This day will go down in history of mankind. The conquest of Mars getting closer? – Gazeta.pl

A successful mission informed the Falcon 9 SpaceX founder and chairman Elon Musk. Rocket failed to deliver 11 small communications satellites owned by US telecommunications company Orbcomm into orbit. However, this is not the most important thing in all this.

Read also: SpaceX is not giving up. The next Falcon 9 Rocket Launch

Definitely more interesting proved to be the fate of the first member rockets, which after the separation from the Falcon 9, after approx. 165 seconds, landed safely at Cape Canaveral. Of course the landing of the first stage rocket does not mean that now it is ready for the next flight. The rocket must be subjected to thorough testing and repairs. SpaceX estimates, however, that by regaining key element of the Falcon, the company will save up to 16 million dollars.

This year, the American company has twice undertook a maneuver to bring the first stage rocket Falcon 9 – in January and April. Both attempts ended in an explosion of a rocket.

Here comes the era of reusable rocket

Why successful landing of the Falcon 9 is so important? Sam Elon Musk has repeatedly stressed that bringing the first stage rocket on the ground forever change the history of spaceflight.

“The rockets reusable will be able to reduce the cost of space transportation two orders of magnitude” – emphasized the CEO of SpaceX time a recent conference at the headquarters of the American Geophysical Union.

This in turn will bring SpaceX to the most important objective set by its creator – manned missions to Mars.

Six months after the disaster

June 28, 2015 year is the day that Elon Musk and SpaceX engineers would quickly erase from memory. That’s when, exactly 139 seconds from the start there was an explosion rocket Falcon 9, which would amount to the Dragon capsule to the International Space Station. On board the capsule were supplies for astronauts staying on the ISS. The official cause an explosion could rupture the support bracket tank with helium, that tearing, led to the ignition of one of their oxygen, which resulted in an explosion of the same rockets and capsules.

For the past six months engineers SpaceX worked in sweat to make the necessary changes in the design of the rocket Falcon.

“I think that the new [rocket Falcon 9] has been significantly improved compared to the previous” – assured Elon Musk during the meeting that December 15 was held at the headquarters of the American Geophysical Union.

The new Falcon 9, is primarily improved operating parameters of the Merlin 1D engines (to be more efficient by 13 percent), improved fuel distribution and numerous structural modifications. SpaceX engineers depend particularly on strengthening the brackets to make sure that there will be no repeat of the June disaster. Modified rocket is 1.5 meters longer, which will increase its overall productivity by 30 percent.