SpaceX aims to relaunch a used Falcon 9 rocket as early as September

Good news, rocket: You're going back.
 By 
Stan Schroeder
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

SpaceX first managed to successfully land the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket back on dry land in 2015, and in 2016, the company repeated the feat three times in much tougher conditions, landing the rocket on a drone ship in the ocean.

Now, SpaceX has a hangar full of rockets, and it's only appropriate that it starts putting them to good use. According to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, the first reflight of a used rocket will happen in September or October of this year. 

Musk didn't share any details about that upcoming mission, but it's an important one for SpaceX -- a successful reuse of Falcon 9's first stage would mean big savings for the company, both in terms of money and time. 


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Musk, who's no stranger to sharing company-related news on Twitter, also squashed the rumors about Samsung producing battery cells for Tesla. According to his tweet, posted Wednesday, Tesla is working "exclusively" with Panasonic for Model 3, Model S and Model X batteries. 

The reports about Tesla Model 3 stem from around 400,000 pre-orders the company has received for the upcoming car model. While the huge interest for Model 3 is great news for Tesla, many experts are worried Tesla will simply not be able to build the cars fast enough to meet the demand. 

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Topics SpaceX

Stan Schroeder
Stan Schroeder
Senior Editor

Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.

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