SpaceX Made History by Successfully Launching and Landing a Re-flight Rocket

It is a momentous event for SpaceX as well as the future of space flight as they have successfully launched a Falcon 9 re-flight rocket and have also landed it back safely. This is the very first time in history that the same rocket has been used on two separate missions into orbit. What makes the good news even better is that SpaceX also was able to recover not just the boosters but the Falcon 9’s nose cone as well, by itself worth over $6 million already, further saving in future costs. The Falcon 9’s rocket nose cone is designed to protect the payload as well as provide minimum aerodynamic resistance. Elon Musk called the nose cone’s survival a lovely “cherry on the cake” celebrating his company’s success today.

He then states on Twitter that the next milestone after the success of the re-flight rocket is to tighten turn-around time to just within 24 hours. SpaceX used a combination of thrusters and parachutes to guide the two pieces of the 16-foot diameter cone back. Each part brought back from flight saves the company millions of dollars and lessens the time required to get it ready for re-flight once again.  The Falcon 9 rocket was used to ferry  an SES-10 satellite into geostationary orbit to deliver direct-to-home broadcasting, broadband and mobile services to the Caribbean, Central and South America. As of the time of this writing, the satellite has made its way to its intended position without any issues as well.

Over 150,000 people tuned in to watch the live webcast on SpaceX’s YouTube channel where the full hosted and technical webcast coverage are also available for viewing: