SpaceX is gearing up to launch the final Falcon 9 rocket design for the third time, just months after reusing it to blast off a satellite to geostationary orbit.
A couple of months ago, Falcon 9 was used to help a satellite reach the geostationary orbit. According to Ars Technica, on its next launch, Falcon 9 will be used on an SS0-A launch, and dozens of satellites will be carried for Spaceflight. The entire thing will take place on November 19.
According to Lars Hoffman, Senior Director of sales California rocket company, the latest version of the Falcon 9 rocket, called Block 5, is specifically optimized for reuse.
“We launched the Falcon 9 is more than 60 times. We landed our first steps 30 times and again soared 16 times. We are going to restart the first stage a third time to transform access to space a routine,”
– Hoffman said at the memorial Symposium of Wernher von Braun.
SpaceX put a lot of effort into the Block 5 version of its booster. According to Elon Musk, developing the booster has taken sixteen years of extreme effort and many, many iterations and thousands of small but important development changes to get to where SpaceX now thinks it is ready.
“For those that know rockets, this is a ridiculously hard thing,”
– Elon Musk said in May, just before the first Block 5 flight in May, in an interview with Ars Technica.
According to the calculations, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Block 5 can be reused up to 100 times, and the first step can be used 10 times or more without maintenance and refurbishment between flights.