On February 24, SpaceX will launch the Falcon 9 and for the fourth time try to land the return first stage on the barge.

The Falcon 9 rocket is gearing up for static testing at the launch pad, SpaceX .

SpaceX, under the leadership of Ilon Mask, has not abandoned any attempts to establish the process of landing its return first stage of the Falcon-9 launch vehicle on an autonomous offshore platform. On February 24, the Falcon 9 launch vehicle with the SES-9 satellite, owned by the Swiss telecommunications company SES.SA , will be launched. This is the second launch of the Falcon 9 rocket in 2016.

Now the company is conducting an extended series of tests and preflight missile preparation. If the launch is canceled on the 24th (for example, due to weather conditions), then they will try to launch the rocket again the next day, February 25th. The window opens at 18:45 local time. The rocket will be launched from Cape Canaveral - it was from there that the Falcon 9 started in December, 21st, when the company managed to successfully land the first step to the ground.

The satellite will be launched into a rather high orbit of 35,000 kilometers above the equator. After the cargo goes into space, they will again try to return the first step to Earth, and put it on a sea barge. This will be the fourth attempt by the company to land the return stage on an autonomous marine vessel. The penultimate attempt was almost perfect, but in the end one of the rocket supports failed,which broke , and the step fell on the barge, having received significant damage. The barge itself is located in one of the sectors in the Atlantic Ocean.

Earlier, Elon Musk announced his intention to make some changes to the original design of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle. These changes will be made on the basis of data on testing the first stage, which returned to Earth in December . This was announced by company president Gwin Shotwell. Unfortunately, Shotwell did not report specific changes, but said that after adding all the changes, the rocket would become even stronger and more stable. Now the Falcon-9FT (Falcon-9 v1.2) modification will be launched into orbit.

Let me remind you that for SpaceX it is vital to learn how to land the return stage on the offshore platform, as this saves fuel during landing. In turn, this means that heavier loads can be launched into orbit at a lower cost. And the reuse of the stage, as conceived by the company's specialists, significantly reduces the cost of launching and the cost of putting a kilogram of payload into orbit.