SpaceX carries payload to orbit in first launch since blast
LOS ANGELES — A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from California on Saturday and placed a constellation of satellites in orbit, marking the company’s first launch since a fireball engulfed a similar rocket on a Florida launch pad more than four months ago.
The two-stage rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 9:54 a.m. carrying a payload for Iridium Communications Inc., which is replacing its entire global network with 70 nextgeneration satellites. The satellites were deployed about an hour after launch.
About nine minutes after the rocket blasted off, to cheers from the control room, its jettisoned first stage landed upright on a droneship in the Pacific Ocean south of Vandenberg — part of Spacex’s effort to make boosters reusable. The company has succeeded six times previously with landings on a barge or ashore.
The return to flight is an important step for SpaceX, billionaire Elon Musk’s Hawthorne (Los Angeles County) company that has about 70 launches in line, worth more than $10 billion. In addition to commercial launches, SpaceX ferries supplies to the International Space Station and is developing a capsule capable of carrying astronauts to the station.
SpaceX officials say they identified all possible causes of the Sept. 1 accident during prelaunch testing at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and took corrective action.
The accident destroyed the rocket and its payload — a satellite that Facebook wanted to use to spread internet access in Africa — and grounded the Falcon 9 program as an investigation took place.
SpaceX announced this month that investigators concluded the accident involved a failure of one of three helium tanks inside the rocket’s second-stage liquid oxygen tank. The investigation involved the Air Force, NASA, the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration, which issued a license for the launch.
The September accident was the second time a Falcon 9 was destroyed. In June 2015, a Falcon loaded with space station supplies disintegrated shortly after liftoff. SpaceX determined that a support strut broke.