is found in the course of large, faced with behemoths like NASA or Arianespace.

= Musk Tesla

Elon Musk, it is also the electric car. Tesla cars, he took control of that company in 2008. The American stars like Beyonce, Cameron Diaz, Ben Affleck threw themselves quickly on Tesla.

But the goal of Elon Musk is a much wider audience. And that is party since the last model of the brand, “Tesla Model 3″ has already been preordered by 325,000 customers a few weeks after his presentation, while the car will only be available end of 2017 …