SpaceX will make history today if it succeeds in launching a communications satellite to orbit with a Falcon 9 first stage that has already flown previously and was recovered by soft-landing on a floating barge. Launch window opens around 6:27pm EDT, live coverage here. If delayed, the next launch attempt will be April 1. NPR has a story here; the BBC here. SpaceX has a media info kit here.
Two things are in play here. One is reusing the rocket to bring launch costs down. The second is the market for launches. As the BBC article notes,
Re-using stages is part of SpaceX's strategy to lower the cost of access to space, and SES is getting a discount off the normal launch price, which is advertised at $62m.
But although cost is a key driver here, so too is schedule.
At the moment, the opportunities to fly the big telecoms satellites into orbit are limited by the availability of capable vehicles. The commercial launch industry is constrained principally to just three major providers and when one of these has a problem, as SpaceX did with its September anomaly, the "pipeline" to orbit for everyone gets squeezed.
"This is not just an issue about money," emphasised Martin Halliwell, the chief technical officer of SES. "Will re-usability lead to cheaper prices? I hope so, but for us it's also about having a route to space," he told BBC News.
"We've been waiting for six months now to fly SES-10, and that's because there was no other alternative opportunity. If we can start getting the rocket companies looking toward re-usability and going down this path, we should have much more flexibility in being able to launch our various different missions."
Illustrating that point is the fact that SES will be trying to put up 10 satellites this year: SES-10, SES-15, SES-11, SES-16, SES-14, SES-12, and four satellites in its medium orbit constellation, O3b.
Here’s wishing SpaceX and SES luck with today’s launch.