Gadgetory

later this month SpaceX may launch an upgraded rocket that can mark a big leap forward in spaceflight history Elon Musk's SpaceX has been working with reusable falcon 9 rocket in fact the company just launched a used rocket at the end of March and it plans to fly more used Rockets later this year but recently some used falcon 9 rocket have been discarded into the ocean so how many times can these Rockets be reused before being thrown away right now the answer is maybe two times but that will change SpaceX has been working on a more powerful version of the Falcon 9 booster that can handle being reused up to 100 times we're talking about the fifth model of the Falcon it's called the block five and this could take flight later this month maybe as early as April 24th the April flight is to launch a satellite for Bangladesh and if the rocket lands back on earth successfully well it may be used again and again and again and it's that kind of reusability that SpaceX needs to handle the task of building a human colony on Mars so as for these older versions of the Falcon 9 reports say engineers felt that it wasn't safe or economical to use it more than twice so the company is trying to use them up now and then discard them but the hope is that with the block 5 model it can handle many many more trips before being thrown away what's your take on the future of the Falcon 9 sound off in the comments I'm Bridget Carey and you can read up on more of the latest adventures of SpaceX as cnet.com