SpaceX rocket technicians offloaded the first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket from its landing platform Tuesday, beginning a pioneering test campaign to verify its readiness for another launch later this year.
Riding into port aboard a floating platform before dawn, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket booster arrived back at Cape Canaveral early Tuesday after sticking a historic landing at sea last week, kicking off a series of inspections and tests before engineers ready it for launch again.
SpaceX’s Dragon supply ship executed a laser-guided rendezvous with the International Space Station early Sunday, delivering an experimental expandable enclosure for attachment to the complex later this month for tests to verify the inflatable design’s suitability for future space habitats.
The SpaceX Dragon cargo ship loaded with supplies, crew provisions, new science experiments and an experimental expandable module for the International Space Station arrived Sunday morning for rendezvous, capture and berthing.
The commercial SpaceX Dragon cargo-delivery craft with the experimental BEAM module — the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module — arrives at the International Space Station two days after launching from Cape Canaveral.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral on Friday afternoon, sending a Dragon cargo freighter on the way to the International Space Station as the launcher’s first stage booster returned to Earth aboard a floating platform.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster descended under engine power to a floating landing platform in the Atlantic Ocean on Friday, notching the first-ever rocket landing at sea minutes after liftoff from Cape Canaveral with a supply ship hauling 3.5 tons of cargo to the International Space Station.
This video replay shows the Falcon 9 rocket’s flight from liftoff until deployment of the Dragon supply ship, including the dramatic touchdown on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster steered toward a first-ever landing on a drone ship floating 185 miles northeast of Cape Canaveral in the Atlantic Ocean minutes after blasting off from Florida with a space station cargo ship.
SpaceX’s eighth operational cargo mission to the International Space Station is set for liftoff with nearly 3.5 tons of research investigations, crew provisions and an experimental expandable habitat for the International Space Station.