Private SpaceX triumph: Rocket launch, landing and 11 satellites in orbit

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Monday, Dec. 21, 2015.

Across the country, SpaceX employees jammed company headquarters in Hawthorne, California, anxiously awaiting success.

“Everything appears to have been flawless”, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said during a press call after the launch and landing.

“I can’t quite believe it”, he said. Spacex has also suffered some major losses in its quest for successful landing of rockets.

However, this will likely be dwarfed by the wider significance of SpaceX’s achievement, which has brought us a step closer to cheap, reusable rockets.

SpaceX is leasing the landing area, a former Atlas missile-launching site, from the Air Force.

The mission’s primary objective was to deploy 11 small satellites into low orbit.

The US space agency NASA applauded the feat. Secondly, on reentering the first stage through Earth’s atmosphere and conducting precision landings on an autonomous spaceport drone ship at sea, and then eventually it lands.

Brendan Byrne of member station WMFE in Orlando reports that SpaceX plans to resume supply missions to the International Space Station as early as February.

The company fixed that problem and also made the newest version of the Falcon 9 about 30 percent more powerful than previous iterations, Musk said.

Still, ORBCOMM CEO Marc Eisenberg seemed to celebrate both the launch of his satellites and the booster landing via Twitter Monday night.

Blue Origin, SpaceX and other companies have been competing to develop the first fully reusable rocket. The thing that caught my attention most is just how massive the rocket is.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield added his congratulations. The Blue Origin flight in November traveled 100 times higher and reached the edge of outer space.