SpaceX to reattempt landing rocket on ocean barge

Sun, Jan 10, 2016 Reuters,CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida

Technology entrepreneur Elon Musk’s SpaceX is to attempt to land its next Falcon 9 rocket on a barge in the Pacific Ocean, seeking another milestone a month after landing a booster on the ground in a spaceflight first, the company said on Friday.

The Falcon 9 rocket, carrying a NASA ocean-monitoring satellite, is slated to blast off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Sunday next week.

About two minutes after liftoff, the first stage of the rocket is expected to separate, flip around, fire engines to slow its fall, deploy landing legs and attempt to touch down on a floating landing pad in the Pacific Ocean.

SpaceX has tried ocean landings twice without success, but officials are optimistic after the company last month safely returned a Falcon 9 booster to a landing pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Accomplishing an ocean landing would give the California-based SpaceX flexibility to recover its boosters from a wider variety of space missions.

The firm, owned and operated by Musk, wants to refurbish and refly its rockets, potentially slashing launch costs.

Similar efforts are underway by fellow technology titan Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, as well as industry stalwart United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

For now, SpaceX is focusing on reusing just the first stage of its Falcon rockets, which sell for about US$61 million, the company’s Web site shows.

Of that, only about US$200,000 is for fuel, Musk said at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco last month.

“With reusable rockets, we can reduce the cost of access to space by probably two orders of magnitude,” or a factor of 100, Musk said at the conference.

The company eventually wants to return the rocket’s second stage for reuse in future launches as well.

The rocket slated to launch NASA’s Jason-3 satellite is an older version of the rocket that flew last month and does not have the power to attempt a touchdown on land, SpaceX said.

The booster that landed on Dec. 21 is to be test-fired in Florida, but probably not reflown, Musk told reporters after the landing. He said the company likely would attempt relaunch of another recovered rocket this year.

SpaceX has more than 60 missions on its schedule, worth about US$8 billion.

Structure of the Lead：

WHO: Unknown

WHERE:  Pacific Ocean

Keywords：

1.entrepreneur 企業者,創業者

2.satellite 人造衛星

3.blast 炸毀,爆破

4.slashing 大幅削減

5.stalwart 忠實的,忠臣的

6.geophysical 地球科學

7.magnitude 重大,巨大

來源:http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/01/10/2003636889