The SpaceX company has tested its successfully returned first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket. The stage has helped to launch JCSAT-14 communication satellite this May. The stage was landed on the offshore platform in the Atlantic Ocean. It will not be launched in space again, but it will be used to carry out various tests and experiments. Now the company has studied the work of the engines.
This is the second time this stage has visited the company's test center in Texas. Stages are delivered here from hangars in California by land. The first escort was noticed on March 8, when the rocket completed its 250 mile journey on the US roads. Usually SpaceX does not notify the public about the schedule of movement of their vehicles on the roads, but it is simply impossible to miss.
After that, the stage was photographed on site (L2 McGregor). Experts conducted a series of tests, one of which was the inclusion of all nine Merlin 1D engines for amount of time required for the stage to launch the payload and the second stage into space.
After this, system was removed from the site and prepared to travel to Cape Canaveral. Here, it was assembled as part of the Falcon 9 Booster. Falcon 9 was successfully launched from the spaceport at Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA. The launch was made on May 6 at 1:21 EST. The rocket brought a Japanese communications satellite, JCSAT-14, weighing 5 tons into the orbit 35,405 km above the Earth's surface.
The journey has ended successfully, after that the stage’s engine ignited again automatically in order to land on the platform called "Of Course I Still Love You". Back in April, at a press conference, Elon Musk said that the landing is likely to be unsuccessful, since the satellite had to be taken to a very high orbit, and there would not be enough fuel for the landing. But everything worked out perfectly well.
The stage was carefully removed from the platform, the landing "legs" were removed as well, and in a horizontal position, the stage was placed on a special transporter and began its journey into the hangar Pad 39A HIF. SpaceX holds all the stages at Launch Complex 39A, Florida, USA. The Company leases the launch complex from NASA. The huge hangar 39A can simultaneously store up to 5 objects that are equal in size to the first stage of the rocket Falcon 9. But with such pace hangar can be fully filled in the next few months.
It is already known that due to large starting loads and very high speed the step is badly damaged.
Testing of the stage began on Thursday. By the way, on the same site shortly before JCSAT-14 there was another stage that will carry into space another Japanese communications satellite - JCSAT-16. This should happen next month. Engines were ignited for 2 minutes 30 seconds (the length of the flight of the first stage). Data obtained in the analysis of the tests, will help the company to prepare for the flight of one of the other stages that have returned.