(Orbcomm launch – Photo Credit: SpaceX)
Last week, the first stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket performed a controlled reentery into Earth’s atmosphere and soft landed into the Atlantic Ocean after launching six Orbcomm satellites into a low-Earth orbit. The private spaceflight company have now confirmed the results of the landing attempt and released video footage of the revolutionary technique.
The test confirms that the Falcon 9 booster is able to reenter Earth’s atmosphere from space at hypersonic velocity, restart its main engines twice, deploy landing legs and touch down at near zero velocity.
This landing technique means that the rocket’s first stage can be recovered and reused instead of being destroyed after every launch, a revolutionary maneouver that has not been attempted by any space-flight companies until now.
(Footage of the first stage landing back on Earth – Video Credit: SpaceX)
The soft landing was captured by cameras installed on the exterior of the first stage, showing the equipment firing its engines to slow itself down as it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere as well as the deployment of its landing legs. After splashdown, the vehicle tipped sideways, as planned, into a nearly horizontal position.
SpaceX are now taking steps to minimize the build up of ice and spots on the rocket’s camera housing in order to gather improved video quality on future launches. The video footage does get a bit fuzzy as the craft touches down, and although the water impact caused the loss of hull integrity, the private space-flight company received all of the necessary data to achieve a successful landing on a future flight.
(Orbcomm launch – Photo Credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX announced “At this point, we are highly confident of being able to land successfully on a floating launch pad or back at the launch site and refly the rocket with no required refurbishment. We will attempt our next water landing on flight 13 of Falcon 9, but with a low probability of success. Flights 14 and 15 will attempt to land on a solid surface with an improved probability of success”.
Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, has much bigger aspirations for his launch vehicles. Musk stated he established SpaceX primarily to help humans become a multi-planet species, as he specifically hopes to establish a permanent colony on Mars.
(Photo Credit: SpaceX)
Such plans require lots of funding; therefore the company is working hard to cut their costs. Recovering the Falcon 9’s first stage is part of the company’s money saving technology. As a part that is normally lost during flight, bringing the stage back to Earth through a soft ocean splashdown means that it can be used on future missions, saving a lot of money, time and resources.
Musk believes that the development of fully reusable rockets could reduce the cost of spaceflight by a factor of 100.
The successful soft splashdown of the Orbcomm Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage is a massive achievement. Although there is still a lot of planning and testing required before the stage can land on solid ground, a water splashdown is still something that has not been achieved by any other space agencies or private companies. This proves that SpaceX are on the cutting edge of spaceflight technology and have a promising future ahead of them.
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