SpaceX does it again: Company lands third rocket on drone ship in the ocean

Ho, hum, another day, another SpaceX rocket landing on a drone ship in the ocean. 

The Elon Musk-founded private spaceflight company just landed their third Falcon 9 booster on a drone ship floating in the ocean after launching the Thaicom 8 communications satellite on its way to orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Friday.

Initially, SpaceX played down the odds of a landing success saying in a press kit that "the first-stage will be subject to extreme velocities and re-entry heating, making a successful landing challenging," due to the high orbit the satellite needs to be placed into.

But the private spaceflight company made this high-velocity landing look easy.

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While it did look easy, this booster landing was anything but. According to a tweet from Musk after landing, there is "some risk" of the booster "tipping" because of its high-speed landing.

This is the third booster SpaceX has brought back from space to a drone ship after flying it to orbit. 

The company also recovered another booster, which landed back on a pad on land, in 2015. 

At the moment, most rocket stages are simply jettisoned into space after delivering expensive payloads to prescribed orbits, but SpaceX hopes to change that through these reusable rocket tests.

Via Giphy

Instead of throwing away expensive rocket bodies, SpaceX plans to bring the boosters back to Earth, refurbish them and then launch them again with other payloads.

And, apparently, the company is well on its way to making that dream a reality.

SpaceX has yet to re-fly a booster that's come back from space, but the company did test-fire one of the boosters that came back to Earth successfully.

The company also plans to re-fly one of their previously flown boosters later this year.

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