First launch of a reused first stage by SpaceX

[Masark]

Launch in 50 minutes

[Puupi]

Explosion or no explosion? Place your bets!

[Deleted]

cmon cool explosion.

[Osmeric]

And the reused first stage has done its job. Now to recover it (and for the 2nd stage to finish its job).

[Vapo]

Cut the feed on strategic moment, FAKE NEWS! jk. Thats cool :P

[Orange Joe]

is this the same rocket from the first one? Just caught the landing.

[Masark]

Successful landing!

Now the 2nd stage just hangs around waiting for the transfer burn.

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is this the same rocket from the first one?

It was the first rocket they landed on the drone ship. It was used for the CRS-8 mission, sending supplies to the ISS.

[Orange Joe]

It was the first rocket they landed on the drone ship. It was used for the CRS-8 mission, sending supplies to the ISS.

Nice, be a huge savings in space travel.

[Masark]

Nice, be a huge savings in space travel.

Very. Even if they can only use them twice, that cuts the price down by about 40%.

And they were saying on the stream that they think they might be able to use each rocket 30 times. That would bring the price down to less than 1/4 what it is now, with the $12 million second stage being almost the entire cost.

And second burn successful. Just waiting on satellite deployment.

[Osmeric]

It does remain to be seen how much refurbishment they did on this stage. I anticipate this will be reduced as time goes on, by design tweaks to beef up components that showed excessive wear, and by just avoiding lots of inspection they may have wanted to do initially here.

[Masark]

It does remain to be seen how much refurbishment they did on this stage. I anticipate this will be reduced as time goes on, by design tweaks to beef up components that showed excessive wear, and by just avoiding lots of inspection they may have wanted to do initially here.

They've already got a new version in progress.

[NED funded]

ELI5 of the importance of this?

[Masark]

ELI5 of the importance of this?

Sending stuff to space will become cheaper, potentially under $1000/kilogram.

It also provides proof of concept for their Mars plans.

[Osmeric]

Musk reports the first intact landing (in the Atlantic) of half the payload fairing (which separates and is jettisoned once the booster is above the atmosphere).

[PACOX]

ELI5 of the importance of this?

Imagine if every time you wanted to drive somewhere your car blew up in the process. Add in the fact that your car might not even make it to your destination. You wouldn't drive that much would you? Now imagine a car that you could drive anywhere and only had to worry about filling it up with fuel.

Being able to launch rockets and reuse a portion of the launch vehicle means much cheaper launches. Cheaper telecommunication satellites means better service for those who aren't interested in the scientific applications of cheaper space flights.

[Osmeric]

ELI5 of the importance of this?

The major takeaway is that launches are expensive not because of propellant (which is very cheap, especially liquid oxygen, which is extremely cheap in bulk), but because of the hardware. Reuse can potentially greatly reduce cost of launching mass into space.

If energy cost alone was what drove launch cost, flying into orbit would be about as expensive as flying to Australia on an airliner.

The reuse is particularly important for the Falcon Heavy, where three out of the four cores will be recoverable/reusable.

[Allybeboba]

Somehow I think we have done reuseable space vehicles before.

[Masark]

The reuse is particularly important for the Falcon Heavy, where three out of the four cores will be recoverable/reusable.

2 out of 3, not 3 out of 4.

[PACOX]

Somehow I think we have done reuseable space vehicles before.

The shuttles? The shuttle wasn't a rocket and had to rated for human spaceflight.

[Skroe]

People who were wrong about everything: @lockedout.