The rocket is scheduled to take off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station between 5 p.m. and 8:55 p.m. ET.
Inside the bulbous nose cone at the tip of the rocket is a communications satellite belonging to the South Korean army. SpaceX said it will finish the webcast of the launch before the satellite is deployed, something the company frequently does when it takes sensitive cargo related to national security into space.
But the company will show its bid to reclaim the first-stage booster, the bottom of the rocket equipped with nine massive engines that provide the initial boost for the Falcon 9 rocket at takeoff. The rocket booster that SpaceX will use for Monday’s mission was previously used in SpaceX’s first mission with humans on board.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is the only launch vehicle in the world to feature a reusable first-stage booster. For years, the company has routinely reclaimed the thrusters: after the first stage spends most of its fuel, it separates from the second stage of the rocket, and then heads to a vertical landing on offshore platforms or a land platform. The second, non-reusable stage of the rocket starts its own engine to finish the mission.
Recapturing, restoring and reconditioning rocket hardware saves SpaceX money, the company says, and is at the core of CEO Elon Musk’s mission to reduce the cost of launching satellites, or people, into outer space. The company’s success in developing reusable rocket technology turned an industry quite uncompetitive, and many of its competitors, As the legacy rocket builder United Launch Alliance and newcomer Blue Origin, they are trying to create their own reusable vehicles.
SpaceX has flown a single rocket up to five times, and Musk has said that the latest version of the first stage of the Falcon 9 can fly up to 10 times with minimal necessary repairs between launches.
During Monday’s mission, the first-stage amplifier will start its engines for about two and a half minutes before stopping and heading to one of the company’s remote control platforms, called “Just Read the Instructions.” (The name comes from one of Musk’s favorite science fiction books.) All of this will take about eight and a half minutes.
SpaceX said the South Korean satellite, dubbed Anasis II and built by European aerospace company Airbus, will be deployed from the second stage of the rocket approximately half an hour after takeoff.
The launch of the satellite was scheduled last week, but SpaceX delayed the mission to inspect the second stage of the rocket, the company said in a tweet.
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