Tuesday, September 13, 2016

SpaceX Hopes To Restart Flights In November

Hawthorne-based space rocket developer SpaceX is hoping to get back to flights in November, in an optimistic statement at an aerospace event in Paris on Tuesday. According to multiple reports, Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said SpaceX anticipates getting back to flights in three months, in the November time frame, despite the catastrophic loss of a Falcon 9 and its payload last month. SpaceX founder Elon Musk said that the loss was the "most difficult and complex" failure the company has encounteredin 14 years. SpaceX competitor United Launch Alliance (ULA) had speculated the loss would ground SpaceX for up to a year. SpaceX so far has said the failure was not related to its rocket engines--which were off at the time--and was something involved with its ground systems. SpaceX has had a roller coaster over the last year, with a failure in June of last year, followed by a number of big successes in returning its rocket boosters to earth for reuse, a successful mission in August to the ISS, a win to develop a crew module for NASA, only to see the launch pad failure at the end of August.

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