Space X rocket lands back on Earth upright after successful space mission

Following the successful SpaceX landing December 21, Amazon co-founder, Jeff Bezos, who heads Blue Origin, took the opportunity to rejoin the friendly rivalry.

It was the company’s first launch since its rocket carrying cargo to the International Space Station exploded June 28. All “11 satellites deployed to target orbit and Falcon has landed back at Cape Canaveral”, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted. There is no denying the fact that right now rockets worth millions get lost in space after the payload is launched. The extremely high cost of those rockets made space flight hard, so the possibility of reusing them signifies a huge step toward making commercial spaceflight more economically feasible. Previous landing attempts failed, but those aimed for an ocean platform. But the rockets weren’t created to survive in the water, so only lasted about 7 seconds after landing, according to the company’s website. It’s hard to tell the scale of the Falcon 9 first stage after only seeing it in video or standing alone on the landing pad.

The flawless launch on Monday is a major success for privately-owned Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, the California-based company set up and run by high-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk.

After successfully delivering 11 ORBCOMM communications satellites into orbit, SpaceX successfully landed its Falcon 9 rocket upright back on the ground. During the monumental event, the first-stage rocket separated from it’s upper-stage booster.

For the first time, SpaceX flew its leftover booster back to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The SpaceX booster was more powerful and flying faster in order to put satellites into orbit.

“This has been a wildly successful return to flight for SpaceX“, said a SpaceX launch commentator.

The US space agency NASA also applauded the feat.