SpaceX closer to re-usable launch system after latest Starlink test

SpaceX is one step closer to an even more re-usable launch system on Wednesday after it managed to recover one of the halves of the fairing on the Starlink satellite launch.

The fairing half was caught by its ‘Ms. Tree’ vessel, a ship at sea in the Atlantic with the purpose of recovering these components with a large net.

SpaceX says the other half had a “soft landing” on the water and it will be attempting to recover it too.

SpaceX can shave another $6.0m or so off the cost of its launches by re-using previously flown fairings.

The company’s whole approach focuses on re-usability, since the more it can re-fly from a used rocket, the less it costs on a per-launch basis.

Recovering the halves could also potentially prove the viability of a similar recover system for Crew Dragon.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on a recent call discussing the company’s successful in-flight abort test of its Crew Dragon launch system that it could one day use ships like these to catch the returning crew spacecraft with astronauts on-board.

SpaceX has caught three fairings successfully so far, so there’s still a ways to go before it can do so as reliably as it now recovers Falcon 9 first stage boosters.