SpaceX successfully lands Falcon 9 on sea platform again

SpaceX has again succeeded in launching a payload, in this case a communications satellite, into space and then landing the Falcon 9 rocket on a sea platform. There were expectations that this landing would end in failure.

The Falcon 9 launch took place Friday from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The cargo consisted of the JCSAT-14 communications satellite weighing 4700kg. Expectations were that it would end in a possible failure, as the missile flew twice as fast on this mission as when it landed on a sea platform 650km off the coast of Florida before. This meant, among other things, that there was less fuel available to carry out the landing and that more braking had to be done.

The satellite had to be put into orbit at an altitude of 35,786 km. The International Space Station, for example, is orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 400km, Reuters reports. The Falcon 9’s second stage orbited the satellite, while the first stage returned to perform a landing. In doing so, . had to according to Elon Musk performed a ‘three engine landing burn’ to achieve a deceleration that was three times more powerful than the first successful landing in April. Four previous landing attempts on a sea platform failed.

In response to the current landing, Musk jokingly tweeted know ‘to increase the storage capacity of its missile hangar’. More than a dozen more flights are planned this year by SpaceX, which has $10 billion in outstanding orders from NASA and other customers. Last week, the company signed a contract to launch a military satellite, which until now has been in the hands of the United Launch Alliance for ten years.