SpaceX Releases Drone-Shot Video of Reusable Falcon 9 Rocket Test
Commercial space transport company SpaceX, or Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, has released a drone-recorded video showing a test version of an Falcon 9 rocket stage, fitted with landing gear, successfully blasting off and then safely setting back down on the same launch pad.
During the experimental flight, held April 18 at the SpaceX test facility in Texas, the modified rocket stage rose to a height of 820 feet, hovered and then returned to the ground with a controlled descent.
According to an article by Voice of America, if all goes as planned, the F9R, or Falcon 9 Reusable, will end up the first stage of what has become company's workhorse transportation vehicle, the Falcon 9.
SpaceX in a statement called the F9R testing program "the next step towards reusability."
In future testing, the F9R will be launched to higher altitudes with the landing legs stowed and then deployed as the craft returns to land.
Also on Friday, the Falcon 9 used to carry a Dragon cargo capsule into low-Earth orbit for its eventual rendezvous with the International Space Station returned to Earth intact, splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean and communicated with mission controllers for a short period before, apparently, succumbing to the treacherous waters in which it landed.
"Data upload from tracking plane shows landing in Atlantic was good! Several boats enroute [sic] through heavy seas," said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk over Twitter. "Flight computers continued transmitting for 8 seconds after reaching the water. Stopped when booster went horizontal."
That rocked had been outfitted with four carbon fiber and aluminum honeycomb landing legs, mounted around the base of the 12-foot-diameter first stage and designed to extend shortly before the water landing.
After completing the first leg of the cargo delivery mission, the Falcon 9's first stage was supposed to fire its engines twice, after separating from the rocket's second stage less than three minutes into the mission; the first burn was expected to slow the rocket's velocity enough to fall into a prescribed landing zone in the Atlantic Ocean a few hundred miles northeast of Cape Canaveral, Fla., and a second firing was supposed to help the rocket stage enter the water gently.
Subscribe to Latin Post!
Sign up for our free newsletter for the Latest coverage!