The successful landing is another big step in the company's campaign to use reusable rockets in future launches.
Ever since a devastating mishap in September last year, that saw a rocket explode on the launch pad, SpaceX has been completing launch missions with finesse and steadily gaining back their mojo. So it was with much fanfare that the company completed their latest launch and re-landing over the weekend in spectacular fashion.
After a successful launch, SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rockets were flown back to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, where they achieved a smooth-as-butter touchdown. "Baby came back," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posted on Instagram after the successful landing. The event is momentous for SpaceX as it’s only the third time the company has landed a reusable rocket on land, part of an extended campaign by the company to perfect the system of reusable rockets.
In a standard rocket launch, the first fuel stage detaches and drops down to crash into the ocean. SpaceX instead opts to fly the detached portion and have it touch down, saving around US $62 million in the process each flight.
In addition, the landing is also important on a historical scale. The Falcon 9 took off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on Sunday, the same launch pad previously used for the Apollo missions in the 1960s. In fact, it was from Launch Complex 39A that the Apollo 11 blasted off, ferrying the first humans to the Moon in 1969. This weekend was also the first time any spacecraft has launched from the site since NASA’s Space Shuttle Atlantis launched on it’s final flight in 2011.
The Falcon 9 was carrying one of SpaceX’s Dragon supply ships to the International Space Station for NASA, filled with approximately 2,500 kilograms of cargo. The payload included standard supplies for the astronauts on board, as well as experiments, including a strain of drug-resistant superbug scientists plan to mutate on the ISS in order to study its evolution patterns.
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 "rocket launch, SpaceX, Falcon 9 rocket, International Space Station (ISS), NASA, reusable rockets")
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