Ok, so now mash the fwd button.
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket returned to flight Monday, on a mission for communications firm Orbcomm which also resulted in the first return of the vehicle's first stage to the launch site. Flying in a new "Full Thrust" configuration, the rocket depart Cape Canaveral at 20:29 Eastern time (01:29 UTC on Tuesday) with the first stage touching down 10 minutes later.
The first stage is estimated to cost SpaceX in the neighborhood of $30,000,000 to build so reuse could be a massive cost savings. They have been quoted as saying the 2nd stage costs between $3-5 mil, and the fuel $128K-$700K depending on market prices. They have suggested that eventually a rocket with a previously flown core might sell launches as low as $11 million. This compares to $67mil for a current F9 or $120-160 million for an Atlas 5 launch from ULA. Access to space might get much cheaper!
The Orbcomm launch, which follows a similar mission last July, saw the Falcon 9 fly for the first time since June's failure which claimed the CRS-7 Dragon spacecraft that had been bound for the International Space Station.
The launch also marked the first flight of the Falcon 9 Full Thrust, internally known only as the "Upgraded Falcon 9″ -- which introduces upgrades that will increase the vehicle's capacity and increase the number of missions on which first stage recovery attempts will be possible.
The payload for this RTF mission consisted of eleven Orbcomm Generation 2 (OG2) satellites. |