These Are the Most Bad-Ass Photos from the SpaceX Rocket Landing

Elon Musk said shortly after the launch that though the company will test it, this rocket will be stored away somewhere safe.

A Wichita company had a hand in the successful landing of SpaceX’s 15-story Falcon rocket booster Monday night in Cape Canaveral, Fla. “Congratulations @SpaceX on your successful vertical landing of the first stage back on Earth!”

All previous attempts from SpaceX to land on a floating landing pad were all unsuccessful.

Creating a reusable rocket has been a major goal for SpaceX, and one it’s struggled with.

This is technically not the first time this feat has been accomplished; Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket became the first reusable rocket last month. However, Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is capable of launching cargo into orbit.

The ORBCOMM-2 Mission carried 11 satellites into low-earth orbit.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on Monday with a payload of communications satellites. Welcome to the club!

A first step in reusabilityMusk noted in a press call following the event that the company does not plan to reuse the first stage of the Falcon 9.

“I think we’ll probably keep this one on the ground”, Musk said, according to The Verge, “just [because] it’s kind of unique, it’s the first one we’ve brought back”.

It was the first time a rocket launched into orbit successfully made a controlled landing on Earth.

For years, he’s aspired to send manned, private flights into space, a dream that appeared to be on hold after critics – including Neil Armstrong – raised doubts about SpaceX’s lack of experience and safety standards back in 2012.

“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”, Monteith said in a statement.

The disaster cost NASA and taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, including the loss of supplies and equipment valued at $110 million. He named the company’s ocean barge used for earlier landing attempts “Just Read the Instructions” – after a starship in science fiction books by Iain M. Banks.