[DAWN] SpaceX is poised to launch its first recycled rocket on Thursday, using a booster that sent food and supplies to the astronauts living at the International Space Station in April.The goal of the launch, scheduled for 2227 GMT from Cape Canaveral, Florida, is to send a communications satellite for Luxembourg-based company SES into a distant orbit.
The weather forecast was 80 per cent favorable for launch, officials said.
Standing upright at the NASA launchpad, the white Falcon 9 rocket contains a tall, columnar portion known as the first stage, or booster, that propelled the unmanned Dragon fat merchantman to space last year, then returned to an upright landing on an ocean platform.
SpaceX, the Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,-based company headed by visionary entrepreneur Elon Musk, has for years been honing the technology of powering its boosters back to careful Earth landings on solid ground and in the water.
So far it has successfully landed eight - five on so-called "drone ships" floating in the ocean, and three on land.
The goal, Musk has said, is to make rocket parts just as reusable as cars, planes or bicycles.
Currently, millions of dollars' worth of rocket parts are jettisoned after each launch.
SpaceX officials have said that reusing hardware could slash costs - with each Falcon 9 launch costing over $61 million - by about 30pc.
While generating plenty of buzz, the novel process still raises concerns for both customers and SpaceX.
They include "worries about it failing, insurance implications, retrofitting turnaround, building up a critical mass of reused first stages in the warehouse," said the global investment banking firm Jefferies International in an April report.