We all know by now that Elon Musk is the closest the world can come to meet the real-life Tony Stark/Iron Man, and the latest plans of SpaceX – one of the companies he leads – now prove his ever-growing ambition.
In a historical move, the space transport service provider is all set to launch a cargo spacecraft off from the Earth today. However, the highlight is that this carrier – the Falcon 9 rocket – has already once landed at the International Space Station and called back by SpaceX to the planet safely, thereby making it a “recycled” vehicle.
Falcon 9 originally flew out to the International Space Station on April 8, last year.
The good news is that if successful, the launch from Florida coast will make it significantly less costly to send rockets into space. The bad news, however, is simple – it may fail.
As of today, SpaceX has recovered “eight rockets — that is, the large first stage of the ship: three on ground pads, and five at sea,” New York Post reported. The company has been perfecting its process for this project since five years.
It is noteworthy that most rockets and spacecraft either explode in the space once their missions are accomplished or are left to wander among the stars. This leads to a need to create space vehicles anew, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in costs.
To date, SpaceX has tried to recover 13 space vehicles, according to The Verge’s Loren Grush, who explains that re-landing rockets in sea is much more feasible for SpaceX since the portion that is recovered flies into the space in a curve, which means that it has to be repositioned entirely in order to make it land on land.
However, if the autonomous drone ships are used, the rockets can complete their arch.
Musk, the visionary leader, holds the CEO position at Tesla and SpaceX, has co-founded Paypal, and recently created Neuralink Corp – a new company that aims to merge human thoughts to computers. It seems that the man truly believes in making dreams come true!
