SpaceX’s Has Successful Comeback Launch

It’s back to business for Elon Musk’s spaceflight company.

By Daniel Cooper | Jan 16, 2017
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SpaceX via engadget

This story originally appeared on

2016 was a fairly good year for SpaceX, with Elon Musk’s spaceflight company inching closer to developing a for missions. At least up until September, when a Falcon 9 during a pre-launch test on the pad at Cape Canaveral. The company and found that the craft’s liquid oxygen had leaked out of a tank, with the resulting friction causing ignition.

At last, however, SpaceX is ready to turn a corner: the private outfit has returned to flight by launching a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, delivering 10 Iridium Next satellites into orbit.

The launch also included a successful landing of the Falcon 9’s first stage aboard a SpaceX drone ship, Just Read the Instructions — the first time a rocket has landed on the vessel, in fact. While this drone ship landing, it’s clearly another feather in Elon Musk’s cap.

The company had planned to get back into the business of shooting things into space by December, but that date was . Between then and now, SpaceX has continued to test the safety of its setup and received . Unfortunately, poor weather had led to another .

The launch is crucial to both Iridium and SpaceX, as you might guess. For Iridium, this is the first step toward completing a constellation of 70-plus satellites that will blanket the Earth with coverage. It’s arguably much more important for SpaceX, though. The September incident shook confidence in the company’s ability to reliably deliver payloads to space. This isn’t a guarantee that everything is back to normal (that will take months or even years), but it’s reassuring for satellite makers, NASA and other organizations that want to lean on SpaceX as a partner.

Jon Fingas contributed to this report.

2016 was a fairly good year for SpaceX, with Elon Musk’s spaceflight company inching closer to developing a for missions. At least up until September, when a Falcon 9 during a pre-launch test on the pad at Cape Canaveral. The company and found that the craft’s liquid oxygen had leaked out of a tank, with the resulting friction causing ignition.

At last, however, SpaceX is ready to turn a corner: the private outfit has returned to flight by launching a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, delivering 10 Iridium Next satellites into orbit.

The launch also included a successful landing of the Falcon 9’s first stage aboard a SpaceX drone ship, Just Read the Instructions — the first time a rocket has landed on the vessel, in fact. While this drone ship landing, it’s clearly another feather in Elon Musk’s cap.

After training to be an intellectual property lawyer, Dan Cooper abandoned a promising career in... Read more
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