- SpaceX again launched 58 new Starlink satellites into orbit yesterday, and managed to capture one of its nosecone fairings as a bonus.
- The fairs each cost $ 6 million each, so it’s a wise business decision to try to get them back if possible.
- SpaceX now has more than 650 Starlink satellites in orbit.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite horde got a little bigger on Tuesday with the successful launch of another Falcon 9 and the deployment of 58 new satellites into Earth orbit. The launch and deployment went smoothly, and as an added bonus, SpaceX was able to recover some of the nosecone from its rocket, which has been a tricky thing for the company to pick up.
The two nosecone halves, called fairings, cover the loadload bay and tumble back to Earth after the spaceship reaches space and dislodge what it carries. In a first-of-its-kind video released by Elon Musk, the fairing catch was captured by a camera drone that provides us with some stunning footage.
As you can see in the video, the fairing was snapped as she slowly came down to the ocean. The boat with that massive network is called Ms. Tree, and SpaceX has two such boats that it uses to capture both halves of the nosecone when they land.
Aloha, welcome back from space 💫 pic.twitter.com/xWPN09Wtaw
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 18, 2020
The video is pretty awesome, except for some questionable background music, and it shows us the recovery process in a way we’ve never seen it before. In fact, the video makes the whole thing quite easy, which it certainly is not.
SpaceX’s early attempts to recover its rocket launchers were met with poor results. The shape of the fairings makes it incredibly difficult to predict how they will come down. They are not exactly aerodynamic, and SpaceX struggles for a long time, testing various chute configurations and nets until it settles on its current setup.
Even there is no guarantee that the boats will catch the nosecones when they return to Earth, and in yesterday’s launch, the other half of the nosecone landed in the ocean before another SpaceX ship retrieved it. . Over time, the company gets better and better at positioning its boats and timing of catches, but it is still far from a sure thing.
But why bother picking up the nosecones? SpaceX repairs and renews all its Falcon 9 boosters regularly, so why play with the nosecones as well? Now, even though they look like fairly simple hardware, they are actually incredibly complex and expensive. Elon Musk has claimed that the card halves cost about $ 6 million somewhere, and repairing and repairing them is obviously a lot cheaper than making shards.
In any case, the video is a treat, and it’s cool that SpaceX is so dedicated to showing off its performance. That just means more cool things for the rest of us to see.
Mike Wehner has reported on technology and video games for the past decade, covering breaking news and trends in VR, wearables, smartphones, and future tech. Most recently, Mike served as Tech Editor at The Daily Dot, and has been featured in USA Today, Time.com, and countless other web and print stores. His love for reporting is second only to his game addiction.
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