The launch Anasis-II
photo: SpaceX

Use the fairing again will save the company six million dollars.

Earlier it was possible to catch in a network with only one piece, and the second were in the ocean, which took a lot of time and money. The company intends to use the fairing again to reduce the cost of the next launch of six million dollars, reports naked-science.ru.

Fairing Falcon 9 — protective casing, which is installed on the booster and serves to protect the payload during flight in the atmosphere. After you exit the dense layers of the atmosphere it breaks into two pieces that fall to the Ground. To catch them, using ships equipped with networking, which should go part of the fairing in the fall.

This is the first time when the specialists got both fragments: those dropped by parachute in the Atlantic ocean, in a network of two ships — Ms. Tree and Ms. Chief. About this Elon Musk said on his official Twitter page.

Both fairing halves caught from space by @SpaceX ships!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 20, 2020

The Falcon 9 rocket, fairing which managed to get, was used to launch South Korean satellite Anasis-II into orbit. The launch took place from the spaceport at Cape Canaveral in the United States. The company reported that it passed successfully, the device is scheduled to geostationary orbit for two weeks in October to transfer to South Korea.

It is noted that the launch was to take place a week earlier, but the specialists of the company the day before the launch, postponed it to carry out additional checks of the second stage of the Falcon 9.

SpaceX is trying to find more ways to re-use elements of missiles that could significantly reduce the cost of launch. She has developed a way forced landing of the rocket boosters of the first stage back to Earth for repair. During the work the company has managed successfully land 57 degrees.

According to the company, the re-use of fairings can save up to six million dollars for each launch. Catch them using nets instead of removing from the ocean, more efficiently: it saves a lot of time and money, and reduces risks to personnel.

Attempts to repair the fairing usually failed. In 2017, the company first was able to lower both halves of the fairing in the ocean, but is having difficulty finding them in the water. From the beginning of 2018 SpaceX used a big net installed on the ship Mr. Steven, but to catch the fairing it was not possible, even by increasing the network area four times.

For the first time to catch one of its fragments in the network has succeeded in 2019: one of the halves landed in the Ms network. Tree, and it was done twice in one year. In the same 2019 specialists were able to catch both halves of the fairing out of the water and said that it is used again to launch telecommunication satellites Starlink.

In addition to the fairing, the team was able to return to Earth as the first stage, which applies not for the first time. Previously, it was used to launch the Crew Dragon spacecraft with astronauts to the International space station — the first SpaceX launch, on Board of which were the crew. Between the flights of this rocket took place in just 51 days, which is less than the existing record for two weeks. The company says it is going to work with this first step and beyond.