Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, says his rocket company will not be attempting to re-land after it has launched Echostar-23 into its high geostationary transfer orbit on January 30^th.

The reason is that the satellite is especially heavy (at about 5.5 metric tonnes) and SpaceX will need just about all of the Falcon 9 rocket’s fuel to lift it to orbit. This would leave insufficient propellant to safely attempt a return to Earth, now almost routine for this particular Falcon 9’s first stage.

But Musk also Tweeted that this will soon change as future upgraded Falcon 9 models, as well as the planned Falcon 9 ‘Heavy’ version will be able to deliver a satellite to its target orbit – whether a low orbit or to a higher geostationary transfer orbit – and have sufficient fuel remaining to attempt a landing.

Gossip in the industry – and it is just rumour – suggests that SpaceX’s engineers and technicians have had a hard time of refurbishing the returned booster stages. The first successful re-landing was some 13 months ago, and yet the first re-use of a booster stage (for SES-10) is still not likely for another month.

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Categories: Articles, DTH/Satellite