Space

SpaceX's Dragon Landing Successful; Company Gears Up For Upcoming Moon Mission

Tripti
First Posted: Mar 21, 2017 05:25 AM EDT

SpaceX's journey has been dramatically eventful, especially in the last few months. When the Falcon 9 rocket blasted off on its launch pad, there were many speculations on whether the company is ever going to recover out of its technical and financial obstacles. Fortunately, not only the company came out of all such problems but it is now also on track to make history by launching the first ever space tourism mission.

The SpaceX engineers and officials have sure worked hard to figure out the problem that caused the Falcon 9 rocket mishap, fixed it and relaunched the rocket on Feb. 19, 2017. The Falcon 9 rocket carried the Dragon cargo capsule, heavy with 5,500 lbs (2,495 kg) of cargo and delivered it to the International Space Station (ISS) in its second attempt on Feb. 23, 2017. In the final stage of the mission, the SpaceX Dragon capsule made successful on-sea landing near the coast of Baja, California, yesterday, PC Mag reported.

The novelty of SpaceX's Dragon cargo mission was its landing. The company designed the capsule to land it back on Earth with the help of a few parachutes and ISS crew command. It is speculated that SpaceX will soon start making these landings on solid ground. These achievements will definitely help in strengthening the growing partnership between NASA and SpaceX.

On the other hand, SpaceX has also made tremendous progress in other fronts. The recent announcement made by Elon Musk regarding the commencement of a space tourism mission, which is supposed to fly two yet-to-be-named people, has turned heads of scientific experts and others who aspire to be an astronaut.

Furthermore, SpaceX has collaborated with the Part-Time Scientists group and has agreed to "hitch a ride" for the two rovers and experimental models developed by them on its Falcon 9 rocket. Alina, the landing module, will host a range of experiments to be conducted on the lunar surface, L.A. Biz reported.

Vodafone, The British Telecommunications company, has already given its consent for providing high-speed link to communicate data back to Earth during the said mission. Experts are of the opinion that sending tourists and setting telecommunication network between Moon and Earth could be the most crucial steps towards setting up of the proposed "Moon Village." It is evident that SpaceX will have a major role in materializing it.

 

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