Update: They stuck the landing! Roughly 10 minutes after takeoff, SpaceX successfully brought the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket back down to the landing pad!
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 22, 2015
Update: The launch was pushed back 24 hours and is currently scheduled for December 21, 8:33 PM EST.
This evening, sometime between 8 and 9 PM EST, SpaceX will attempt to launch its new-and-improved Falcon 9 rocket into orbit. If everything goes smoothly, it’ll take off from Cape Canaveral, blast over 400 miles into the sky, and release eleven Orbcomm OG2 satellites into low Earth orbit.
This will be the first launch attempt that the company has mounted since June, but that’s not why this launch is exciting. This particular attempt is so riveting because after the rocket’s payload is delivered, Elon Musk and company will try yet again to recover the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket. If they can stick the landing, it’ll be a watershed moment for space travel.
The primary goal of the mission is to safely get the client’s payload into orbit. That’s what people pay SpaceX for, and that’s a big part of how the company keeps the lights on — big launch contracts from space agencies and telecoms looking to get stuff into orbit. But SpaceX’s secondary goal — landing rockets so they can be re-used — has much broader implications for the future of space travel. If Elon Musk and Co. can develop reusable rockets, it’ll drastically drive down the cost of launching stuff into orbit and usher in a new era for space travel.
Here’s the livestream (and if this one doesn’t work, you can watch everything go down at spacex.com/webcast):
Right now, getting stuff up into space is ridiculously expensive. It varies from launch to launch, but costs typically range from about $5,000 to $15,000 per pound. That makes putting things into orbit prohibitively expensive for smaller companies that don’t have deep pockets. If SpaceX can figure out this reusable rocket thing though, it’ll lower the cost of entry for anyone and everyone looking to get something into space. The proverbial floodgates will be open, and in a few years time, space will be like the wild west — filled with opportunities for anyone brave or enterprising enough to go there.
SpaceX has been working on reusable rockets for years now, and while it hasn’t managed to safely bring one back down from orbit quite yet, it’s getting closer and closer with each attempt. Musk and Co. have experienced their fair share of setbacks, but now the company is back with a new-and-improved Falcon 9 rocket that could finally stick the landing.
The upgraded Falcon 9 is five feet taller than the previous version — 229 feet — and features an extended “interstage” section that separates the first and second stages, along with an improved stage separation system. This rocket will also use colder, denser-than-usual liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants, which allow the booster’s nine Merlin 1D first-stage engines to generate more power, increasing their combined liftoff thrust from 1.3 million pounds to 1.5 million. It’s also equipped with previously developed “X-wing” fins that help guide the craft to the landing zone during reentry. By all accounts, this is the most advanced Falcon 9 SpaceX has ever built — and it could be the first one they manage to land.
Still, there’s no telling what will happen during tonight’s launch. All we can do is cross our fingers and watch. Forecasters are currently predicting a 90-percent chance of favorable weather, and liftoff from launch complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is targeted for 8:29 p.m. EST (GMT-5) Sunday. Stay tuned for updates!
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.