Space: SpaceX managed again to get his pitcher on a barge at sea – Boursorama

Launch of a Falcon 9 rocket July 18, 2016 (archive). (AFP / BRUCE WEAVER)

Starting a Falcon 9 rocket July 18, 2016 (archive). (AFP / BRUCE WEAVER)

The American company SpaceX has once again managed to recover Sunday some of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle on an offshore platform, after the successful launch of a satellite Japanese communication.

The Falcon 9 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 1:26 (5:26 GMT), with a mission to place a Japanese telecommunications satellite JCSAT-16 into geostationary transfer orbit.

once the mission was accomplished, the first stage of the rocket landed smoothly on a drone-ship named “of Course I Still Love You”

– Objective:. reduce launch costs –

this is the sixth time that the California company founded and run by billionaire Elon Musk, manages this delicate maneuver, and the fourth on a floating barge in the Atlantic ocean

.

SpaceX hopes to regularly collecting the first floor of Falcon 9, reuse, which should significantly reduce launch costs and potentially upset the sector of orbiting satellites and access to space in general .

Elon Musk had said in April that fuel the rocket cost $ 300,000 and the cost of production of $ 60 million pitcher. So far the first floor of the launchers were destroyed by returning to high speed into the atmosphere.