SpaceX Relaunches A Used Rocket, Makes History

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so looking at it now it looks brand new
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it's got a fresh coat of paint you'd
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never know that it's already been to
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space
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[Music]
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so it's six in the morning you're on our
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way to see a man about a rock
et we are
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here at Kennedy Space Center to see
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another spacex falcon 9 launch it's a
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pretty standard launch for them but
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that's kind of the point they're sending
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up a satellite for the company SES but
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was extra special about this launch is
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that this Falcon 9 has already been to
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space this is basically the e
ntire point
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of SpaceX landing all of its rockets for
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the last two years they're trying to
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perfect reusable rockets so what is
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reusability well it's just like it
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sounds it's reusing your rocket after
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launching it seems pretty
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straightforward but expendable Rockets
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have been more or less than norm since
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the beginning of rocketry once a rocket
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takes off it's essentially treated like
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trash parts of it either stay up in
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space or fall away to earth and break
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apart in the ocean the problem with that
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is that you're throwing away a very
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expensive investment with each launch
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rockets cost tens to hundreds of
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millions of dollars to make and with
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each new mission you have to make an
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entirely new rocket but reusing rockets
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especially the most expensive parts like
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the engines and the propellant tanks can
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help reduce those hefty costs but it's
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not so simple as just bringing your
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rocket back from space in order for a
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rocket to get to orbit it has to go
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incredibly fast thousands of miles per
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hour fast to achieve orbital velocity
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you're talking about you know seven and
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a half kilometers per second which is
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wicked fast and to bring something back
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from those speeds you have to kind of
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reverse the process you have to get rid
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of all of that energy which m
eans a lot
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of heat a lot of deceleration a lot of
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pressure that all has to be managed
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there are a lot of techniques for
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bringing back vehicles from space such
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as using wings like the space shuttle or
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parachutes but what SpaceX is using is a
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technique called supersonic retro
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propulsion it's basically using the
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its propulsion system what takes the
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vehicle up to bring it back down again
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SpaceX doesn't save the entire rocket
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though it saves the first stage the
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14-story core of the Falcon 9 that holds
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the main engines the most of the fuel
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once the first stage separates from the
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top of the rocket it makes a
controlled
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fall back to earth fuel left over from
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the launch is used to reignite the
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engines on the rocket in a series of
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burns to help the vehicle re-enter the
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Earth's atmosphere and then slow down
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for landing grid fins attached to the
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rocket help to steer it during the
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descent a big benefit of this method is
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that it can be scaled up if you want to
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build a bigger rocket which SpaceX
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definitely wants to do the future Falcon
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Heavy is basically three Falcon 9 cores
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strapped together and all three are
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designed to come back to earth basics
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extreme landing 13 of its rockets and so
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far eight of them have touched down
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successfully this one is the second one
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they've ever landed it sent cargo and
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supplies to the International Space
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Station in april of last year and then
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it returned and made the first ever
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drone ship landing and now they're going
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to try and do that whole proc
ess again
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this one is going to attempt to drone
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ship landing for the second time this is
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a pretty straightforward launch for
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SpaceX it's sending up a satellite for
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the company SES which is based out of
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Luxembourg and SES has been very vocal
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about wanting to be the first ones to
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fly on a flow and booster and they're
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pretty confident that it's gonna go just
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fine let me tested this thing we've run
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these engines up we've looked at the
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airframe we've looked at all of the
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various different components on this
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thing and this thing is good to go this
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we don't believe we're taking an
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inordinate risk here a lot of
people
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compare it to flying a plane right you
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wouldn't want to throw away your plane
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after it flies from New York to Los
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Angeles of course a plane doesn't have
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to go to space and back it doesn't have
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to deal with the same environmental
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conditions as a rocket each one of these
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stages the tanks the structure the
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engines themselves they're going to have
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to be inspected by the people by the
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same people that built them in the first
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place re qualified for flight probably
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through some ground based testing before
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they go again so we're not talking about
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you know landing a first stage and then
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within hours or minutes launching that
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first stage again plus these stages
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won't last forever CEO Elon Musk has
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said that parts of the Falcon 9 can be
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used up to 100 times but he expects
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between 10 to 20 relaunches for a single
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stage however if refurbishment costs are
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only about a few million dollars then
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SpaceX could see some cost savings most
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as a part of the whole whole nation from
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a more standpoint use of the
boost age I
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represent I counted up to the 77 cost of
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the flight SpaceX president G
wynne
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Shotwell says that she expects a thirty
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percent savings for customers that
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launched on reused rockets though SpaceX
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is only offering discounts on the order
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of ten percent for the time being we did
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receive this guy obviously to fly this
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there was some interesting there was
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some incentive to do so but it is not
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just the money in this particular case
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it's really let's get this
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proof-of-concept moving someone has to
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go first here till when we're talking
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about millions of dollars that's not an
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insignificant price tip and any way we
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can lower costs especially for an
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industry as expensive as aerospace means
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more companies can invest in space in
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the long term it's long been believed in
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the in this by the space community that
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if we can make our Rockets re
usable we
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could greatly reduce the cost of access
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to space we can open the space frontier
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oh my goodness vocalise confi
gured for
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flight my intent
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nine eight seven six five four three two
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one
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liftoff of Falcon 9 the world's first
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free flight that vocal class rock in the
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tower whoo
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today so far as a successful launch of
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Falcon 9 caring SES 10 first agent
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separated from second stage that's what
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you see on the left-hand side of your
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screen that's the first stage coming
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back down one
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it's been 15 years to get to this point
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taking us a long time a lot of difficult
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steps long way but I just incredibly
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proud of SpaceX team or able to achieve
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this incredible milestone in the history
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of space we still don't really know that
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economic implications of reusable
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rockets yet but no matter what this is a
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watershed moment for the aerospace
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industry a vertical take-off rockets
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that can achieve orbit has never really
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not sure a second time before so no
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matter what this is a really historic
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moment for the space industry rocket

SpaceX Relaunches A Used Rocket, Makes History

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SpaceX Relaunches A Used Rocket, Makes History

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