SpaceX has conducted the hotfire test for Falcon 9 on March 27, and it is ready to relaunch Falcon 9 rocket on Thursday, March 30. The hotfire test occurred at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Falcon 9 rocket appears to be almost ready for its second trip into the cosmos. Its first stage engine was powered at launch pad 39A at 2 p.m. EDT, accelerating to full power for just a few seconds.
- On March 27, Falcon 9 rocket engaged into a hotfire test, being docked at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
- Engineers argued that the static fire test was successful.
- They plan to launch the rocket on Thursday, March 30.
However, the rocket was grounded. The short ignition of the nine Merlin 1D main engines of Falcon 9 spaceship happened after the launch team at SpaceX prepared the launcher, fueling it with supplies of chilled and dense RP-1 liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants. SpaceX declared that the hotfire test was completed.
Before establishing a launch readiness review, the team of engineers will reexamine the information from the launch exercise. The launching window is scheduled to open at 6 p.m. EDT on March 30, extending for more than two hours. Initially, the static fire test was planned for Sunday and the launch attempt for Wednesday, on March 29, but planning ran behind schedule during the weekend.
This launching event is significant for SpaceX which plans to relaunch its spaceships several times, reusing them to reduce the costs and offer them more opportunities for space exploration and transportation. Elon Musk, the chief executive and founder of SpaceX, wishes to send several spaceships to Mars, delivering humans and cargo to develop there a self-sustaining civilization.
To fulfill this dreams of his, Musk thought that he needs these spaceflights to become cheaper and affordable. In this way, reusability was revealed to be the cornerstone of his objective. Even if the company is hopeful and confident when stating that they wish to send out in space spaceships which are rapidly reusable, space agency’s engineers have spent approximately four months to rehabilitate Falcon 9 and prepare it for launching again for this week’s mission.
The center of the Falcon 9 rocket first took off on April 8, 2016, carrying a Dragon cargo ship and delivering it to the International Space Station. After completing the mission, it landed in the Atlantic Ocean on a mobile platform. Then, the rocket was refurbished to be prepared for the next mission. Hopefully, the mission scheduled for Thursday will be successful, bringing us one step closer to Mars journeys.
Image source: flickr
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