A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket recovered at sea from its maiden flight last year blasted off again from Florida on Thursday in the first successful launch of a recycled orbital-class booster, which scored a double feat with another return landing on an ocean platform.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The unprecedented twin achievements of launching a reusable rocket and salvaging the vehicle yet again for a possible third mission was hailed by billionaire SpaceX founder Elon Musk as a revolutionary milestone in his quest to slash launch costs and shorten intervals between space shots.<\/p>\n
The Falcon 9 booster, which previously flew in April 2016, lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 6:27 p.m. EDT (2227 GMT) to put a communications satellite into orbit for Luxembourg-based SES SA.<\/p>\n
The booster\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s main section then separated from the rest of the rocket and flew itself back to a landing pad in the Atlantic, where it successfully touched down for its second at-sea return.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is going to be ultimately a huge revolution in space flight,\u201d Musk said during a webcast from the launch control center at Cape Canaveral immediately after the Falcon 9\u2019s autonomous touchdown. \u201cIt\u2019s been 15 years to get to this point.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk said his California-based company\u2019s next goal in the burgeoning commercial space industry will be to turn around a salvaged rocket booster for re-launch within 24 hours, and to do so by the end of this year.<\/p>\n
SpaceX in December 2015 landed an orbital rocket after launch for the first time, a feat it has now repeated eight times.<\/p>\n
By reusing rockets, SpaceX aims to eventually cut its costs by about 30 percent, the company has said. It lists the cost of a Falcon 9 ride at $62 million but has not yet announced a price for flying on a recycled rocket.<\/p>\n
But Musk said his company has so far spent about $1 billion to develop reusability for the launch booster, the most expensive part of the rocket.<\/p>\n
Proving the concept works is crucial to SpaceX, which is moving on from an accident in September that damaged another Florida site.<\/p>\n
SpaceX also is working on a passenger spaceship, with two unidentified tourists signed up for a future trip around the moon. The company\u2019s long-term goal under founder Musk is to fly people to and from Mars.<\/p>\n
For its 33rd mission, SpaceX is reusing a Falcon 9 booster that was the first to make a successful return landing in the ocean. Four previous SpaceX at-sea landing attempts failed. The first successful ground-based touchdown of an orbital-class rocket booster came the previous December.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the rocket\u2019s second-stage, which is not recovered, continued firing to carry SES-10 into an initial egg-shaped orbit high above Earth, which it will provide television and other communications services to Latin America.<\/p>\n
SES received a discount for joining the inaugural run, chief technical officer Martin Halliwell told reporters this week, declining to specify the cost.<\/p>\n
Price alone was not the reason SES, with a fleet of 65 satellites, decided to fly on a used rocket, he said.\u2014Reuters<\/p>\n
Image: Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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