Watching live images of the flight of the SpaceX rocket, you’d see a video played in reverse: a rocket descends rapidly towards the Earth – its reactor spitting toward the ground a bright yellow glow – then stops, perfectly vertical
However, the video is in the right direction: the SpaceX company successfully, Monday, December 21, to take off a Falcon 9 rocket, then saute the first. stage of its launch vehicle on land, an unprecedented operation.
The rocket took off at about 20: 30 pm local time (2 h 30 to Paris) from Cape Canaveral in Florida. After a few minutes of ascent and as the second stage of the rocket continued its ascent into space for its satellite into orbit, the imposing first floor stood out for falling back to Earth.
using engines that have slowed his fall, he landed gently 11 minutes after takeoff. The second stage of the rocket has meanwhile succeeded him within minutes to drop as expected its 11 satellites in low orbit around the Earth.
Exploit technical, economic issue
If SpaceX, the company billionaire Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, comes to systematize the return to Earth of its rockets, it may reuse, realizing substantial savings in the highly lucrative space launch market.
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Before the explosion of a Falcon 9 launch vehicle at the last company test June 28, Space X had never met failure meaningful to launch its rockets into space. However, it had so far never managed to get them back on the ground, despite several tests on an offshore platform.
In November, Blue Origin, the company of another billionaire The Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, had managed to land its New Shepard suborbital rocket after a flight. A feat, but less difficult to achieve than what the company achieved Elon Musk including the pitcher went into orbit
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