Ilon Musk officially confirmed the successful landing of the first stage of the Falcon-9

Founder and CEO of SpaceX, Ilon Musk, at a press conference in Washington today, officially confirmed that the first stage of the Falcon-9 carrier rocket successfully made a soft landing in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean after the launch of the Dragon truck to the ISS on April 18. Although the search team did not manage to find and lift the rocket out of the water on time and it was destroyed by the waves, the telemetry data unequivocally indicate that the rocket splashed down in a vertical position, at a given speed and with fully folded supports. Repeated use of the first stage - the most expensive part of the rocket - can reduce the cost of space launches by 70%.



Now SpaceX is building several launch sites (and in the near future, landing sites) in Texas and Florida. In addition, the company decided to seek from the US Air Force a revision of the five-year contract for the launch of military satellites, which they entered into with the joint venture Boeing and Lockheed Martin United Launch Alliance (ULA). Musk believes that a multi-billion dollar contract is unprofitable for the United States - a single launch by ULA now costs an average of $ 380 million, while SpaceX promises to bring the same cargo to the same orbits on average for $ 100 million. In addition, in the Atlas-5 rocket, which is used by ULA, Russian-made RD-180 engines are installed, which is unacceptable for America in the current political situation, Musk said.





Test takeoff and landing Falcon-9

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Mask has been fighting the monopoly of Boeing and Lockheed Martin since 2005. After a successful test of a soft landing and now an absolutely real prospect of revolutionary cheapening of launches, SpaceX decided to act more aggressively in this direction - today Musk announced that his company would file a lawsuit against the US Air Force in federal court. He emphasizes that his company will not seek exclusive launch rights, but only wants free competition in this area.