For NASA it must be a real historical event as the American space Agency agreed to use the next space mission to supply the International space station have previously established the Falcon 9 rocket. The launch is scheduled for Friday, December 8. Using the launch SpaceX into orbit is planned to bring 2.5 tons of payload.
It should be noted that for SpaceX use of previously employed missile is not unusual, as the company carried out this three times already, providing such services to companies in the SES, Space Systems/Loral, Iridium and Israeli Spacecom. But this time, the client is the Agency NASA, known for its conservative views. All previous launches and insights of payload into orbit using already used the missiles occurred without any incidents.
Portal Spaceflight Now reported that NASA has approved a mission a few days ago, but it is the decision of the Agency was not easy. NASA engineers have carefully followed all recovery and testing processes.
“Some parts of the booster was dismantled and replaced by new ones. They provided a detailed list of what checks had to be made. With all the tasks they did. The rocket is ready to re-run”, — commented on the meeting of the Advisory Council on manned space flight of NASA, Deputy Chairman of the Board William Gerstenmaier.
The same portal reported that the space Agency was completely satisfied with how SpaceX is preparing to re-launch preowned missiles. However, it is also noted that NASA is not asked to consider this case as a sign of “General transfer” the Agency to the practice of reusable rockets. If in the future NASA will resort to such services, each new case engineers will be considered and evaluated separately, as the Agency to take such a risk level is not ready yet.
Outside experts, in turn, noted that if NASA was prepared for such risks, then it would have already been their own reusable rockets, as, indeed, a higher level of funding.
NASA agreed to re-use already-developed SpaceX rocket
Nikolai Khizhnyak