On May 27, SpaceX's Falcon 9 first-stage rocket successfully landed on a drone ship at sea. This tricky maritime landing has never been successfully done until last month.
This marks the third time the company nailed an off-shore landing in the past seven weeks.
On Friday, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 5:40 PM EDT.
The Falcon 9 rocket's two stages separated approximately 2.5 minutes after lifting off. The first stage landed beautifully on the deck of SpaceX's droneship at sea called "Of Course I Still Love You" positioned about 420 miles off the coast of Florida.
The Falcon 9's first-stage rocket nailed the vertical landing in less than 9 minutes after the launch, while the second stage continued the ascent, carrying a 6,600-pound THAICOM 8 satellite into space.
The SpaceX employees at the Hawthorne, California company headquarters cheered mightily when the Falcon 9's first-stage rocket landed vertically on the droneship.
Pulling off a droneship landing is very tricky due to the high speed and high temperature of the first stage's reentry. This maritime maneuver also placed a substantial amount of stress on the rocket stage.
"As with other missions going to geostationary orbits, the first-stage will be subject to extreme velocities and re-entry heating, making a successful landing challenging," said SpaceX in a statement [PDF].
"Rocket landing speed was close to design max [and] used up contingency crush core, hence back [and] forth motion. [Probably] ok, but some risk of tipping," tweeted Elon Musk, SpaceX founder and CEO.
SpaceX's very first successful droneship maritime landing was completed on April 8 during the launch of the Dragon cargo capsule on its way to the International Space Station.
The company replicated the same tricky maneuver on May 6 during the JCSAT-14 launch, a Japanese communications satellite.
The THAICOM 8 satellite takeoff marked SpaceX's second commercial launch of communication satellites in just three weeks. So far, its launch and landing record has been phenomenal.
Thaicom's fifth operational satellite will improve the company's broadcast platform, providing South and Southeast Asia with data services and broadcast. Thaicom is one of the leading Asian satellite operators in Asia.
