UPDATE: Get your jolly flags out, SpaceX has done it again. The Elon Musk-backed private space agency has completed its fourth successful recovery at a ground-based landing zone. This is another significant development for SpaceX, who have landed back the Falcon 9 rocket booster back on land after a successful launch — which wasn’t shown in the live feed due to security reasons.
Falcon 9 first stage has landed at LZ-1 https://t.co/gtC39uBC7z pic.twitter.com/766RxdZ99X
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 1, 2017
Now, the company plans to take this rocket booster back to their workshop for further inspection. It will make improvement and the quirks in the first stage if any, to get it ready for another launch in any of the upcoming missions. This explains that SpaceX is steadily moving towards achieving its ambitious mission of complete reusability — with an aim to cut down re-launch time to under 24 hours.
PREVIOUSLY: SpaceX is now ready to add another feather to its overloaded hat. The private space agency has been tasked with the launch of its first classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. This is a super secretive U.S military launch mission and no details on the payload called ‘NROL-76’ have been made public.
This is the second attempt of this national security mission for SpaceX, who scrubbed yesterday’s launch when only one minute was left in Falcon 9’s take-off. The team detected some issue with the sensors on the first stage, which the company usually lands back on Earth — either on solid ground or a drone ship in the middle of the ocean.
Standing down today due to a sensor issue; backup launch opportunity tomorrow morning.
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 30, 2017
The launch was originally scheduled for Sunday morning where the private space agency had a two-hour window to make the launch. But, the sensor issue led to instant cancellation and rescheduling of the spy satellite launch to the next suitable retry window, which is 7 am EDT (4 am PDT or 16:45 p. IST). This is also a two-hour launch window and the Falcon 9 lift-off will take place from the Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Here’s your live feed for the launch attempt:
As already mentioned above, the NROL-76 satellite is of importance to national security, thus no information about the payload, the nature, and target of the orbit have been released to the public. Earlier, the U.S military spent billions of dollars to exclusively launch its secretive government payloads with United Launch Alliance, a joint operation of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. ut, SpaceX then filed a lawsuit against the U.S Air Force saying that it unfairly awarded staggering sums of money to a single aviation company for its national security launches.
But, SpaceX then filed a lawsuit against the U.S Air Force saying that it unfairly awarded staggering sums of money to a single aviation company for its national security launches. Post the same, Elon Musk’s space company was awarded certification to launch military satellites after going through two years of reviews with the US Air Force. It has also bagged a coupled of launch contracts for sending GPS satellites up into orbit.
But this is an important achievement for SpaceX because it opens the gates for more such missions for the private space agency. Even with some hiccups along the way, the aviation company has already launched several satellites and even completed payload missions to the International Space Station as well. It is now gearing up for manned mission around the moon and later to the Red Planet — which is every sci-fi fans dream including Elon Musk’s.
This mission is also of significance to SpaceX enthusiasts because the private space agency will attempt to recover (i.e successfully land back) the Falcon 9 first stage on its ground-based landing zone. The recovery will happen at the company’s Landing Zone-1 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, instead of a floating barge in the ocean. This would be SpaceX’s fourth ground-based landing, the previous successful one happened about a month ago.
