Elon Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, just reached a milestone in reusable rocketry by completing 200 touchdowns of its rockets back to earth.
On Monday, the company launched 72 small satellites to orbit and landed the returning rocket back on Earth.
The Falcon 9 rocket launched Transporter-8, SpaceX’s eighth dedicated smallsat rideshare program mission, from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
This was the ninth launch and landing of this Falcon 9 stage booster, which previously supported the launch of other missions including four Starlink ones.
On board this flight were 72 spacecraft, including CubeSats, MicroSats, a re-entry capsule, and orbital transfer vehicles carrying spacecraft to be deployed at a later time.
Falcon 9 is a reusable, two-stage rocket designed and manufactured by SpaceX for the reliable and safe transport of people and payloads into Earth orbit and beyond.
Touted to be the ‘world’s first orbital class reusable rocket’, its reusability allows SpaceX to refly the most expensive parts of the rocket, which in turn drives down the cost of space access.
‘Falcon 9’s first stage has landed on Landing Zone 4, marking SpaceX’s 200th successful recovery of an orbital class rocket!’ tweeted SpaceX, sharing a video of the landing.
Earlier that day, at 3:10 a.m. ET, a Falcon 9 launched 52 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
This was the ninth launch and landing for this Falcon 9 first-stage booster, which previously supported SES-22, ispace’s HAKUTO-R Mission 1, Hispasat Amazonas Nexus mission, CRS-27, and now five Starlink missions.
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