UNPRECEDENTED LAUNCH A used Falcon 9 rocket launches from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre, in Florida
Private rocket company SpaceX has successfully reused one of its Falcon 9 rockets to launch a commercial communications satellite – SES-10 – for communications satellite operator SES.
Traditionally, rockets are a one-off-use piece of equipment, either left in space or returned to earth and burn up on re-entering the earth’s atmosphere or (under parachute assistance) ditch into the sea, after which they are collected by a ship.
The Falcon 9 rocket was used for a second time when it lifted off from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at US space agency the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (Nasa’s) Kennedy Space Centre, in Florida. The two-and-a-half-hour launch window opened on March 30, at 22:27 Coordinated Universal Time. The satellite deployed about 32 minutes after launch.
Following the successful delivery of its cargo into geostationary transfer orbit, the Falcon 9 rocket returned to earth, landing under its own power, on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship, stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
SpaceX states that the SES-10 mission marks a historic milestone on the road to full and rapid reusability as the world’s first reflight of an orbital class rocket. Falcon 9’s first stage for the SES-10 mission previously supported a successful cargo resupply mission, or CRS-8, to the International Space Station in April 2016.
SpaceX is the only private company to ever return a spacecraft from low earth orbit.