SpaceX's breathtaking bullseye rocket landing in gifs
Elon Musk's SpaceX just proved that they're still one of the best in the rocket launching game.
On Saturday, after a more than four month hiatus, SpaceX successfully launched its first Falcon 9 rocket since an explosion in September forced them to ground all flights.
Not only did the Falcon 9 successfully deploy 10 Iridium communications satellites to their expected orbits, SpaceX also managed to land the first stage of its booster back on Earth after launch.
The rocket launched from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base at 12:54 p.m. ET into a beautiful, cloudless sky.
The first stage of the Falcon 9 burned for a few minutes before cutting off and separating from the rest of the craft.
After separation, the booster did a flip in space and started heading back down to Earth, firing its engine to slow its descent.
The booster's landing fins and legs deployed as it was coming back down to Earth for its smooth landing on SpaceX's drone ship in the Pacific Ocean.
An onboard camera captured the full descent of the rocket, which appeared to land right on the "X" in the center of the barge.
This landing marks the seventh time SpaceX has successfully returned a booster back to Earth after launching a mission to orbit.
The whole point behind these kinds of landings is to help reduce the cost of launching to space. SpaceX hopes that one day they will be able to refurbish and reuse landed boosters to fly multiple missions instead of just flying one mission per rocket.
Topics SpaceX
