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Recovered SpaceX Falcon 9 Booster Moves Back to KSC for Eventual Reflight
The recovered SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage booster that successfully carried out history’s first upright touchdown from a just flown rocket onto a droneship at sea, has just been moved back to the firms processing hanger at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) for testing and eventual reflight.Space photographers and some luck tourists coincidentally touring through Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in the right place at the right time, managed to capture exquisite up close images and videos (shown above and below) of the rockets ground transport on Wednesday, April 19, along the route from its initial staging point at Port Canaveral to a secure area on KSC.It was quite a sight to the delight of all who experienced this remarkable moment in space history – that could one day revolutionize space flight by radically slashing launch costs via recycled rockets. The boosters nine first stage Merlin 1 D engines were covered with a protective sheath during the move as seen in the up close imagery.The SpaceX Falcon 9 had successfully conducted a dramatic propulsive descent and soft landing on a barge some 200 miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean on April 8, about 9 minutes after blasting off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 4:43 p.m. EDT on the Dragon CRS-8 cargo mission for NASA to the International Space Station (ISS). The used Falcon 9 booster then arrived back into Port Canaveral, Florida four days later, overnight April 12, after being towed atop the ocean going platform that SpaceX dubs an ‘Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship’ or ASDS.The spent 15 story tall Falcon 9 booster was transported to KSC by Beyel Bros. Crane and Rigging.After initial cleaning and clearing of hazards and processing to remove its four landing legs at the Port facility, the booster was lowered by crane horizontally onto a multiwheel combination Goldhofer/KMAG vehicle and hauled by Beyel to KSC with a Peterbilt Prime Mover truck.The Falcon 9 was moved to historic Launch Complex 39A at KSC for processing inside SpaceX’s newly built humongous hanger located at the pad perimeter.Watch this video of the move:https://youtu.be/uC3Szb5raXESpaceX engineers plan to conduct a series of some 12 test firings of the first stage Merlin 1 D engines to ensure all is well operationally in order to validate that the booster can be re-launched. It may be moved back to Space Launch Complex-40 for the series of painstakingly inspections, tests and refurbishment.SpaceX hopes to refly the recovered booster in a few months, perhaps as early as this summer.The vision of SpaceX’s billionaire founder and CEO Elon Musk is to dramatically slash the cost of access to space by recovering the firms rockets and recycling them for reuse – so that launching rockets will one day be nearly as routine and cost effective as flying on an airplane.The essential next step after recovery is recycling. Musk said he hopes to re-launch the booster this year.Whenever it happens, it will count as the first relaunch of a used rocket in history.SpaceX has leased Pad 39A from NASA and is renovating the facilities for future launches of the existing upgraded Falcon 9 as well as the Falcon Heavy currently under development.Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.Ken Kremer
The post Recovered SpaceX Falcon 9 Booster Moves Back to KSC for Eventual Reflight appeared first on Universe Today.
Source: http://www.universetoday.com/128520/recovered-spacex-falcon-9-booster-moves-back-to-ksc-for-eventual-reflight/
