SpaceX plans first reusable rocket launch
August 31, 2016
SpaceX has a customer for its first launch of a recycled rocket.
SES, a Luxembourg-based company, and a longtime customer of SpaceX's, has agreed to launch its next communications satellite on a used Falcon rocket.
SES's chief technology officer, Martin Halliwell, said he had "full confidence" that the flight would be successful, citing SpaceX's preparatory testing for the upcoming launch.
In 2013 SES was the first commercial satellite operator to launch with SpaceX.
"We believe reusable rockets will open up a new era of spaceflight," Halliwell said in a press release.
Reusing rockets, rather than having them plunge into sea to be discarded, would be a game changer for the launching industry in terms of cost savings.
Not fully reusable
For the time being, the second stage will still be discarded.
Since the end of 2015, SpaceX has launched six boosters and successfully landed them upright on an ocean barge or back at Cape Canaveral.
This weekend SpaceX hopes to generate another reusable rocket when it launches an Israeli communications satellite.
The rocket that will be used to launch the SES satellite in the fall was first used by NASA for a supply run in April.
Another private space company, Blue Origin, has been reusing a recovered rocket from Texas for months, but these have been suborbital test flights.
SpaceX's first recovered booster now stands outside the company's headquarters in Southern California.
bik/gsw (AP, ABC)