After firing a Tesla car into space last month, Elon Musk’s latest launch is ‘nearly the size of a bus’.
SpaceX, Musk’s commercial astronautical venture, on Tuesday launched its largest geostationary satellite to date with the 30W-6 sent into orbit for use in broadband internet communications.
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Significantly for Musk, who has focussed intently on the development of reusable rockets as a means to reduce the cost of space travel, the satellite launch marked the 50th Falcon 9 launch (a partially reusable family of rockets developed by SpaceX).
Falcon 9 flight 50 launches tonight, carrying Hispasat for Spain. At 6 metric tons and almost the size of a city bus, it will be the largest geostationary satellite we’ve ever flown.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 5, 2018
The company confirmed, however, that it did not attempt to recover the discarded ‘first stage’ part of the rocket due to unfavorable weather conditions in the recovery area off the Atlantic Coast.
SpaceX delivered the six ton satellite into orbit within around 33 minutes of the launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida.