Space transport services company SpaceX has taken and shared a number of videos of its rockets as they are being launched into space. Now, the company decided to take footage of one of its Falcon 9 rockets from a different perspective. They capture video of the rocket as it fell back to Earth.
The team behind the video used a GoPro camera strapping the device to the Falcon 9 rocket's metal fairing to take video as that part of the rocket re-entered Earth. The company has designed its rockets to be reusable which explains why the rocket was returning to Earth.
"A GoPro inside a fairing from a recent Falcon 9 flight captured some spectacular views as it fell back to Earth," SpaceX wrote on Youtube, where it uploaded the video. "Footage is played in real time."
The company's Falcon 9, a two-stage rocket, is the first rocket to be completely developed in the 21st century. It made history in 2012 when it delivered the Dragon spacecraft for rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS) making Elon Musk's company the first commercial company to visit the laboratory in low-Earth orbit. The company has since then been delivering and returning cargo to and from the ISS for the U.S. space agency.
SpaceX could make game-changing impact on the spaceflight industry with its aim of making its rockets reusable and though the company's goal of soft-landing their rockets on a barge so they can be recycled for future flights has not yet been fulfilled, SpaceX remains optimistic. Once reusable rocket becomes the norm, the cost of spaceflight is expected to be greatly reduced.
Before the rocket can attempt to land on a barge floating in the Atlantic Ocean, it needs to find its way back to Earth and the video taken during a recent trip offered a glimpse on how beautiful our planet is.
The team opted for Johann Strauss II's "Blue Danube" for the video's soundtrack. The music was also played in the "2001: A Space Odyssey".
SpaceX's Falcon and Dragon Spacecraft were also designed to bring humans into space and is currently working with NASA towards the fulfillment of this goal. The GoPro video hints of what astronauts or space tourists could witness in the future when they return back to Earth from travelling in space.
Watch the video taken while SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket returns back to Earth:
