SpaceX Achieves Long Sought Historic Feat in Rocket Launch

A remodeled version of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rests on its pad as it is prepared for launch at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on the launcher’s first mission since a June failure in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Dec. 20, 2015.

Returning a Falcon 9 rocket from space after a successful launch has been a major goal for Musk and SpaceX since the company’s founding in 2002.

In the video below (starting at around 32:30 in), though, you can see the SpaceX Falcon 9 descend and stick the landing, a moment followed by an eruption of cheers at the company’s headquarters. The rocket’s massive first stage executed a series of maneuvers that brought it back to Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Either way, SpaceX’s engineers and executives are celebrating Falcon 9’s launch and landing today.

SpaceX employees erupted in jubilation as they watched a live stream of the 156-foot-tall white booster slowly descending amid a glowing orange ball. But the Falcon 9 first stage had more velocity than Blue Origin’s New Shepard, having a heavier payload to carry to full orbit, rather than on a parabolic suborbital flight.

“This has been a wildly successful return to flight for SpaceX”, said one commentator. The rocket company received its first commercial crew order from NASA earlier this fall, and there’s still one more order up for grabs between SpaceX and Boeing.

The Falcon 9 booster seconds after landing at Cape Canaveral.

Reusable rockets would lower the cost of space travel. Its plan was originally for a vertical rocket landing on an autonomous drone spaceport in the ocean, but those landing attempts did not succeed. A snapped strut in the upper stage was to blame. This time, Musk opted for a true land touchdown.

The SpaceX booster was more powerful and flying faster so it can put satellites into orbit.

When everything then looked like a go Sunday, Musk tweeted that he had made a decision to wait one day when the conditions for landing the rocket looked 10 per cent better.

SpaceX launches satellites into orbit and flies cargo to the space station. Cheers of “U.S.A., U.S.A” followed the announcement.