Significant event

Today an important event took place in the world of space exploration. The American private space company Elon Max SpaceX for the first time, after a successful launch, carried out a soft landing of the first stage of a rocket.

What does it mean? This means that now, if this technology begins to be used, the cost of space launches will drop significantly. Today, the cost of the first stage in the total launch price is 60-70%, if it can be used many times, the total cost can be reduced by 30-40%. Currently, the cost of delivering cargo to Falcon 9 is $4.3 thousand/kg. (at Proton $3.4-4.4 thousand/kg) and reducing this figure by $1-1.5 thousand will make them out of competition.
By the way, the next step SpaceX plans to make is a reusable second stage.

This is how Russia is slowly, step by step, losing space. The Chinese are approaching with their “Long March-5”. Rogozin can talk as much as he likes about “American trampolines,” but the facts are such that in just a few years Russia will have to shrink greatly in the commercial launch market, turning mainly to launching its own satellites.

And yet, while Russia continues to develop prototypes of new spacecraft to replace the Soyuz (they have already spent 15 years on this), SpaceX actually has a ready-made Dragon V2 spacecraft capable of delivering 7 astronauts into space, the first launch is scheduled for a year.

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