SpaceX launches rocket, nails landing in pivotal spaceflight feat

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on Monday with a payload of communications satellites before the reusable main-stage booster turned around, soared back to Cape Canaveral and landed safely near its launch pad in a gee-whiz spaceflight feat.

It was the first time an unmanned rocket returned to land vertically at Cape Canaveral and represented a tremendous success for SpaceX. The company led by billionaire Elon Musk is striving for reusability to drive launch costs down and open up space to more people.

“It's a revolutionary moment,” Musk later told reporters. “No one has ever brought a booster, an orbital-class booster, back intact.”

What's significant is that this was a useful mission, Musk noted, not merely a practice flight. “We achieved recovery of the rocket in a mission that actually deployed 11 satellites,” he said.

Monday's deployment completed a $200 million 17-satellite network that will provide machine-to-machine messaging services on the ground — such as between retailers and shipping containers.

After separation from its upper stage, the Falcon rocket's main stage turned around and fired a series of engine burns as the vehicle flew back to Earth, unfurled its landing legs and settled gently onto a newly revamped landing pad occupying a decommissioned missile site.

The smooth touchdown came nine minutes after liftoff. Previous landing attempts ended in fiery blasts, but those aimed for an ocean platform.

The top officer at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Brig. Gen. Wayne Monteith, noted that the returning booster “placed the exclamation mark on 2015.”

“This was a first for us at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and I can't even begin to describe the excitement the team feels right now having been a part of this historic first-stage rocket landing,” Monteith said in a statement.

Blue Origin, another billionaire's rocket company, successfully landed a booster last month in West Texas.  

That rocket, though, had been used for a suborbital flight.

The SpaceX booster was more powerful and flying faster in order to put satellites into orbit.

The touchdown was a secondary objective for SpaceX. The first was hoisting the satellites for OrbComm, a New Jersey-based communication company. All 11 were successfully deployed.

The booster-landing zone, a former Atlas missile-launching site, is about six miles from the launch pad. SpaceX is leasing the touchdown area ­— marked by a giant X — from the Air Force.

On its flight in June, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket failed shortly after liftoff, destroying a supply ship intended for the International Space Station. A snapped strut in the upper stage was to blame. SpaceX spent months correcting the problem and improving the unmanned rocket. It hopes to resume supply runs for NASA in February.

Musk, who also runs the Tesla electric car company, said it will take a few more years for actual reusability of his rockets. In the meantime, he's working to transform the SpaceX Dragon capsules from cargo ships into real spaceships for crews traveling to and from the orbiting station.

His ultimate goal, for human missions, is Mars.

"This was a critical step along the way to being able to establish a city on Mars," he said. "That's what all this is about."

 Wire services