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SpaceX announces plans to launch a rocket every two-three weeks after opening of new Florida launch pad!
The new launch pad in question is at NASA`s Kennedy Space Center, located north of Cape Canaveral`s, which it`s still under repair at the moment.
New Delhi: After making a successful comeback in January this year following a rocket explosion in September 2016, which resulted in huge losses, Elon Musk's SpaceX made another big announcement.
According to reports, the space corporation's president Gwynne Shotwell told Reuters that as soon as its new launch pad in Florida opens next week, SpaceX aims to send a rocket to space every two to three weeks.
If successful, it would be the fastest launch rate SpaceX has ever pulled off, launching the most rockets it has in one year.
The new launch pad in question is at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, located north of Cape Canaveral's, which it's still under repair at the moment. The new launch pad set back the company by approximately $100 million, while the repairs will cost roughly half that amount.
As per Space News, the same announcement was also made in February 2016, however, after the Falcon 9 rocket exploded, the company was forced to ground flights for the rest of the year.
This setback clocked SpaceX's 2016 launch amount to a total of eight Falcon 9 missions.
The private space corporation hasn't forgotten that it's in the midst of several design upgrades despite ramping up its launch schedule, though. Shotwell said it's still tweaking its rocket engines to improve its performance and address safety concerns. It's also designing new turbopumps and a software fix after NASA and government officials expressed their concerns about the current design's tendency to crack, Engadget reported.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, the Government Accountability Office expects SpaceX to push back its 2018 manned mission to the ISS due to all the issues it's been dealing with. It's unclear if the company can catch up to its original schedule with these rapid-fire launches. But so long as no explosive mishap happens again, we might finally see Crew Dragon fly astronauts to the space station.