SpaceX reusable rocket booster goes on display
The first reusable rocket booster that SpaceX launched and then landed back on Earth is now on display outside the company’s Hawthorne headquarters.
The towering first-stage booster, which stands 162 feet above a concrete landing pad, was installed over the weekend.
People who want to visit it can go to the corner of Crenshaw Boulevard and Jack Northrop Avenue. The sidewalk is “pretty close right there,” a SpaceX spokesman said in an email — but “no, you can’t touch it.”
The booster is anchored into the steel-reinforced concrete foundation and has a light on top required by the Federal Aviation Administration during night and twilight hours because of its proximity to Hawthorne Municipal Airport.
The first-stage booster made its historic landing in December at Florida’s Cape Canaveral after helping propel 11 satellites for communications company Orbcomm into orbit.
The landing gave more credence to SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk’s idea for reusable rocket boosters, which could dramatically reduce launch costs.
Since then, SpaceX, whose full name is Space Exploration Technologies Corp., has landed five other first-stage rocket boosters — one on land and four on a floating drone ship at sea.
The first-stage booster that’s now on display traveled by truck from Florida to Hawthorne.
Although that one will not fly again, SpaceX said Monday that it plans to relaunch its other recovered boosters in the “near future.” Musk said in June that the firm was aiming to launch the first re-flight of one of its Falcon 9 rockets in September or October.