December 8 SpaceX is the first to use Falcon 9

December 8 SpaceX is the first to use Falcon 9

Next week - December 8 - private space company SpaceX is going to perform another launch under a contract with NASA and send a Dragon truck to the ISS with a cargo of food and scientific equipment (mission SpaceX CRS-13).

This launch will have special significance for the company - this will be the first launch for NASA using the already flown first stage of the Falcon 9 missile. The corresponding decision was made at the yesterday's meeting of the Research and Operations Committee of the NASA Advisory Board at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA noted that Falcon 9 will be used for the forthcoming supply mission, which was used for the previous cargo delivery mission to the ISS in June. Recall, then another SpaceX first launched the already flying Dragon truck, which was subsequently successfully returned to Earth.

In fact, this decision by NASA is another convincing proof of the success of SpaceX in the reuse of rocket technology. And now that NASA has agreed to the already flown Falcon 9, it is likely that other government organizations, including the US Armed Forces, will resort to using the SpaceX missile launcher for their own missions.

As General John W. Raymond, the head of the US Air Force Space Command (AFSPC), said in an interview with Bloomberg, not to use the military missiles used earlier to reduce costs "is very stupid."

And when the US government is so confident in the technology of SpaceX, what is there to talk about private companies. Actually, the operator of satellite communication Iridium plans to use Falcon 9 already flying for future launches of Iridium-4 and Iridium-5 satellites. In addition, even the Israeli company Spacecom, who lost the AMOS-6 satellite as a result of the most ill-fated explosion of the Falcon 9 during the tests at Cape Canaveral, is ready to use the already flying Falcon 9 to launch the new AMOS-17 satellite.

By now, SpaceX has already run three times and successfully returned the already flown first stages of the Falcon 9. For these repeated launches the company has brought out several satellites. In the future these already twice flying Falcon 9 will be used in the third, fourth and possibly many more times. Initially, Ilon Mask said that the first stages of the Falcon 9 can be reused up to twenty times. This will reduce costs by 10% at the initial stage and by 30% in the future. In addition, in the future, not only the first stages, but also the second stages and head fairings will be re-used, as a result of which the launch costs will decrease by more than 100 times!

Source: The Verge

For the first time, SpaceX launched and landed the previously flown Falcon 9 rocket 9 on March 31, 2017. This launch went down in history as one of the most important events in the history of the rocket and space industry. Within the same mission, the company also planted the head fairing for the first time.