SpaceX successfully recover back to the main floor of the Falcon 9 – 2 Photos
for its fourth launch of the year on the 18 referred, SpaceX has placed geostationary transfer orbit Japanese telecommunications satellite JCSat 14. 4.7 tons satellite was launched last night by a Falcon 9 launch vehicle since its launch site in Cape Canaveral, Florida. In a lifetime of at least 15 years, JCSat 14 will provide television and telecommunications services over the Asia, Russia, Oceania and some Pacific islands.
The main stage of the launcher was recovered on the barge SpaceX, at sea, despite a difficult launch configuration that did not guarantee his return. Indeed, given the mass of the satellite and the necessary speed in the final mission, the stage was much more fuel to perform various maneuvers essential to its return and landing.
main floor Recovery Falcon 9 used for the launch of eleven satellites in the constellation Orbcomm 2 © SpaceX in December 2015.
L access to space, a price war
with three floors recovered intact, SpaceX plans reusability of one of its stages this summer. As for the impact on the price of a Falcon 9 launch vehicle, now Elon Musk is not yet able to calculate precisely. Several flights will anyway be necessary before they can get an idea of the economic value of a re floor.
To demonstrate the reusability of this stage and its new engine is economically viable – which is not yet won – requires that the costs associated with loss performance (recovery, lower industrial rate …), those reclamation of the stage (including the verification and certification of new engines) and those using it for another launch are lower than the cost of two different pitches. In addition, for some time, the company will be faced with uncertainties about the reliability of the floor. She will succeed to convince customers to use a launcher used.
In this context, SpaceX has updated the prices of its launchers: $ 62 million (about 54 million) for the Falcon 9, regardless of the version of reusable or consumable, and $ 90 million (approximately EUR 79 million) to Falcon Heavy . In comparison, the cost target is 90 million euros ($ 101 million) for the heavy-lift Ariane 6 (Ariane 64).
The commercial and technical success of SpaceX are taken very seriously at Arianespace, although it does not believe that the partial reusability of a launcher is an economically viable solution to limit the cost access to space. The very aggressive pricing SpaceX and THEY (American company that markets the Proton) concern the French company. “Europe must take stock of what is happening in the United States because, if nothing is done in ten years, our launcher sector will be in big trouble “, alert Stéphane Israel, CEO of Arianespace, in an interview with the daily Le Monde .
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