SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket on Monday, December 21 night, the first from the private spaceflight company since its rocket exploded on liftoff in June, NBC News reports.
The first stage of the rocket, used to propel the payload to 100km (62 miles) or so until the second stage takes over, then successfully landed on Earth again at a prepared landing zone. This is the first time SpaceX has ever attempted to land a rocket on land, and the first successful attempt to recover a rocket from an orbital flight. Previous attempts, all unsuccessful, were attempted on floating landing pads.
SpaceX has come close to landing a rocket but until now, never actually pulled the feat off. Blue Origin, founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, stuck a landing last month — but SpaceX founder Elon Musk pointed out that was a suborbital trip, the requirements for which are considerably different. Creating reusable rockets is important for lowering the cost of space travel, which could make space tourism and a trip to Mars more feasible.
The launch's payload, 11 ORBCOMM satellites destined to join others in the communications company's network, was also successfully deployed with no problems.
