SpaceX has released a statement on the results of their latest booster-recovery experiment. SpaceX reports that “following last week’s successful launch of six ORBCOMM satellites, the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage reentered Earth’s atmosphere and soft landed in the Atlantic Ocean.”

According to SpaceX, “This test confirms that the Falcon 9 booster is able consistently to reenter from space at hypersonic velocity, restart main engines twice, deploy landing legs and touch down at near zero velocity.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQnR5fhCXkQ&w=700]

The booster tipped over after touchdown (as expected), causing the structure to rupture. Based on the result of this test, SpaceX says it is now “highly confident of being able to land successfully on a floating launch pad or back at the launch site and refly the rocket with no required refurbishment.”

The next recovery test won’t occur for a while. The next two launches are for geostationary satellites with high delta-v requirements. These missions do not allow enough residual propellent for booster recovery. (In the long term, SpaceX plans to switch these missions to the Falcon Heavy.)

The next attempt at water landing will be on flight 13 of Falcon 9 (an ISS resupply mission). If that goes well, SpaceX will attempt to land on a solid surface on flights 14 and 15 (an ORBCOM satellite launch and another ISS resupply run).

Written by Astro1 on July 23rd, 2014 , SpaceX

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