Video of the day: Landing all three steps of SpaceX Falcon Heavy

April 12, SpaceX held the first successfulcommercial launch of the super heavyweight Falcon Heavy. The carrier put a new communication satellite Arabsat 6A into orbit, while SpaceX for the first time in its history was able to land three spent accelerators at once. Let's see how it was.

First (three minutes after launch) from the rocketFirst, two side accelerators separated, which began to descend to land on Earth. A minute later they were followed by the main stage of the rocket, which also began the planned descent and preparation for landing. Literally a few minutes later, the side boosters successfully landed on SpaceX special sites Landing Zone 1 and Landing Zone 2 at the US Air Force Base at Cape Canaveral, and the main stage sat down on an autonomous floating barge "Of Course I Still Love You" in the Atlantic Ocean.

In spite of the fact that at rapprochement of a step withthe camera image disappeared for a short while, soon the video resumed - this way we were sure that the landing on the barge was successful (unless SpaceX changed the stage to another, which is highly unlikely).

Why do you need it?

Successful landing of all boosters and stagesnecessary for their reuse, and this will change the very idea of ​​space flight. For example, the cost of a Falcon rocket is about $ 60 million, while about 70 percent of its cost falls on the first stage, so its restart will significantly reduce the costs associated with the production and launch of launch vehicles. Space X representatives say that in the future they plan to increase the life cycle of each rocket and bring the number of launches to twenty. Here you can read the story about the development of SpaceX and how the company miraculously saved itself from a crushing failure.

You can discuss the news in our Telegram-chat. They say that even Ilon Musk is sitting under the nickname “Falcon Forever”.