SpaceX rocket blasts off from Florida on satellite delivery mission (updated)
06/05/2016 06:44
* Launch vehicle's main stage booster makes swift return
landing
* Landing is the second successful one at sea for SpaceX
* SpaceX intends to reuse rockets to offer cheaper launch
services
(Recasts with landing on ocean platform)
By Irene Klotz
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., May 6 (Reuters) - An unmanned SpaceX
Falcon 9 rocket on Friday blasted off from Florida to put a
communications satellite into orbit, with the launch vehicle's
main-stage booster then making a swift return landing on an
ocean platform, a live webcast showed.
It was the second successful landing at sea for Elon Musk's
Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, which intends to
offer cut-rate launch services by reusing its rockets.
"Woohoo!!" Musk wrote on social media website Twitter after
the landing.
SpaceX successfully landed a rocket on a floating landing
pad in April after four failed attempts. Another Falcon rocket
touched down on a landing pad on the ground in December.
Before Friday's launch, SpaceX had downplayed expectations
for the rocket's successful return. Unlike the April mission,
the rocket flying on Friday had little fuel left over for engine
burns to slow its descent after sending a hefty television
broadcast satellite on its way to orbit.
The 23-story tall rocket lifted off from a seaside launch
pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 1:21 a.m. EDT (05:21
GMT). Perched atop the booster was the JCSAT-14 satellite, owned
by the Tokyo-based telecommunications company, SKY Perfect JSAT
Corp, a new customer for SpaceX.
About 2-1/2 minutes after launch, the rocket's first stage
shut down, separated, flipped around and headed toward a
so-called drone ship stationed more than 400 miles (650 km) off
Florida's east coast in the Atlantic Ocean.
During the second stage, the rocket was delivering the
10,300-pound (4,700-kg) JCSAT-14 satellite into an orbit more
than 25,000 miles (40,000 km) above Earth.
The satellite, built by Space Systems Loral in Palo Alto,
California, a subsidiary of MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates
MDA.TO is designed to provide television, data and mobile
communications services to customers across Asia, Russia and
Oceania and the Pacific Islands.
Friday's launch was the fourth of more than a dozen flights
planned this year by SpaceX, which has a backlog of more than
$10 billion in launch business from customers, including NASA.
Last week, SpaceX won its first contract to launch a U.S.
military satellite, breaking a 10-year-old monopoly held by
United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin Corp
LMT.N and Boeing Co BA.N .
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(Reporting by Irene Klotz; Editing by Tom Brown and Clarence
Fernandez)
((thomas.brown@thomsonreuters.com;))
Keywords: SPACE SPACEX/LAUNCH