- Launch allowed SpaceX to test technology to make launch vehicles reusable
- Currently rockets fall back toward Earth and explode mid-air before crashing
- This is a costly operation causing the price of launches to top £280 million
- Neither engine restart went perfectly, but engineers were able to get enough data to plan on a demonstration flight next year
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Private spaceflight company, SpaceX, has successfully launched the first of its newly-improved Falcon 9 rockets.
The 22-story rocket soared off a launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Station at 4pm GMT on Sunday.
The nine-engine rocket is its most powerful to date and designed to test the viability of using fully reusable launch vehicles for future missions.
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Private spaceflight company, SpaceX, has successfully launched the first of its newly-improved Falcon 9 rockets. The 22-story rocket soared off a launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Station at 4pm GMT on Sunday
Currently, after delivering their payloads into orbit, booster rockets tumble back toward Earth and essentially explode mid-air before crashing into the sea.
This is a costly operation causing the price of launches to top £280 million.
Space X, however, is attempting to develop rockets that can make soft landings back on Earth so that they can be recovered and recycled.
The Falcon 9 blazed through clear blue skies out over the Pacific Ocean, its water vapour trail visible even as the rocket left the atmosphere.
FALCON 9: KEY FACTS
Falcon 9 topped with SpaceX fairing is 224.4 feet (68.4 meters) tall and 12 feet in diameter (the fairing is 17 feet in diameter).
Its nine first-stage Merlin engines generate 1.3 million pounds of thrust at sea level, rising to 1.5 million pounds of thrust as Falcon 9 climbs out of the Earth's atmosphere.
Falcon 9 is named after the Millennium Falcon starship in the Star Wars movies. The number 9 refers to the nine Merlin engines that power Falcon 9's first stage; one Merlin vacuum engine powers the second stage.
During Sunday's launch, three first-stage engines were reignited, to see if they could bring the first-stage of the rocket segment down through the atmosphere intact.
Another engine was then used to try to slow the stage still further just before it touched the water.
'It went better than expected. It was incredibly smooth,' SpaceX founder Elon Musk told Reuters.
Nestled inside the rocket's new 17-foot (5-meter) diameter nose cone was a small Canadian science satellite called Cassiope that initially was to fly on SpaceX's now-discontinued Falcon 1.
'It's certainly a huge relief to have successfully delivered Cassiope to orbit. It's been weighing on me quite heavily,' Musk said.
Space X is attempting to develop rockets that can make soft landings back on Earth so that they can be recovered and recycled. Pictured is the Falcon 9 rocket
'The most revolutionary thing about the new Falcon 9 is the potential ability to recover the boost phase, which is almost three-quarters of the cost of the rocket,' Musk added.
Neither engine restart test went perfectly, but engineers were able to get enough data to plan on a demonstration flight next year.
'The most important thing is we now believe we have all the pieces of the puzzle,' Musk said.
The upgraded Falcon 9 v1.1 has engines that are 60 per cent more powerful than previous versions, longer fuel tanks, new avionics and software intended to boost lift capacity and simplify operations for commercial service.
Privately-owned SpaceX has contracts for more than 50 launches of its new Falcon 9 and planned Falcon Heavy rockets.
Ten of those missions are to fly cargo to the International Space Station for Nasa.
Falcon 9's next mission is to put a communications satellite into orbit for SES World Skies.
The launch is targeted for next month from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
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