SpaceX successfully launches recycled capsule to carry supplies to International Space Station
The Dragon, which was last used in September 2014, is carrying a 6,000-pound shipment.
United States-based firm SpaceX on Saturday launched a supply mission to the International Space Station, using its first recycled cargo ship in a bid to bring down flight costs, reported AP. The mission, which was supposed to take off on Thursday, had to be delayed to Saturday because of thunderstorms.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket blasted off at 5.07 pm on Saturday carrying the Dragon capsule. After it delivered the capsule to orbit, it decoupled from the spacecraft and returned to Cape Canaveral for a successful touchdown, SpaceX Mission Control said.
“Dragon confirmed in good orbit,” SpaceX tweeted 11 minutes after the launch at National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. The capsule, which was last sent carrying supplies to the ISS in September 2014, has almost the same parts from its earlier flight.
The Dragon, carrying 6,000 pounds of supplies, will attempt to reach the ISS around 36 hours from the launch, reported TechCrunch. “It is starting to feel kinda normal to reuse rockets,” SpaceX Chief Elon Musk tweeted. “That’s how it is for cars and airplanes and how it should be for rockets,” he said.
“SpaceX did a very thorough job in terms of certification of the Dragon and referring it,” Space Station Program Manager, Kirk Shireman, at the Johnson Space Center in Houston told CBS News. “The risk was not substantially more than a brand new dragon capsule.”