Sky’s the limit for SpaceX: New launch, new prize

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A SpaceX Falcon Heavy. Image from company video
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy. Image from company video
On the day the company plans to launch another communications satellite into orbit, Hawthorne-based SpaceX was named Thursday the winner of the National Space Society’s 2016 Space Pioneer Award for Science and Engineering.
The aerospace company is being honored in recognition of its Dec. 21 mission, which marked the first time a first-stage rocket was successfully maneuvered back to Earth and landed upright after propelling a satellite into orbit. The achievement was a major milestone in efforts to recover the expensive rockets instead of losing them after a single use.
The NSS called the achievement a step “toward fulfilling one of the major ‘holy grail’ quests of the space community — reusability.”
In April, SpaceX doubled-down on that achievement by successfully landing one if its Falcon 9 rockets on a floating barge in the Atlantic Ocean. Landings at sea are considered to be safer and cheaper, because they travel a shorter distance and require less fuel than maneuvering back to a pad on land. Multiple previous attempts to land the rocket on the barge failed.
Josh Brost, director of government business development at SpaceX, is expected to accept the award for the company May 20 at the NSS 2016 International Space Development Conference in Puerto Rico.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk is a former recipient of the award.
At 10:21 p.m., SpaceX is scheduled to launch a commercial communications satellite known as JCSAT-14 into orbit from Cape Canaveral. The company will again attempt to land and recover the rocket on its barge, known as “Of Course I Still Love You,” but due to the trajectory of the mission and anticipated extreme re-entry heat and velocity, SpaceX officials say a successful landing is “unlikely.”
SpaceX officials last month announced plans to send one of its unmanned Dragon spaceships to Mars as soon as 2018 to demonstrate technology needed to land large payloads on the Red Planet, a critical step in advance of manned missions or possible colonization.
— City News Service 
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