SpaceX launch of first reused rocket to mark milestone for Musk
San Francisco — If the rocket that SpaceX expects to launch next week looks familiar, that is because it is. Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 rocket, slated to take off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, has flown before, marking the first time Space Exploration Technologies Corporation will refly one of the 14-story-tall boosters it recovered from past missions. The reused rocket will ferry a communications satellite into orbit for Luxembourg-based SES, SpaceX’s first commercial customer, and signals a leap forward in Musk’s 15-year-quest to drive down launch costs and eventually create a human colony on Mars. "This is a Wright Brothers moment for space," said Phil Larson, a former space policy adviser to former US president Barack Obama, who worked for SpaceX and is now at the University of Colorado. "It’s as important as the first plane taking off and landing and taking off again." The rocket originally flew in April 2016 before landing successfully on an unmanned drone sh...
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