Elon Musk: What the Successful SpaceX Rocket Landing Means

SpaceX and Elon Musk had just set new milestone for the space industry.

SpaceX is one of several companies contracted by the USA space agency NASA to ferry supplies, and, eventually, astronauts to the International Space Station and low-Earth orbit.

Bezos didn’t respond to Musk’s tweets at that time, but he clearly sought to put his own company’s achievements ahead of SpaceX’s in his “congratulations” on Tuesday, tweeting “Welcome to the club!”

Unlike previous attempts, where SpaceX landed their rockets on ocean platforms, this was the first where the Falcon 9 rocket was able to land on dry ground. Instead of ditching the booster, SpaceX used thrusters and sophisticated navigation to steer it from space to Landing Zone 1, a former U.S. Air Force rocket and missile testing range.

This graphic provided by SpaceX illustrates the landing sequence of the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket.

The landing is a major victory for Elon Musk and his aerospace company as it was the company’s first flight since it rocket exploded about six months ago. Gotta say, in the long list of ways, salutary and otherwise, in which spectacularly rich people have attempted to one-up each other historically, a race between Musk, Bezos and whoever else to normalize space travel must rank pretty high.

“This was a first for us at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and I can’t even begin to describe the excitement the team feels right now having been a part of this historic first-stage rocket landing”, the top officer at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Brig.

The first-stage booster turned around and headed back to the landing site after the second stage separated and continued to orbit with the satellites.

The touchdown was a secondary objective for SpaceX. The main one was hoisting the satellites for OrbComm, a New Jersey-based communication company.

“All 11 ORBCOMM satellites have been deployed in nominal orbits”.

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 on December 20, 2015.