SpaceX had made a historic twelfth launch of the year – more than any country, including russia, has made.
It launched the first satellite designed and built entirely in Taiwan, a spacecraft that aims to boost disaster forecasts and mapping, environmental observation and space research.
The satellite, called FORMOSAT-5, weighs nearly 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms) and blasted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket at 11:51 am (1851 GMT).
Space X’s Falcon 9 rocket prepared for a launch to the International Space Station in February 2017 at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida
‘Falcon 9 has lifted off,’ SpaceX engineer Lauren Lyons said as the rocket soared into the sky over the launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, leaving billowing clouds of smoke in its wake.
About 10 minutes after launch, SpaceX confirmed that FORMOSAT-5 had been successfully deployed into orbit.
The satellite is designed to operate for five years, and will orbit the Earth once every 100 minutes.
Its predecessor, FORMOSAT-2, was decommissioned last year after 12 years, a lifespan in which it mapped a series of major disasters in parts of Asia and Africa.
It, too, had been designed to operate for just five years.
Continuing its effort to re-use expensive rocket components instead of jettisoning them into the ocean after each launch, SpaceX managed to land the first stage of the Falcon 9 on a platform floating in the Pacific Ocean.
‘This is the 15th successful landing of a Falcon 9,’ Lyons said on the live webcast, as cheers erupted at SpaceX mission control in Hawthorne, California.
After separating from the second stage of the rocket, the taller, first stage portion powered its engines and made a controlled return to Earth.
Cameras mounted on the rocket showed it touch down, upright, on a drone ship named ‘Just Read the Instructions.’
SpaceX plans to haul the rocket back to land and refurbish it so it can be used in a future launch.
THE SPACEX SPACESUIT REVEALED
This undated image made available by Elon Musk on Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2017 shows a new spacesuit from his company SpaceX. It’s designed for its crewed flights planned for 2018.
SpaceX has unveiled a sleek white spacesuit for astronauts on its crewed flights coming up next year.
Chief executive Elon Musk made the big reveal via Instagram on Wednesday. He says it’s not him in the new suit, rather a SpaceX engineer.
SpaceX is developing a crew version of its Dragon cargo capsule for NASA astronauts.
Boeing is also working to get U.S. astronauts flying again from home soil. Boeing is going blue for spacesuits for its Starliner capsules.
U.S. astronauts last rocketed away from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2011. They’ve since been riding Russian rockets to get to the International Space Station.
Musk says the new SpaceX suit has been tested on Earth – and works. He says it was incredibly hard to balance aesthetics and function.
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