SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket successfully conducted its first soft landing in July, and its video captured through a plane nearby was officially released on YouTube for the public.
The video shows Falcon descending into the ocean, following the delivery of six ORBCOMM OG2 commercial satellites to space 15 minutes right after its launch.
“ORBCOMM’s OG2 satellites will provide existing customers with significant enhancements, such as faster message delivery, larger message sizes and better coverage at higher latitudes, while dramatically increasing network capacity,” the company said in an earlier statement.
Subsequently, Falcon used the first rocket stage to enter again the atmosphere of the Earth and eventually land on the Atlantic Ocean.
“This test confirms that the Falcon 9 booster is able consistently to reenter from space at hypersonic velocity, restart main engines twice, deploy landing legs and touch down at near zero velocity,” said SpaceX.
The company, however, explained that the unusual landing style of the rocket is attributed to the fact that Falcon was not designed to land on water.
SpaceX has made three successful attempts to transport back home a rocket. First was in September 2013, second was in April this year and third was this July. Each of these launches provided scientists helpful information on the procedures of safely bringing a rocket back home.
Research said the successful flight back home of Falcon rocket likewise signified the company’s success in developing a reusable rocket. The most expensive portion of a space launch is the rocket, so when the idea of a reusable one is completely pursued, it can minimize the cost to a maximum factor of 100. The rocket doesn’t also need to be refurbished, the company said.
SpaceX thinks such new technology—developing reusable rockets—could indicate the start of space exploration’s new era. However, there’s a drawback seen: the big amount of required propellant to slow down the rocket from extremely high speed. With the present technology, long-term missions aren’t capable of holding much fuel yet. It is for this reason that the company is working on a far advanced rocket called Falcon Heavy, according to The Space Reporter.
Regardless, such initiatives are said to be part of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s bigger vision of an active spaceport launching rockets regularly. The company went into recent talks with Texas State for the building of a spaceport. He also reiterated that it’s his mission to bring humans to outer space as well as to colonize Mars in the future.
