Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has successfully landed a Falcon 9 first stage back at its launch site, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

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The success comes after two unsuccessful attempts by SpaceX to land a Falcon 9 on a floating platform at sea. In retrospect, it is not surprising that today’s landing met with greater success. Anyone who has served in the Navy can tell you that everything is harder at sea. (Getting FAA and Air Force permission to land the stage back at Cape Canaveral, on the other hand, was no doubt harder than getting permission to land on a SpaceX platform at sea.)

The landing comes just one month after Blue Origin launched its reusable New Shepard into space and successfully returned to Earth. The New Shepard booster performed a similar vertical landing under rocket power. This has led to some comparisons between the two companies whose CEOs have spared verbally in the past.

Various “NewSpace” commentators have taken exception to such comparisons, pointing out that New Shepard and Falcon 9 are very different rockets, from a performance view, and aimed at different markets. Those commentators ignore the fact that Blue Origin was pursuing the same NASA Commercial Crew contract, before NASA “downselected” the field to just two companies (Boeing and SpaceX). Although New Shepard is a suborbital vehicle, Blue Origin is using it to test technologies that it plans to use in its future orbital vehicle. From that perspective, it could be argued that Blue Origin has demonstrated more than Boeing at this point, despite the billions in funding which NASA has awarded to Boeing. And Blue Origin is working toward a fully reusable vehicle, while Boeing is merely building a 60’s-style capsule to be launched atop an existing expendable rocket.

Taken together, the two test flights point to the start of a new era in spaceflight. The age of expendable rockets is coming to an end.

This fact has not been lost on the rest of the world. Russia, Europe, and even India, are busy making plans for their own fully or partially reusable rockets. In the US, SpaceX’s leading commercial competitor, the United Launch Alliance, is working to replace its existing Atlas and Delta rockets with the new, partially reusable Vulcan rocket.

The odd man out, at this point, is NASA. While everyone else is working to incorporate new reusable technologies to reduce the cost of access to space, NASA is spending tens of billions to develop a Saturn V clone — one giant leap (backward) for mankind.

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SpaceX has released a new animation of its Falcon Heavy rocket, which is targeted for first flight later this year. Falcon Heavy will place payloads of up to 117,000 pounds into Low Earth Orbit, more than any American rocket since the Saturn V. More significantly, it will incorporate reusable boosters to reduce launch costs.

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According to The Waco Tribune, SpaceX will be adding 300 new jobs due to a $46-million expansion at its McGregor, Texas test facility.

That’s in addition to 500 jobs at the SpaceX launch site near Brownsville, Texas — a total of 800 new jobs.

To put that into perspective, NASA’s Johnson Space Center employs about 3,000 civil servants and 10,000 contractors. (Or perhaps 12,000  contractors– the Houston Chronicle and various NASA websites give conflicting figures.) But that number is down from 17,500 workers in 2007 and will remain relatively flat, based on projected NASA budgets. The SpaceX workforce, on the other hand, has the potential to grow rapidly as the company expands into commercial markets.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that the firm plans to build “the world’s first commercial launch complex designed specifically for orbital missions” in South Texas.

The launch site, which could be operational as soon as 2015, will eventually support up to two Falcon 9 Heavy and 10 Falcon 9 launches per year.

Texas Governor Rick Perry announced that the state will offer $2.3 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund as well as $13 million from the Spaceport Trust Fund to bring the launch facility to Cameron County.

“Texas has been on the forefront of our nation’s space exploration efforts for decades,” Governor Perry said. “It is fitting that SpaceX has chosen our state as they expand the frontiers of commercial space flight. In addition to growing the aerospace industry in Texas, SpaceX’s facility will provide myriad opportunities for STEM education in South Texas, and inspire a new generation of Texas engineers and innovators.”

Brownsville Mayor Tony Martinez called the announcement “A historical moment for the greater Brownsville region and the State of Texas… the culmination of a dream and a vision that began more than three years ago.”

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said, “SpaceX is excited to expand our work in Texas with the world’s first commercial launch complex designed specifically for orbital missions. In addition to creating hundreds of high tech jobs for the Texas workforce, this site will inspire students, expand the supplier base and attract tourists to the south Texas area.”

