Elon Musk and his conquest of space: this was the 2017 for SpaceX
This year we have finally stayed with the honey on our lips waiting for the first launch of Falcon Heavy, the most powerful rocket in the world that in theory will be able to take us to Mars. But as there is no harm that does not come well, we will take this opportunity to review all SpaceX releases during 2017.
Throughout these twelve months we have waited with a mixture of feelings among which stand out anxiety, amazement, curiosity and fear the arrival of what would be the historic event that would put the finishing touch to a decade of work with the putting into orbit the vehicle capable of transporting us to the red planet. But it could not be and after several delays, 2017 closes without having known the definitive Falcon Heavy.
Luckily, the Elon Musk company has not focused on this single project and throughout these twelve months has done an extensive and brilliant work in relation to the space race. That is why it deserves this review of all the SpaceX rockets launched in 2017.
But why is Falcon Heavy so special?
The first experimental flight of the Falcon Heavy will be the masterpiece of the also CEO of Tesla, PayPal and Hyperloop. We were in 2005 when Musk spoke for the first time about his most ambitious project to date: to travel the 225 million kilometers on average that separate us from our neighbor planet. What seemed unattainable at that moment, now does not seem to be so much.
With the first launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket we will be closer than ever to Mars. We can not know until it occurs. It seemed that November 2017 would be the definitive moment for it, just as Musk himself had announced last summer on his Instagram account. But the days of the eleventh month of the year were happening without news about it. At the end of it, the information emerged that it would be 2018 the date for the launch of Falcon Heavy, as we could read in Engadget.
In any case, 2017 has been a great year at SpaceX: these have been the most important missions
In addition to this project there have been more launches of SpaceX in 2017. The Falcon 9 has been the main protagonist of the North American company with a total of 24 scheduled missions. The goal corresponds to a launch rate of two loads per month, the last one occurring a few minutes before welcoming the year 2018, taking as reference the explanation given by the president of the entity Gwynne Shotwell during an interview.
Successes that surpass those of the previous year, a milestone achieved in June. 2016 was a year to forget in the company and was marked by what has undoubtedly been the biggest accident of SpaceX to date to explode one of its rockets being located on the launch pad in September. Specifically the explosion occurred in the engines of the ship, ceasing space activity for four months.
It has not been the only setback. In 2017, the engine of one of the SpaceX rockets exploded during the course of "a qualifying test". A fact very similar to that occurred in 2015 when another Falcon rocket jumped through the air 9 minutes after taking off from Cape Canaveral to the International Space Station, leaving both the ship and the Dragon capsule that transported the material completely destroyed. Luckily in none of the three cases have there been regret victims, only material damage.
Frente a estas adversidades se encuentran los lanzamientos con éxito del Falcon 9 SpaceX en 2017. Sin duda alguna, este lanzador ha dado las mayores alegrías a Musk y su equipo, confirmado que sí es posible la recuperación y reutilización de cohetes. Efectivamente, nos estamos refiriendo a lanzar, lanzar y lanzar un mismo proyectil repetidas veces, otro de los muchos empeños de Musk.
El primer cohete reciclado: el Falcon 9
In this regard, the most remarkable victory of the aerospace company took place at the end of March 2017 when it managed to successfully complete the launch and landing of the first recycled rocket, the Falcon 9. A feat that undoubtedly served to demonstrate that it is possible Give a second (and even more) opportunity to these vehicles. The ultimate goal of this milestone is none other than to lower the cost of space trips SpaceX and any company (worth hundreds of millions of euros) for, among other possibilities, make space tourism and even live in other planets
Why is it not possible if we already have the first robot to become a citizen of the world? We do not rule out that Musk has taken the opportunity to move to other space lands of one of his favorite video games, a pastime with which he enjoys his leisure time.
Recycled rockets have been the main protagonists
Using recycled rockets from SpaceX in 2017 is a project that he also intends to apply to his flagship, although for the time being the chances are low that the pieces of the first flight of the Falcon Heavy can have a second use again. Musk has warned that the future ship that will take us to Mars will explode seconds after taking off for the first time. Of course, merit should not be taken away, since achieving it is a great feat in itself.
This modus operandi was repeated three months later to achieve another milestone: put into orbit and landed two rockets in 48 hours. This is one of the most successful launches of SpaceX in 2017. After having suspended its planned takeoff for the 19th, on Friday the 23rd the BulgarSat-1 satellite was launched without any setback, despite being its second flight. 48 hours later a new Falcon 9 rocket was launched from California and landing successfully on a remote-controlled ship in the Pacific Ocean. It must be said that Musk is not the first to achieve this record: ULA achieved the same in 2008 launched an Atlas and a Delta.
All the SpaceX releases that have been this year
It can be said at this point that these last months are being positive for one of the companies that is strongly betting on the space race of the new era. We said before that the objective was to maintain a calendar of two missions per month. We're going to review all the SpaceX releases in 2017.
January 2017: launch of the first of the 7 Falcon 9 with ten Iridium NEXT satellites from the SLC-4E ramp of Vandenberg (California).
February 2017: Dragon SpX-10 cargo ship (CRS-10) and Falcon 9 are launched from ramp 39A of the Kennedy Space Center to deliver almost 5,500 lbs of cargo to the International Space Station. It is the first flight made from this site since the launch of the final flight of the Shuttle Program in July 2011.
March 2017: a Falcon 9 successfully delivers the EchoStar XXIII, a commercial communications satellite for EchoStar Corporation from platform 39A. This month the SpaceX Falcon 9 becomes the first recycled space rocket in history, of which we spoke before.
May 2017: Falcon 9 puts into orbit the Inmarsat-5 F4 satellite, the fourth belonging to the Inmarsat Global Xpress (GX) constellation, which is the first high-speed mobile broadband service. He does it again from the base of Florida and brings us to bring high-speed Internet to the entire planet. It also managed to bring back the Falcon 9 rocket that had taken to space a model NROL-79 satellite belonging to the National Reconnaissance Office of the United States.
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