Fed2 Star - the newsletter for the space trading game Federation 2

The weekly newsletter for Fed2
by ibgames

EARTHDATE: January 10, 2016

Fed2 Star last page Fed2 Star: Official News page 5 Fed2 Star next page

REAL LIFE NEWS: SPACEX ROCKET LANDS SAFELY

by Hazed

2015 ended with a lot of good news for commercial space flight. First the Blue Origin company launched and landed a test space vehicle – read my story about it here.

Then a few days before Christmas, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster successfully touched down – the first time a booster rocket used to get a payload into space has been recovered for reuse.

The rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, carrying a payload of communications satellites into low Earth orbit. Ten minutes after launch, the rocket’s first stage touched down smoothly at the company’s new Landing Zone 1 complex a few miles away from where it was launched.

Following its successful landing, the booster rocket has been undergoing thorough inspection and testing, as SpaceX staff go over the hardware piece by piece. The report is that’s a bit scarred and rather sooty, but is good to be used again. Not that it will be – it’s going to be put into the company’s planned museum.

First stage boosters are usually discarded, but by saving them and using them again, the cost of launching payloads should be dramatically reduced.

Later this year, SpaceX plans to launch the Falcon Heavy Lifter, which consists of three Falcon 9 rockets strapped together. That will be the most powerful rocket in the world, by a long way. If that beast can be successfully re-used, it’s going to be a game-changer for the space industry.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/spacex-has-sent-a-rocket-to-space-and-back-to-earth-1749192599
http://gizmodo.com/these-are-the-most-bad-ass-photos-from-the-spacex-rocke-1749223550
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap151228.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/05/falcon_9_rocket_ready_for_reusability_test/

Fed2 Star last page Fed2 Star next page