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.”

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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).

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) unveiled the next iteration of its Dragon capsule during a Thursday evening event at SpaceX headquarters. According to SpaceX, the bullet-shaped Dragon V2 will fly unmanned in late 2015, manned in 2016, with NASA personnel in 2017.

This animation shows how Dragon V2 will perform in flight:

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The complete webcast of the unveiling is online here:

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SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket today, on the CRS-3 mission to the International Space Station. The Falcon 9 successfully deployed its secondary CubeSat payloads, and the Dragon capsule is now on its way to ISS.

The hoped-for test of the Falcon 9 first-stage recovery may not be successful, however. SpaceX founder Elon Musk said the chances of recovering the first stage were not looking good due to high sea states. (Waves over six feet have been reported.) SpaceX previously estimated that the chances of recovering the stage on the first test mission were low, probably no more than 20-30%, and several trials will likely be needed to achieve success.

[Update: Apparently, the first-stage landing went went better than expected. A tweet from Elon Musk says, “Data upload from tracking plane shows landing in Atlantic was good! Several boats enroute through heavy seas. Flight computers continued transmitting for 8 seconds after reaching the water. Stopped when booster went horizontal.]

[Update 2: The Coast Guard reportedly located the stage April 22, but it’s likely in bad shape after being battered by waves for several days.]

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SpaceX recently test-fired the first stage of Falcon 9R rocket, in preparation for its upcoming first test flight. SpaceX says reusability is “the key to making human life multi-planetary.” The reusable Falcon 9R first stage is their first step toward that goal.

SpaceX will begin testing a methane-fueled rocket engine next year, according to Space News.

The Raptor is “is a highly reusable methane staged-combustion engine that will power the next generation of SpaceX launch vehicles designed for the exploration and colonization of Mars,” according to SpaceX spokeswoman Emily Shanklin. “The Raptor engine currently in development is the first in what we expect to be a family of engines.”

Methane engines are considered a key technology for Mars exploration and settlement because methane can be produced from carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere. NASA has done work on small methane engines, for that reason. NASA paid XCOR Aerospace and Alliant Techsystems (ATK) $3 million to develop a 7,500-pound-thrust LOX/methane engine, which could be used in alternative service module for NASA’s Orion capsule. Work on the engine was completed in 2007. (NASA has no plans to use the engine at this time, however.)

The Raptor engine is expected to be much larger than the XCOR/ATK XR-5M15 engine. According to Space News, the Raptor will produce 660,000 pounds of thrust in vacuum (about 30% larger than the Space Shuttle Main Engine).

Raptor testing will be performed at NASA Stennis Space Center in Louisiana, rather than SpaceX’s usual rocket test facility in McGregor, Texas. SpaceX must negotiate a reimbursable Space Act Agreement to rent facilities first, however.

SpaceX released this image which shows the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket descending toward the ocean. According to SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, the stage was intact just before touchdown but did not survive contact with the ocean. SpaceX plans to continue development of its recovery system, which will eventually return to the launch site for landing.

A statement on the SpaceX website says:

Though not a primary mission objective, SpaceX was also able to initiate two engine relights on the first stage. For the first restart burn, we lit three engines to do a supersonic retro propulsion, which we believe may be the first attempt by any rocket stage. The first restart burn was completed well and enabled the stage to survive reentering the atmosphere in a controlled fashion.

SpaceX released this video of the Next Generation Falcon 9 demonstration flight.

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SpaceX’s reusable first-stage teatbed, Grasshopper, reached a record 744 meters (2,441 feet) during a test flight at McGregor, TX on October 7. The latest flight of the Grasshopper will be the last flight, according to The Waco Tribune.

The Tribune quotes a Facebook post by SpaceX: “Next up will be low altitude tests of the Falcon 9 Reusable (F9R) development vehicle in Texas followed by high altitude testing in New Mexico.”

SpaceX has released a new video with some dramatic views of its Grasshopper reusable first-stage test vehicle during the 12-story test flight on December 17.

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