Elon Musk officially confirmed the successful splashdown of the first stage of the Falcon-9

The founder and CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, at a press conference in Washington today officially confirmed that the first stage of the Falcon-9 carrier rocket successfully landed softly in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean after the launch of the Dragon truck to the ISS on April 18. Although due to the storm, the search team was unable to find and pick up the rocket from the water in time, and it was destroyed by the waves, telemetry data clearly indicate that the rocket was brought down in a vertical position, at a given speed and with its legs fully deployed. Reuse of the first stage - the most expensive part of the rocket - can reduce the cost of space launches by 70%.

SpaceX is currently building several launch sites (and in the near future, landing sites) in Texas and Florida. In addition, the company decided to get the US Air Force to revise the five-year contract for launching military satellites, which they concluded with the joint venture Boeing and Lockheed Martin United Launch Alliance (ULA). Musk believes that a multi-billion dollar contract is disadvantageous for the United States - a single launch by ULA now costs an average of $ 380 million, while SpaceX promises to launch the same cargo into the same orbits for an average of $ 100 million. In addition, Atlas-5 rocket, which uses ULA, installed engines of Russian production RD-180, which in the current political situation is unacceptable for America, Musk claims.


Test take-off and landing of Falcon-9

Musk has been fighting the monopoly of Boeing and Lockheed Martin since 2005. After a successful test of a soft landing and now the absolutely realistic prospect of a revolutionary reduction in the cost of launches, SpaceX decided to act in this direction more aggressively - today Musk announced that his company would file a lawsuit against the US Air Force in federal court. He emphasizes that his company will not seek exclusive right to launch, but only wants free competition in this area.