Musk's Falcon-9 Rocket Which Will Carry Indian Satellite Has 99% Success Rate
NDTV
Falcon 9 is a partially reusable rocket made by billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX and it had its first flight of the current version in 2018.
India is all set to launch its most sophisticated broadband communications satellite GSAT-20, also called GSAT N-2, into orbit on a Falcon 9 rocket for the first time next week. The rocket is made by SpaceX, the company owned by 'The First Buddy' of US President-Elect Donald Trump, Elon Musk. However, the question that looms is - how reliable is this American rocket and could India have used another launcher? Tracking footage of Falcon 9 first stage returning to Earth after launching the Ax-2 mission to orbit pic.twitter.com/fLPQ7OhJOg
Falcon 9 is a partially reusable rocket made by billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX and it had its first flight of the current version in 2018. To date, the rocket has been part of 393 launches and has faced just four failures, achieving a remarkable success rate of 99 percent. A dedicated launch of a Falcon 9 rocket costs about $70 million on average, experts say.
"We got a good deal on this maiden launch with SpaceX," says Radhakrishnan Durairaj, Chairman and Managing Director of New Space India Limited, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) that is spearheading this satellite launch. Falcon 9 was the only commercial launcher available for India for the time frame ISRO was seeking.
