On Fifth Try, Mission Accomplished for SpaceX Booster Rocket
By KENNETH CHANG

For SpaceX, the fifth time was the charm in the impressive feat of landing a rocket on a boat.

On Friday, SpaceX — more formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corporation of Hawthorne, Calif. — launched a mission taking cargo for NASA to the International Space Station. While the capsule carrying 7,000 pounds of

experiments, supplies and equipment continued to orbit, the booster stage of the Falcon 9 rocket turned around and headed back toward a floating platform off the coast of Florida.

SpaceX had attempted this maneuver four times before. Each time the booster stage reached the platform only to tip over and explode.

This time, the booster settled down on the boat, named “Of Course I Still Love You,” and remained upright, to loud cheers at SpaceX’s California headquarters and chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”

Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, has said reusability of rockets is crucial to reducing the cost of sending payloads to space. Both SpaceX and Blue Origin, another rocket start-up from another Internet entrepreneur, Jeffrey P. Bezos of Amazon, have made successful strides in landing rocket stages in the past half year.

This is the second time SpaceX has successfully landed a booster stage. In December, it was able to fly the booster all the way back to land and set it down in one piece at Cape Canaveral.

Friday’s main mission of sending cargo to the space station was also a success, lifting off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The Dragon capsule will arrive at the space station on Sunday. The cargo includes an inflatable module, with soft instead of metal walls, which is to test technology that could be used for future deep-space missions.

SpaceX火箭回收 首度成功

億萬富豪穆斯克創立的美國太空探險業者SpaceX，在歷經四次失敗後，8日首度成功讓獵鷹九號火箭降落於大西洋上的海面平台，是SpaceX邁向實現重複使用火箭目標的重要里程碑。

SpaceX 8日於佛州卡納維爾角發射獵鷹九號，搭載著滿是補給物資的無人太空艙飛龍號升空，這個畫面固然令人興奮，但對SpaceX員工和觀看這段網路實況轉播的逾8萬名民眾來說，當狹長的火箭在發射後直線向下，首度完美著陸在無人船上，是真正令人雀躍的一刻。

美國太空總署（NASA）發言人狄勒也證實，獵鷹九號在推進載運太空站補給物資的飛龍號至太空軌道的幾分鐘後，成功著陸在海面平台上。相較於過去讓火箭返回地球時自行燒完的傳統模式，讓可重複使用火箭字形著陸，是降低火箭發射成本的關鍵面向。

SpaceX今年將執行18次火箭發射，為去年發射次數三倍。穆斯克說，下次發射同艘火箭的時間可能是兩到三個月後。對SpaceX來說，將火箭成功著陸於海面上是一大進展，雖然有些火箭可在地面著陸，但受制於載運規模、燃料量、軌道等因素，海面著陸顯得更有必要性。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/09/science/on-fifth-try-mission-accomplished-for-spacex-booster-rocket.html

Video：After multiple failed attempts, SpaceX successfully landed a rocket on a drone ship.
http://nyti.ms/25QaIuR

2016-04-10．經濟日報．A7．國際．編譯林昀嫻