Although the touchdown was a breakthrough for SpaceX, the mission was actually to deploy 11 satellites for ORBCOMM, a communications company.
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The launch and landing also marked the first time any company has landed an orbital rocket segment back on Earth following a launch to space.
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Elon Musk’s SpaceX has successfully landed a rocket back to Earth. At the moment, most rockets fall into the sea or burn up in the atmosphere after flight, making it impossible for them to return to their launchpad. Earlier this year SpaceX tried to stick such a landing using a modified barge as a touchdown site, but failed at all three attempts. It was the Falcon 9’s first launch in six months following a launch failure last June, and the first-ever upright landing of a rocket, anywhere.
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And it was the first attempt to land its Falcon 9 on an actual launchpad. It was designed and manufactured by US Space Company SpaceX for the reliable and safe transport of satellites and the Dragon spacecraft into orbit.
Just under one month following the world’s first landing of a reusable rocket, which was accomplished by Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin private space exploration company, SpaceX managed a similar feat. About two minutes into the flight, the rocket’s first-stage separated cleanly from the second stage and began a controlled descent back to Earth.
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Video images on SpaceX s webcast showed the first stage of the rocket touching down at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO took to Twitter to highlight the importance of achieving orbit after Blue Origin’s successful landing. “It’s an exciting day for all of us in the space industry”. If SpaceX can take this historic success to the marketplace, it would be able to avoid sabotaging $16 million worth of equipment each time it sends satellites into space or carries supplies to the International Space Station.
