SpaceX
launches communications satellite into orbit
SpaceX successfully
launched a communications satellite into space from the Kennedy Space Centre in
Florida. The company's Falcon 9 rocket blasted off at 2 am carrying the
EchoStar XXIII, a commercial communications satellite for EchoStar Corporation.
The satellite will be place in orbit more than 35,000 kilometres above the
earth and provide telecommunications service to Brazil, SpaceX said.
However SpaceX said it will not attempt to land Falcon 9's first stage
after launch “due to mission requirements.” The mission took off from NASA's
historic launchpad 39A, the origin of the pioneering US spaceflights that took
astronauts to the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the space shuttle
missions that ran from 1981 to 2011.
SpaceX, founded and led by
billionaire Elon Musk, is emerging as a leader of the modern commercial space
industry after becoming the first to send a private cargo carrier to the
International Space Station in 2010.
The California-based company has
endured two costly disasters in the past two years - a launchpad blast that
destroyed a rocket and its satellite payload in September, and a June 2015
explosion after liftoff that obliterated a Dragon cargo ship packed with
provisions bound for the space station. -
Source:DNA-17th March,2017
