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Falcon 9 is a partially reusable, human-rated, two-stage-to-orbit, medium-lift launch vehicle [a] designed and manufactured in the United States by SpaceX.The first Falcon 9 launch was on 4 June 2010, and the first commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) launched on 8 October 2012. [14]
The Falcon 9 has evolved through several versions: v1.0 was launched five times from 2010 to 2013, v1.1 launched 15 times from 2013 to 2016, Full Thrust launched 36 times from 2015 to 2015. The most recent version, Block 5, was introduced in May 2018. [10] With each iteration, the Falcon 9 has become more powerful and capable of vertical landing.
The boosters of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy land using one of their nine engines. The Falcon 9 rocket is the first orbital rocket to vertically land its first stage on the ground. The first stage of Starship is planned to land vertically, while the second is to be caught by arms after performing most of the typical steps of a retrograde landing.
The FAA grounded the Falcon 9 rocket last week in order to investigate why a rocket booster from an uncrewed SpaceX mission tipped over and exploded early Wednesday upon returning to Earth.
“The beautiful thing about Commercial Crew Program is that we have two vehicles,” Stich said, referring to SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, which routinely launches on the Falcon 9, and the Starliner.
The FAA on Sept. 30 said SpaceX had to investigate why the second stage of its Falcon 9 malfunctioned after a NASA astronaut mission, grounding the launch vehicle for the third time in three ...
The Falcon Heavy is a variant of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle comprising three Falcon 9 first stages: a reinforced center core, and two additional side boosters. All three boosters are capable of being recovered and reused, although most flights use unrecoverable stripped-down center cores to increase performance.
The Falcon 9 booster that exploded August 28 had been refurbished and flown 22 times before it crash-landed. The mission it launched the day of the mishap, however, was ultimately successful ...