The private space company Space X on Monday missed the landing on a barge at sea of the first stage of its reusable rocket Falcon 9, which would have been the 50th successful landing.
The mission, on the other hand, made it possible to put 60 new satellites into orbit without difficulty, forming the Starlink constellation, a large-scale project by Elon Musk’s company intended to provide internet from space.
Contrary to what has been practiced for decades, SpaceX has revolutionized the space industry by building rockets which make it possible to recover the first stage for reuse, a technique which drastically reduces costs.
But on Monday, the first stage of the spacecraft – which had taken off from Cape Canaveral in Florida around 10:00 a.m. (3:00 p.m. GMT) – did not appear in the images broadcast live by an on-board camera on board the barge , located in the Atlantic Ocean, at the supposed time of landing.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t land the first floor on our barge, but it landed gently in the sea next door, so it looks like it’s in one piece,” said Jessica Anderson, engineer at Space X .
The reasons for this failure were not immediately known. The rocket in question was used for the fourth time.
It was the fifth launch of 60 satellites of the Starlink constellation, which could eventually number thousands. In total, around 300 satellites are already in orbit (some of the first launched have broken down).
The grid of the sky will have to be dense enough so that several satellites are always in direct line with the subscriber of the future Internet service.
Other companies, such as OneWeb, also aim to provide broadband internet from space. Elon Musk hopes to eventually gain 3 to 5% of the global internet market, a share estimated at 30 billion dollars per year.
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