A SpaceX Falcon 9 takes off from Pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on May 30th.
Photo:
John Raoux / Associated Press
We don’t have to remind readers of the ways that 2020 has been disappointing, but there has been good news. The launch of the Covid vaccine is a tribute to American ingenuity, followed by the remarkable success of the SpaceX rocket launches.
The latter have become so routine that they barely make it to the news. On Saturday, the company ignited the fuse in one of its 229-foot Falcon 9 rockets, which put an American spy satellite into orbit. It was the 26th launch of SpaceX in 2020.
The part that seems surreal is when the first stage of the Falcon 9 falls back to Earth, fires the engines to stop it from falling, and then makes a vertical landing. Saturday’s rocket was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Eight minutes later, the first stage touched a runway at the nearby Cape Canaveral. If you’ve never seen the feat, check out the images online.
Repeated landings are a technical and economic success, as they reduce the cost of access to orbit. On Saturday, the Falcon 9 booster was completing its fifth mission. This was SpaceX’s 70th successful recovery, and in November a booster was used for the seventh time. SpaceX says that over time 10 missions could be done without major overhaul. The company aims for a 24-hour change from landing to relaunch. For nearly a decade after the last space shuttle flight in 2011, Americans had to launch into the International Space Station with Russian vessels. Now they can grab the Falcon 9.
Space exploration is risky, and two weeks ago, a prototype of the SpaceX spacecraft, a 160-foot silver rocket that founder Elon Musk wants to send to Mars, was destined to land gently during a test. Instead, it went down too fast and exploded into a fireball. But Mr. Musk was not surprised, at least on Twitter: “We have all the data we needed! Congratulations, the SpaceX team, damn it, yes !! ”
The billionaire said this month that he is “very sure” that his goal of putting a man on Mars can be achieved “in six years” or “if we’re lucky, maybe four years.” Mr. Musk may be ahead of himself, but this year above all we can use high aspiration.
Journal Journal Report: Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson and Dan Henninger on the best and worst of the week. Image: Erin Scott / Reuters
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It appeared in the December 22, 2020 print edition.