SpaceX To Launch Falcon 9 Rockets ‘Every Two To Three Weeks’

SpaceX engineers are preparing to mount a Falcon 9 rocket at Kennedy Space Center’s historic launch pad 39A for the first time this week as the company declares the modified facility ready to support a new era of commercial space missions.

SpaceX has installed new equipment for rolling Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets horizontally up the pad on rails and lifting them vertical, and new fueling systems.

The ambitious plan comes only five months after a SpaceX rocket burst into flames on the launch pad at the company’s original launch site in Florida. The new launch pad is at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Following that mission will be the launch of EchoStar 23, now scheduled for March 1, 2017, and the launch of SES-10 to follow which will sit atop the first refurbished Falcon 9 core to return to space.

Falcon 9 will have to wait for a bit more with its planned flight being postponed.

While repairing the cracks, SpaceX is also engaged in certain software fixes and has also redesigned the turbo wheels which flew for the first time in July 2016. Pad 40 was damaged in an explosion on Sept 1st. As you most likely are aware, the organization put its timetable on hold after a Falcon 9 detonated on its old platform at Cape Canaveral a year ago – its rebound mission occurred only fourteen days back in mid-January at Vandenberg Air Force Base. “It’s bigger than the one we used to have”.

Some 4,473 pounds (2,029 kilograms) of pressurized and 2,154 pounds (977 kilograms) of unpressurized cargo will be aboard the CRS-10 Dragon capsule bound for the International Space Station (ISS). Even it wasn’t one of the most experienced entities with regards to sending rockets into space, NASA is one of the SpaceX’s largest contractors.

SpaceX was to send a manned mission to the ISS next year but that too seems to get affected by the findings of this investigation.

According to the CNET, Reuters have pointed out that before the $200 million rocket explosion in September, SpaceX was already close to launching rockets that quickly. Shotwell said repairs to Pad 40 would cost some $50 million. It will be followed by another launch two weeks later, on February 28 at 12: 27 a.m. EST, to send an EchoStar 23 communications satellite for EchoStar.