SpaceX returns to flight in style, launching satellites and landing another rocket
SpaceX is back.
Elon Musk's private space company just successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket to space following an explosion in Sept. that had halted its launch operations.
The company returned to flight in style, too, by landing its seventh rocket stage back on Earth after delivering a payload to space. The landing was a secondary objective for the mission, but it was gorgeous. The booster landed dead-center on a small remotely-operated barge in the Pacific Ocean.
The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket gently landed on SpaceX's drone ship less than 10 minutes after it launched 10 communications satellites on their way to orbit for Iridium, another spaceflight company.
The launch and landing mark the first time SpaceX has sent a rocket to space since a Falcon 9 rocket exploded on its pad in Florida ahead of what should have been a routine test. That accident destroyed a multimillion dollar satellite onboard and grounded SpaceX's launches for five months.
Saturday's launch and subsequent landing are a show of force from SpaceX, a company defined by its grand ambitions.
Industry insiders were watching this launch to see how Musk's company comes back from a serious failure like the one that occurred in September.
"Simply enough, SpaceX will be helped by just having a successful launch with no problems," Bill Ostrove, an aerospace and defense industry analyst at Forecast International, told Mashable via email before launch.
"That will go a long way towards proving themselves again. The more launches in a row they can get without a problem the better."
SpaceX wants to change the way we launch payloads to space through their rocket landing program.
At the moment, more traditional companies are only able to use their rockets for one mission a piece. SpaceX, however, is planning to re-launch their boosters for multiple missions, greatly reducing the cost of accessing space. This is why the company has been testing these risky landings on drone ships at sea as well as land-based sites.
Topics SpaceX
Miriam Kramer worked as a staff writer for Space.com for about 2.5 years before joining Mashable to cover all things outer space. She took a ride in weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight and watched rockets launch to space from places around the United States. Miriam received her Master's degree in science, health and environmental reporting from New York University in 2012, and she originally hails from Knoxville, Tennessee. Follow Miriam on Twitter at @mirikramer.
