SpaceX now has two successful rocket stage landings at sea and one on land. Four previous sea landing attempts resulted in the stage tipping over or landing too hard. This rocket launch was to geosynchronous orbit which meant it was travelling faster. A successful landing was “unlikely,” SpaceX wrote on YouTube before the successful sea landing. However, Spaces did succeed.
Reusing first stage rocket stages should lower costs by 40% and reduce launch prices by 30%.
Spacex will try to reuse all stages which could ultimately reduce costs by 10 to 100 times.
Before launch
After landing
May need to increase size of rocket storage hangar— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 6, 2016
Woohoo!! https://t.co/0P8n8VmFbr— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 6, 2016
Rocket reentry is a lot faster and hotter than last time, so odds of making it are maybe even, but we should learn a lot either way— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 6, 2016
The Spacex vision of reusable rockets
SOURCES – Twitter, Youtube, Washington Post
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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