SpaceX celebrated on Tuesday after making the 100th landing of its Falcon 9 rocket. This milestone was reached during a resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS). It’s been six years since SpaceX made its first accelerator landing.
SpaceX’s rocket launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After placing the Cargo Dragon spacecraft into orbit, it descended to land on the Just Read the Instructions drone carrier, which was waiting in the Atlantic Ocean just off the Florida coast.
Elon Musk tweeted about the 100th landing
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted some time later that it confirmed an achievement that solidly cements the company’s reputation as the primary provider of a reusable and reliable space transportation system for orbital missions. While a number of SpaceX’s first-stage boosters have made multiple flights over the years, it was the first to be used for Tuesday’s mission.
Falcon 9 is not only used for cargo missions to the ISS. In addition, it is used for astronaut missions to and from the station, as well as Starlink internet service and satellite launches for private contractors.
In the early years of testing, autonomously landing a thin vehicle over 50 meters high was quite challenging. Some boosters to date have overturned and exploded shortly after landing. The video below shows SpaceX seven months before its first successful landing after three years of testing. Meanwhile, in April 2015, a disastrous landing took place.
Each failure provided SpaceX engineers with valuable data that allowed them to develop it further. The company has yet to share a video of its 100th descent. However, below is video showing the successful landing of one of the boosters ashore in 2020.
https://twitter. com/SpaceX/status/1300470390213365761
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