LAS CRUCES — New Mexican eyes will focus on California skies today as SpaceX sends a resupply mission to the International Space Station, a mission that has implications for future testing at Spaceport America.

Christine Anderson, executive director of Spaceport America, said the resupply mission will include another attempt by SpaceX to successfully land the Falcon 9r reusable booster on a floating platform in the Atlantic. Should the recovery of the booster be successful, SpaceX has plans to eventually bring the booster to New Mexico for testing to determine if it can be quickly and reliably reused in future flights.

“This is an important moment in their program because the Falcon 9r reusable booster is connected to the Spaceport America program,” Anderson said. “Keep in mind, SpaceX has already invested over $2 million in infrastructure at Spaceport America in advance of bringing the Falcon 9r program here for reliability testing.”

SpaceX has a policy of not releasing launch details and requests to their corporate communications office were not returned by press time.

There are, as always, several ‘ifs’ in the equation when it comes to launches. If the launch goes as scheduled, if the booster lands safely on the ocean platform and if it can be successfully recovered, Monday’s launch bodes well for the spaceport’s future.

Spaceport strengths.

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