SpaceX Lands Falcon 9 Rocket At Sea Successfully For Second Time

The reaction from Elon Musk was understandable. It was the second time his space startup, SpaceX, successfully landed the first stage of a rocket on a floating barge in the Atlantic Ocean, while the second stage of Falcon 9 sped away to put a satellite in orbit.

The rocket took off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 1:21 a.m. EDT Friday, carrying the Japanese JCSAT-14 communications satellite, which is to be put in geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles above the Earth.

A Falcon 9 launch last month — which also saw the successful mid-ocean landing of the rocket’s first stage — carried a payload to the International Space Station, which orbits Earth only a couple of hundred miles away. The much-longer distance this time meant the rocket’s first stage also had to make a longer journey, and therefore was left with less fuel to slow its descent after reentry.

The rocket was also equipped with three engines to help it reduce its speed faster.

Given the complications arising from extremely high speed and heating, SpaceX said a successful landing was unlikely and about half an hour before takeoff, Musk said on Twitter that the “odds of making it are maybe even.”

The company, along with rival Amazon owner Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, is trying to develop reusable rockets to reduce launch costs for space missions.

SpaceX has made multiple attempts in the past to land rockets after launch, and this was the fifth attempt to land one at sea. Before Friday’s success, the company has successfully landed rockets twice, once on land in December and once on a floating drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean in April.

If SpaceX makes a habit of successful landings of its rockets, it is also going to need a lot of space to keep the rockets somewhere. In a sign of growing confidence, Musk hinted at that soon after Friday’s landing.