SpaceX's playbook: Make history, then make more history

SpaceX just made history via launching the same rocket into orbital house for a second time. And the jaw-dropping news did not stop there.

CEO Elon Musk — who also heads Tesla (TSLA) — stated in a press briefing after the launch that along with safely touchdown the first stage of the rocket, the corporate also recovered the $ 6 million fairing. that’s the highest portion of the rocket that houses the payload, which, in the case of Thursday’s launch, was a communications satellite.

The fairing, Musk stated, used to be equipped with thrusters and parachutes, which guided it to an ocean touchdown after it deployed the satellite.

“That was once indubitably the cherry on the cake,” Musk stated.

Reusing pieces of spacecraft is the cornerstone of SpaceX’s business plan.

associated: SpaceX makes historical past: It launched a used rocket after which landed it in the ocean

traditionally, rockets had been used just as soon as, and are left to expend within the atmosphere after a mission. but SpaceX has been working for years to vary that and lower the cost of spaceflight.

the first test launch of a Falcon Heavy is anticipated sometime this yr.

Thursday’s launch marked a huge step towards that intention. It proved now not only that the primary stage of SpaceX’s $ 62 million Falcon 9 rocket can be re-launched to orbit, but that it can be efficiently recovered a 2nd time. (SpaceX says the first-stage rocket is by means of a ways the most expensive part of the rocket, accounting for roughly 70% of the general price.)

The rocket additionally made history the 2 times it landed on a platform — called a droneship — about the size of a soccer box in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

related: SpaceX to fly two space vacationers around the moon in 2018

Musk stated at a press briefing that the rocket will not shuttle to house a 3rd time. SpaceX plans to donate it to the Kennedy space center in Cape Canaveral, the place Thursday’s launch came about.

but SpaceX has successfully recovered seven different first-stage boosters from earlier launches, and Musk plans to put them to make use of. He stated SpaceX will conduct as many as six more launches with used rockets in 2017.

SpaceX may also sooner or later try to launch its recycled rockets extra quick. Musk wrote on Twitter Thursday night time that his next purpose is to launch and land the same rocket twice within 24 hours.

And reused rockets shall be a part of the maiden launch of SpaceX’s lengthy-awaited Falcon Heavy, a supersized rocket that is primarily three Falcon 9 rockets strapped together. Musk mentioned Thursday that the two aspect boosters of the rocket might be refurbished Falcon 9’s.

associated: Watch SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Rocket make a flawless landing

On Friday, Musk tweeted that the Falcon Heavy launch will happen in “late summer time.”

And the SpaceX team might also attempt to get well the upper stage element of the Falcon Heavy rocket someday soon.

“considering trying to convey upper stage again on Falcon Heavy demo flight for full reusability. Odds of success low, but perhaps value a shot,” he said by the use of Twitter Friday.

landing the upper stage rocket is a particularly complicated feat taking into account the 2d stage flies a lot further from Earth.

Musk mentioned Thursday that this kind of factor is a “Hail Mary” try. however, then again, he brought, SpaceX’s historical past is full of moments where “individuals went from thinking, ‘this is not possible,’ or ‘You simply shouldn’t do it’ — to ‘It worked,'” Musk stated.

CNNMoney (the big apple) First printed March 31, 2017: three:16 PM ET

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