Less than three minutes later, the rocket turned around and headed back toward Earth, ultimately landing on a platform in the Atlantic Ocean.
Advertisement
The unmanned Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the SpaceX launchpad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 1:21 a.m. EDT or 0521 UTC exactly on schedule.
Flying satellites and landing rockets are nearly becoming routine for the Elon Musk’s rocket company, but SpaceX still managed to wedge a new milestone into their latest flight. And because the JCSAT-14 has to be placed at a much higher orbit, the rocket had less fuel at its disposal for a proper descent. As a result, it was a more hard landing, as the rocket was in geostationary transfer orbit, which required greater velocities and exposed the rocket to more heat upon re-entry.
Now under contract to transport supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), SpaceX hopes to ferry astronauts there by the end of 2017.
The rocket’s upper stage was scheduled to deploy the satellite owned by Tokyo-based SKY Perfect JSAT was about 32 minutes after liftoff.
The first stage of Falcon 9 carried out a controlled landing on the barge.
A live web broadcast showed the first stage of the rocket touching down vertically on a floating sea platform.
To date, SpaceX is the only company to successfully return a rocket from orbit-first on solid ground, in December 2015, then in the ocean this spring. Tweet with another that said the company may need to increase its storage capacity.
Indeed, SpaceX aims to refly the first stage that landed last month-and, presumably, the one that touched down Friday morning as well.
Prior to launch, Musk said the odds of a stable landing were only 50:50 because the rocket’s re-entry was going to be faster and hotter than previous attempts. Friday’s launch may even be more impressive considering the speed at which the rocket was traveling when it landed.
Advertisement
The communications satellite will join others already in orbit, bringing the company’s satellites to 17, and will be replacing the JCSAT-2A, which has been in use since 2002.
