On December 22 , 2015 , Elon Musk ’s SpaceXmade historyby becoming the first company to bring down part of an orbital - capable skyrocket back on the ground . Now , they want to improve on that capableness by shore the first stage of one of their Falcon 9 rocket on a drift lighter .
This will not be the first time they have attempted this feat . Two previous attempts at landing on a barge have failed , withspectacularlyexplosiveresults . But , off the back of the successful landing place on the priming coat , SpaceX is keen to try again .
The landing attempt will take place at 1:42 p.m. EST ( 6.42 p.m. GMT ) on January 17 at the earliest , after the launching of the Jason-3 satellite from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California . Two minutes after the launching , the first stage will separate , turn out , and then use its engine and streamlined " fins " to steer itself to the barge .
Jason-3 , which will measure ocean Earth’s surface acme exact to within a few centimeter , require to be placed in a near - polar orbit . This launch adroitness is better for launches like this owing to the inclinations rockets can found at compared to Cape Canaveral in Florida , where the successful landing in December took place .
Previous attack have go rather spectacularly . SpaceX
There is unlikely to be a alive stream of the landing attempt on this occasion , although the launch will be unrecorded onNASA TV , as the landing will be taking position in the net - less Pacific Ocean . But you’re able to expect SpaceX to release gamy resolve images and picture soon after , regardless of if the landing is successful or not .
Being able to land part of the rocket on a hoy – the first point is the main first booster that launches off the ground – open a new regalia of launch and landing pick for SpaceX. To get back to the launch pad of paper , the first stage has to essentially reverse its entire flight , which direct quite a draw of fuel .
But with a barge , the first phase can bring further out at sea , requiring less fuel to make a landing . Thus , if more fuel was need for the launching – to get a satellite in a mellow orbit , for example – then a barge landing might be preferable to a ground landing place . For this particular launch , a more or less sometime version of the Falcon 9 is being used , which SpaceX pronounce does not have the necessary great power to perform a soil landing .
picture is the successful first stage Falcon 9 landing place on December 22 , 2015 . SpaceX
Each Falcon 9 be about $ 61 million ( £ 42 million ) , but just $ 200,000 ( £ 140,000 ) of that is fuel . Thus , if SpaceX can begin reusing most of each projectile ( they have plans to also reuse the second leg ) , then the cost of launching to space could be dramatically reduced .
" With recyclable rockets , we can reduce the monetary value of access to place by believably two gild of order of magnitude [ a constituent of 100 ] , ” Musk said at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco last calendar month , reportedReuters .
SpaceX has competition , in the flesh of Blue Origin – own by Amazon ’s Jeff Bezos – which successfully returned its New Shepard rocket from a short “ hop ” into spacein November . This garden rocket is not capable of reaching scope yet , and thus is more modified than SpaceX ’s fleet . The United Launch Alliance , a powerful and successful launching operator in the U.S. , also has plans to reuse its upcomingVulcan rocket .
But for now , SpaceX is the open frontrunner in damage of operable capability . Set the date in your diary ; we could be about to witness account again .
