SpaceX successfully launches and recovers Falcon 9 rocket
May 22, 2019
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket had a successful launch and landing on April 11, at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, completing its first commercial flight.
The Falcon 9 sent an advanced communications satellite into orbit for Saudi-based consortium Arabsat.
This launch was the second for the most powerful rocket on earth. The Falcon 9 has three boosters and can generate 5 million pounds of thrust.
It can send up to 140,660 pounds to low Earth-orbit according to an article from science website Inverse.com.
The same article explains that the Falcon 9 can deliver twice the payload at half the cost of the next best rocket, the United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV.
Another feature of the Falcon 9 is how much of it is reusable.
Two of the side boosters landed successfully by controlling their burn to slow entry like previous Falcon 9 missions.
Unlike previous Falcon 9 missions, there was also a core recovery process. After the center core successfully shut down and detached, it was later recovered by a drone ship, according to Inverse.com.
The Falcon 9 is the flagship rocket for SpaceX, the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation founded by Elon Musk in 2002.
Musk is the CEO and founder of many technology and science based companies including automobile maker Tesla.
SpaceX launched a Tesla Roadster into space in February of 2018 during the Falcon 9’s first non-commercial flight.
The rocket carried a cherry red Tesla Roadster with a mannequin named ”Starman” in the driver’s seat.
That launch had a successful side by side landing and produced the viral video of ”Starman” in the Tesla Roadster with Earth as the backdrop as the core crashed back to Earth.