pace X is scheduled to launch a Dragon capsule to the International Space Station today at 3:25 EDT. You can check out the live stream of launch on the company’s site. But, in addition to delivering food and scientific supplies to the ISS, it will conduct a test of its Falcon 9 booster as it aims to make the first stage rocket reusable.
The Falcon 9 will have four 25-foot (7.6 meter) long landing legs. The legs will be deployed after jettisoning from the rest of the aircraft and the booster rocket will land in the sea. This is the first time an orbital rocket launch has been attempted with landing legs.. But, it’s not the first test of the reusability of the Falcon 9 booster.
Video of Falcon 9 Reusable (F9R) taking its first test flight at our rocket development facility. F9R lifts off from a launch mount to a height of approximately 250m, hovers and then returns for landing just next to the launch stand. Early flights of F9R will take off with legs fixed in the down position. However, we will soon be transitioning to liftoff with legs stowed against the side of the rocket and then extending them just before landing.
The F9R testing program is the next step towards reusability following completion of the Grasshopper program last year (Grasshopper can be seen in the background of this video). Future testing, including that in New Mexico, will be conducted using the first stage of a F9R as shown here, which is essentially a Falcon 9 v1.1 first stage with legs. F9R test flights in New Mexico will allow us to test at higher altitudes than we are permitted for at our test site in Texas, to do more with unpowered guidance and to prove out landing cases that are more-flight like.
This test footage of the rocket in Texas is spectacular. Instead of the boring footage shot by a camera on the ground at a safe distance, Space X used a
hexacopter to shoot the rocket’s launch. The rocket then hovered at approximately 250 meters and landed near the launch pad.
Making the rocket reusable would reduce the time between launches and save Space X the financial burden of rebuilding a rocket every time there was a launch. Plus, it just looks cool.
source:thenextweb│youtube
