On Tuesday, a SpaceX official said that in mid-July, the company will get its next chance to return a Falcon 9 booster to landing at Cape Canaveral, as it is looking forward to launch a Dragon supply ship to the International Space Station (ISS). Prior to then, Falcon 9 flights will deploy communications satellites into high-altitude geostationary transfer orbits, a place that is quite high and demand excessive speed for the initial stage to reverse course and go in the direction of landing on shore. On Monday, NASA announced that SpaceX’s next cargo run to the ISS won’t get launched before July 16. The position of the orbit of the space station that day will decide the launch time around
1:32 am.
The touchdown attempt at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral will be held nearly 10 minutes following liftoff. The landings will be total experimentation, but they are a main part of SpaceX’s strategy to use a partially reusable rocket in a proposal to cost launch expenses. One Falcon 9 booster has been returned to the launch site. In December, a 15-story first stage returned to Cape Canaveral after the launch of 11 tiny communications satellites for Orbcomm. Just like the ISS, Orbcomm’s satellites orbit some hundred miles above our planet Earth, needing less fuel as compared to big telecom stations meant for geostationary orbit, a perch over around 22,300 miles above the equator.
After it switched off its nine Merlin 1D engines nearly two-and-a-half minutes into the December 21 Orbcomm flight, the first stage fell away from the upper stage of Falcon 9 and flipped around, and flew tail first for a sequence of three return maneuvers to come in the direction of Florida’s Space Coast. A report published in Space Coast Daily revealed, "Thaicom 8 will provide Ku-band broadcast and data services to Thailand, Southeast Asia, India and Africa. The launch was moved forward from June. The rocket will be carrying a communications satellite that weighs nearly 7,000 lbs."
SpaceX will try to attempt to land the first stage of the rocket on a drone ship in the Atlantic, once again. The weather for Thursday’s launch is looking good, according to experts."SpaceX's ninth cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station will take place no earlier than 1:32AM ET on Saturday, July 16th, NASA announced today. A representative for SpaceX has confirmed to The Verge that the company will attempt to land the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral. This will be the first time that SpaceX has attempted a landing on solid ground since the initial attempt last December, which was also the company's first successful landing," according to a news report published by The Verge.
SpaceX will use its Falcon 9 rocket to launch the uncrewed version of its Dragon spacecraft to the ISS. The Dragon will be carrying crew supplies and hardware, including an "international docking adapter." This will be attached outside the ISS to help prepare for commercial flights from SpaceX and Boeing. Those flights will start in 2017. (This will help make up for the adapter that was lost when SpaceX's seventh cargo mission exploded mid-flight last summer.) Elon Musk's company has been very busy since that first successful rocket landing at Cape Canaveral in December. In January, the company went back to trying to land the rockets on a drone ship in the ocean. That attempt failed when the rocket's landing leg broke. A subsequent attempt in March failed as well.
According to a report in Space Flight Now Stephen Clark, "The next chance for SpaceX to return a Falcon 9 booster to landing at Cape Canaveral will come in mid-July, when the company plans to launch a Dragon supply ship to the International Space Station, a company official said Tuesday." Falcon 9 flights before then will deploy communications satellites into high-altitude geostationary transfer orbits, a destination too high and requiring too much speed for the first stage to reverse course and head back to landing on shore. NASA announced Monday that SpaceX’s next cargo run to the space station will launch no earlier than July 16. The position of the space station’s orbit that day puts the launch time around 1:32 a.m. EDT (0532 GMT).
