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A Falcon 9 rocket returned to Cape Canaveral on Sunday after completing a mission, bringing the Israeli ship Beresheet Moon back into orbit on Sunday, ready to be inspected before attempting its fourth mission. final – launch this spring.
The first 15-story stage relay entered the chain bound for Port Canaveral around 9:00 am EST (14:00 GMT) Sunday, two and a half days after landing on the SpaceX drone "Of course, I still love you" in the Atlantic Ocean.
The first step allowed an Indonesian telecommunication satellite, an Israeli lunar lander and an experimental smallsat of the US Air Force to enter orbit on Thursday night after getting off the ramp. launch of the Cape Canaveral complex.
The booster cut off its nine engines and moved away from the Falcon 9's upper deck to an altitude of about 67,000 km, reaching a top speed at launch to over 5,500 km / h (8500 km / h), according to the telemetry the data displayed during the webcast of the mission by SpaceX.
A subset of the nine rocket boost engines, with the help of stabilizing flaps, guided the scene toward the Earth, targeting the coordinates of the SpaceX landing ship. Four landing legs unfolded from the base of the rocket as she held back the touch of touch, marking her 34th birthday. SpaceX has recovered one of its rockets on a drone or ashore.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, tweeted after the launch and landing on Thursday that the return to the atmosphere was the hottest Falcon 9 rocket ever seen. The orbit targeted by the Thursday night mission was about 69,000 kilometers above the Earth, forcing the recall to burn longer and to reach a higher speed than previous missions including landings at sea.
Sparks generated by burning metal on the rocket base's heat shield were visible in a live video connected by the booster in flight, Musk said.
After securing the rocket, the drone ship returned to port, where it was towed to a dock for a crane in order to hoist the ship's booster onto a support. The crane removed the drone rocket Sunday afternoon, paving the way for the return of the fleet this week in anticipation of a new landing after the upcoming launch of the Falcon 9 scheduled for Saturday with SpaceX's CX Dragon capsule en route for the International Space Station. a test flight.
The reminder that started and landed last week has now recorded three missions. Numbered B1048, it flew for the first time in July 2018, carrying 10 Iridium voice and data relay satellites in orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, before landing on the SpaceX drone "Read the instructions In the Pacific Ocean. After two months of inspections, refurbishment and preparation, the recall was re-launched in October by Argentina's SAOCOM 1A radar observation satellite and returned to Vandenberg for SpaceX's first landing on the West Coast.
SpaceX now has two Falcon 9 veteran boosters from three missions in its inventory. Another booster made its third launch and landing in December.
According to Musk, the latest version of the Falcon 9 rocket, which debuted last May, includes a first floor capable of flying at least 10 times with minimal renovation. Musk believes that the first leg of Falcon 9 must be reusable to reduce launch costs, and technology is at the heart of his vision for the possible construction of a Mars settlement.
But SpaceX's short-term goals focus on launching payloads for commercial and government operators, inaugurating the Crew Dragon spacecraft to transport astronauts to NASA, and deploying a constellation of broadband satellites. which, according to the society, will be counted by thousands.
The rocket that returned to Florida on Sunday will be ready for an abortion test with the space probe Crew Dragon this spring, confirmed Musk last week.
The flight abort test will verify that Crew Dragon's SuperDraco exhaust thrusters can move the capsule away from a failed rocket, a safety feature designed to ensure astronauts survive after launch.
Eight SuperDraco rocket engines mounted in modules around the circumference of the Crew Dragon are programmed to fire quickly if computers detect an emergency during launch. NASA and SpaceX want to make sure that the evacuation system is operational before placing astronauts in the spacecraft.
SpaceX conducted a platform abandonment test in 2015 to demonstrate the capsule's ability to escape a rocket explosion on the launch pad. The abandonment in flight will check the abort function during a real rocket launch.
According to the latest NASA Commercial Crew Program schedule, released Feb. 6, flight dropout trials are scheduled for June, followed by the first Crew Dragon test flight with astronauts on board in July. The canceled and crewed test flights will be preceded by an unmanned demonstration mission at the space station at the launch of the Falcon 9 scheduled for Saturday.
Musk tweeted that the escape test could take place in April. Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of reliability of construction and flights at SpaceX, said Friday that teams were studying the possibility of postponing abortion in flight from June.
SpaceX plans to reuse the spaceship Crew Dragon that is expected to visit the space station this weekend for cancellation in flight. Assuming a launch on March 2, the capsule is expected to land in the Atlantic Ocean on March 8, where teams will recover the spacecraft and bring it back to Cape Canaveral for the abandonment test.
The moment of flight dropping test "depends on when Crew Dragon comes back," tweeted Musk. "The launch is scheduled for next Saturday, but there is a lot of new material, so the time error bars are huge."
Officials do not expect the Falcon 9 recall to survive the abandonment test, likely ending its life after four launches and three untouched landings.
"A high probability that this rocket will be destroyed by Dragon's supersonic abandonment test," tweeted Musk.
The test plan provides for the rocket to take off from Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center and pass over the Atlantic Ocean, triggering its nine main reactors for more than a minute, as in a typical launch. The Falcon 9's on-board computer will command the engines to turn off after exceeding the speed of sound and will trigger the Crew Dragon's dropping thrusters to spread the capsule off the top of the rocket, according to a environmental assessment project for the test flight. prepared by the Federal Aviation Administration.
According to the environmental assessment document, SpaceX does not anticipate any attempt to recover the scene, which should detach itself from the aerodynamic forces or the rocket's destruction system, a few seconds after the departure of the Crew Dragon for the abandonment test.
Koenigsmann said Friday, after a review of the flight readiness for the orbital test flight of Crew Dragon, that SpaceX was still seeking to recover the recall after the high altitude dropout demonstration .
But Musk's tweets and the FAA's preliminary environmental assessment clearly show that officials do not expect the rocket to be returned intact.
The Falcon 9 that embarks on the abandonment test will fly with a real second step, carrying a load of kerosene and liquid oxygen boosters, but with a mass simulator instead of its Merlin engine.
"It will be weakened for sure by the aero charges and thrusters abandoned by Dragon," tweeted Musk.
Check out more pictures of the Sunday's arrival of the Falcon 9 reminder at Port Canaveral, including aerial views.
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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.
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