Derek Richardson

February 6th, 2017

The Falcon 9 first stage recovered during the April 2016 CRS-8 mission is being test fired at SpaceXs rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas. Photo Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX recently tested the previously-flown Falcon 9 first stage assigned to send the SES-10 communications satellite into space. That mission will mark the first time the company has re-flown one of its recovered boosters.

The stage was tested in late January 2017 at SpaceXs rocket development and test facility in McGregor, Texas, by completing a static test fire in which all nine Merlin 1D engines were fired at once for a few seconds. The company tests all its Falcon 9 boosters here before shipping each to their designated launch areas, currently either Florida or California.

SpaceX successfully lands a Falcon 9 first stage on a drone ship at sea for the first time. This booster propelled the CRS-8 mission toward space in April 2016. Photo Credit: SpaceX

The SES-10 mission is currently looking to launch no earlier than early March 2017, after the CRS-10 Dragon capsule and EchoStar 23 communications satellite are launched on Feb. 14 and Feb. 28, respectively.

This particular stage was recovered in April 2016 after lofting the CRS-8 mission to the International Space Station. After propelling the second stage and payload out of Earths atmosphere, the first stage made a propulsive landing on the deck of SpaceXs Of Course I Still Love You drone ship some 190 miles (300 kilometers) east of Cape Canaveral, Florida, in the Atlantic Ocean.

It was the first successful at-sea landing by a Falcon 9 booster and the second overall to be recovered.

Over the last few years, SpaceX has been actively working to propulsively land the first stage of its Falcon 9 rockets in order to inspect and eventually reuse them. The first successful landing occurred during the Orbcomm OG2 mission in December 2015. Since then, six more boosters were recovered both on land and at sea.

In May 2016, the company successfully landed a stage after a high-energy geostationary transfer orbit mission. SpaceX said that booster, which sent the JCSAT-14 communications satellite to space, went through the harshest conditions it expects a recovered stage to go through.

The California-based company decided to use the JCSAT-14 booster as itslife leader and has since put it through numerous inspections and stress tests. Additionally, the stage was put through least seven full-duration test firings at McGregor. One of those firings can be seen in the video below.

The JCSAT-14 booster will not fly again.

According to Spaceflight Now, the booster that will be used for SES-10 will only be put through the standard preflight testing. This means the next step will be for it to be shipped to Cape Canaveral and integrated for launch.

SpaceX is taking the information it is learning from recovered boosters and modifying the design of the Falcon 9 to make full and rapid reusability easier. This new Falcon 9 Block 5 is expected to fly no earlier than late 2017.

Video courtesy of SpaceX

Tagged: Cape Canaveral CRS-8 Falcon 9 Lead Stories McGregor SES-10 SpaceX

Derek Richardson is a student studying mass media with an emphasis in contemporary journalism at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. He is currently the managing editor of the student run newspaper, the Washburn Review. He also writes a blog, called Orbital Velocity, about the space station. His passion for space ignited when he watched space shuttle Discovery leap to space on Oct. 29, 1998. He saw his first in-person launch on July 8, 2011 when the space shuttle launched for the final time. Today, this fervor has accelerated toward orbit and shows no signs of slowing down. After dabbling in math and engineering courses in college, he soon realized that his true calling was communicating to others about space exploration and spreading that passion.

Go here to see the original:

First SpaceX Falcon 9 scheduled to be re-flown tested at McGregor - SpaceFlight Insider