SpaceX Launches Super-Heavy Satellite Atop Falcon 9 Rocket (usatoday.com)

SpaceX has successfully launched a heavy commercial communications satellite atop one of its Falcon 9 rockets today. "Weighing in at nearly 13,500 pounds atop the rocket, the fourth Inmarsat-5 satellite was the heaviest load lofted by a Falcon 9 yet," reports USA Today. From the report: The 230-foot rocket delivered the spacecraft larger than a double-decker bus to an orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator. As a result, SpaceX did not attempt to land the rocket's first stage either at Cape Canaveral or at sea, and the Falcon 9 booster was not equipped with landing legs. The Inmarsat-5 Flight 4 satellite, built by Boeing, completes Inmarsat's four-satellite Global Xpress constellation focused on delivering high-speed broadband data to mobile customers, including commercial aircraft and ships and the U.S. military.

Comments

Dear Slashdot

[cheesybagel]

Next time get your "News for Nerds" from a site other than USA Today:
http://spacenews.com/spacex-la...

See. Metric. Although in your defense the article did originally come from Florida Today which is usually a decent site for space coverage.

Re:Why no recovery?

[Kjella]

Not really. Although the bulk of the cost of launching is the cost of the Stages the cost of the fuel is not insignificant

Bzzzt, wrong answer

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket currently carries a list price of about $54 million. However, the cost of fuel for each flight is only around $200,000 - about 0.4% of the total.