SpaceX, the space company of Elon Musk, has succeeded for the first time in both halves of the fairing of a launched Falcon 9 missile with ships. Until now, this has only been possible with one of the two halves.
Elon Musk announced on Twitter that the collection of both parts was successful, although no footage has yet been released by him or SpaceX. As in previous attempts, the company will have deployed ships with large nets to catch the parts, which have to catch the fairing halves descending on parachutes.
This collection had been successful before, but there was always at least half who ended up in the sea, even though the halves that ended up in the water were also picked up and sometimes re-deployed at a later time. Netting in nets saves quite a bit of time and costs to use them again at a next launch.
This fairing came from a Falcon 9 missile that hit the Anasis-II satellite successfully orbited Earth. This is a military communications satellite for South Korea. In addition, SpaceX has deployed a booster that had flown 51 days earlier. The first rocket stage also landed successfully on Just Read the Instructions, the dedicated drone ship. With this vertical landing, SpaceX now has a total of 57 successful first stage landings.
One half of a Falcon 9’s noseband costs about $ 6 million, and re-deploying it further reduces costs per launch. Succeeding in childcare can also contribute to achieving a Musk’s previously announced plan, namely to make the ships with the nets suitable to receive Crew Dragon capsules, so that astronauts returning from the ISS do not have to land in the ocean.
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