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It was the second
successful landing at sea for entrepreneur Elon Musk’s Space
Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, which intends to offer
cut-rate launch services by re-using its rockets.
"Woohoo!!" Musk wrote on social media website Twitter after the
landing. “May need to increase size of rocket storage hangar.”
SpaceX successfully landed a rocket on a floating landing pad in
April after four failed attempts. Another Falcon rocket had
touched down on a ground-based landing pad at Cape Canaveral in
December.
Before Friday’s launch SpaceX had downplayed expectations for
the rocket’s successful return.
The rocket flying on Friday was traveling twice as fast as the
one that landed last month so it could deliver a hefty
television broadcast satellite into an orbit more than 20,000
miles (32,200 km) beyond that of the International Space
Station, which is about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.
The 23-story tall rocket lifted off from a seaside launch pad at
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 1:21 a.m. EDT.
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.
The rocket’s second stage continued flying to deliver the
10,300-pound (4,700-kg) JCSAT-14 satellite into orbit.
The satellite, built by Space Systems Loral in Palo Alto,
California, a subsidiary of MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates
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 worth of launch orders 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
and Boeing Co.
(Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Greg Mahlich)
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