Space-X will return rockets to home plate - AW&ST

SpaceX close to landing rocket boosters next to its Southern California launch site

SpaceX, which has launched three rockets this year from Vandenberg Air Force Base and landed all three boosters on an off-shore barge, has built a permanent landing pad at the base to replace ocean recoveries.

The Hawthorne company's 1.6-acre circular concrete landing pad was recently constructed directly west of its launchpad at Space Launch Complex 4 in the hills outside Lompoc. It could be in operation as early as this year.

While SpaceX hopes to rely on it for most West Coast landings, it also proposed to operate a second Pacific Ocean landing barge 31 miles off the Santa Barbara County coastline to recover boosters diverted from the ground by sensitive base operations. State environmental reviews approved the proposal, with the caveat that SpaceX do some mitigating preparations to protect ocean life from sonic booms and potential explosions.

Federal regulators, still poring over the company's Vandenberg landing-license application, declined to release any time line for the process, though most steps in the Federal Aviation Administration's review are completed. SpaceX officials also have to finish radar-communication system tests to direct the robotic booster to the ground.

 

 

On Thursday morning, SpaceX returned its 16th launched booster to its only ground-based landing pad - Landing Zone 1 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida - minutes after delivering the Air Force's secretive X-37B space plane into orbit.

It was the company's 13th launch of the year, and its 13th consecutive successful launch since an explosion destroyed a rocket on Sept. 1, 2016. Of those, three were from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The boosters were returned to an at-sea barge far off the coast of Baja California.

 

Its next Southern California launch is set for Oct. 4. But that booster will likely return to the barge off Mexico, and then be towed to the Port of Los Angeles for recovery. Jason Major, a graphic designer and space blogger, watched Thursday's booster return in Florida from a nearby viewing station.

"While it's magnificent to watch a rocket soar up into the sky, it's even more remarkable to see one come down to Earth," Major said in an email. "It looks like something out of science fiction."