Elon Musk: Falcon Heavy thruster engines seem "OK"



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CAP CANAVERAL, FL, April 18 (UPI) – SpaceX owns the Falcon Heavy base propeller that landed in the Atlantic Ocean after the launch of April 11, announced founder Elon Musk in a tweet.

Landing the three rocket boosters with embedded navigation systems is essential for SpaceX's reusability strategy, which reduces launch costs.

The Falcon Heavy took off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the second launch of the largest rocket ever used today. Booster rockets from both sides landed at Cape Canaveral. The intermediate booster landed successfully on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean, but then experienced problems due to rough seas.

At first, the company acknowledged that the main propeller had not stayed standing on the barge, called "Of course, I still love you" or OCISLY, because of the swell in the ocean of up to 10 feet. But it was not clear what happened.

On Tuesday, Musk tweeted his response to a question on the central reminder: "The engines seem to be going well, waiting for inspection." This indicated that the company still had the recall and reviewed it briefly.

Other speculations from Twitter users followed, including several questions as to whether the recall had fallen on the barge or in the ocean. Musk did not answer this question immediately, but he explained why the recall had fallen.

"The bindings are different from the standard F9 and they were not ready in time," he tweeted.

This refers to the devices on the barge, the booster or both, which SpaceX uses to secure a recovered Falcon 9 booster so that it does not tip over when it is shaken by the waves.

SpaceX uses Falcon 9 much more frequently than Falcon Heavy. Boosters for the Heavy are slightly modified Falcon 9 boosters.

Musk had also tweeted earlier that the two front cone halves, called fairings, had been found at sea and would be used for SpaceX's launch of its own Starlink satellites later this year.

In response to a question on Twitter, he confirmed that the fairings had their own electrical systems, nitrogen thrusters and parachutes, if necessary.

SpaceX had not yet managed to land on the barge with the inaugural launch of Falcon Heavy in February 2018, so the success of its landing remained a milestone, no matter what had happened at sea.

SpaceX spokesman Jim Gleeson said the safety of SpaceX employees at sea was ultimately the deciding factor that prevented the recovery of the entire recall.

Another launch of Falcon Heavy is expected to carry dozens of military and scientific research satellites into space in June for the US Air Force.

The April 11 launch deployed the ArabSat 6A communications satellite for a Saudi company.

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