On Sunday, SpaceX's Falcon booster successfully lifted the Jason-3 satellite into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Following that, the first stage attempted to achieve a landing on the Just Read the Instructions barge, which was floating off the California coast. The barge was experiencing 12-to-15-foot waves at the time of liftoff and just as the rocket descended towards the barge, communications went out possibly...
SpaceX Falcon delivers NASA/NOAA satellite but has rough landing
SpaceX rehearses Falcon 9 rocket launch – and relives last month’s rocket landing
SpaceX fired the engines of its Falcon 9 rocket on its California launch pad on Monday evening, marking a seemingly successful rehearsal for this weekend’s launch of the Jason 3 ocean-monitoring satellite. But the rocket’s trickiest maneuver – flying...
SpaceX plans Falcon 9 rocket landing on Pacific drone ship after Jan. 17 launch
SpaceX is planning something completely different for its next rocket-landing trick: After launching the U.S.-European Jason 3 satellite on a Falcon 9, it’ll have the first-stage booster fly itself back and try to touch down on a drone ship off California’s coast. Well,...
What a night! Cameras capture SpaceX’s historic Falcon 9 rocket landing
A day after the first-ever fully successful landing of a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster, space fans around the world are geeking out over the pictures. And it’s not just geeks. Brig. Gen. Wayne Monteith, commander of...
With a historic landing, SpaceX launches new age of spaceflight
Behold: The launch, and landing, of an orbital rocket. (credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX did it. On Monday night the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket soared into space, separated from the second stage, and then made a guided flight back to a landing site in Florida. The historic flight marked the beginning of the orbital economy...
SpaceX postpones Falcon 9 launch by a day to maximize chances for landing
SpaceX has delayed the launch of its Falcon 9 rocket with 11 Orbcomm telecommunication satellites for a day, to wait for a better chance to land the rocket’s first-stage booster after liftoff. The commercial rocket company’s billionaire founder, Elon...
SpaceX gets set for Falcon 9’s return to flight – and Florida landing attempt
SpaceX is planning to launch its Falcon 9 rocket for the first time in nearly six months on Sunday, and says it will try flying the first-stage booster back to Florida for a landing for the first time. The...
Rare after-dark landing brings space station trio home for the holidays
It took some doing, but three crew members from the International Space Station returned to Earth today and are on their way home in time for Christmas. NASA’s Kjell Lindgren, Russia’s Oleg Kononenko and Japan’s Kimiya Yui touched down on the...
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