https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-...m-rebuilt-pad/
A previously-flown SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a "used" Dragon cargo ship loaded with 4,800 pounds of equipment bound for the International Space Station blasted off from Cape Canaveral Friday, the first flight off a launch pad that was virtually destroyed when another Falcon 9 booster exploded on the ground last year. In a now-familiar but still thrilling sight, the rocket's first stage, which first flew in June to help launch another station cargo flight, flew itself back to a pinpoint landing at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station seven-and-a-half minutes after launch. It was the California rocket builder's 20th successful booster recovery over the past two years and its eighth on land......
The launching Friday was the first by NASA using a previously flown booster and only the second using a "flight proven" Dragon cargo ship. Recovering, refurbishing and relaunching booster stages is a key element of SpaceX founder Elon Musk's drive to lower launch costs. Equally important to SpaceX, Friday's launch was the first off pad 40 at the Air Force station since a Falcon 9 exploded five minutes before an engine test on Sept. 1, 2016, destroying that rocket and its $200 million satellite payload and virtually wiping out the launch complex and its systems.
In the wake of the mishap, SpaceX rushed to complete modifications to historic pad 39A at the nearby Kennedy Space Center, launching 16 successful flights in a row -- 12 from the Florida spaceport and four from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., before Friday's return to launch complex 40.
SpaceX needs both East Coast launch pads to fly off a backlog of satellites in its $10 billion manifest. The company plans to use complex 40 primarily for civilian and military payloads and to launch space station crew and cargo missions from pad 39A. It also plans to use the repurposed NASA pad to launch the Falcon Heavy, made up of three Falcon 9 core stages strapped together. The booster, which will generate 5.1 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, is scheduled for its maiden flight in January.....
SpaceX holds contacts valued at more than $2 billion for 20 space station resupply flights -- this was No. 13 -- and a subsequent contract covering another six cargo missions. SpaceX is building a piloted version of its Dragon capsule to ferry astronauts to and from the station under a separate $2.6 billion contract.....
