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SpaceX in Florida

SpaceX rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral

James Dean
Florida Today

CAPE CANAVERAL —  SpaceX did it again early Friday, landing a rocket stage on a ship in the ocean minutes after blasting off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station with a Japanese commercial communications satellite.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40 on Friday, May 6, 2016.

This landing was considered more difficult than last month’s — SpaceX’s first at sea — because the Falcon 9 rocket was boosting a mission to a much higher orbit.

As a result, the rocket’s first stage dropped to the ocean platform “a lot faster and hotter than last time,”said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

Musk had given even odds for a successful landing, after SpaceX had said it was unlikely.

But about 10 minutes after the 1:21 a.m. liftoff, cameras on the unpiloted “drone ship” stationed 200 miles down range in the Atlantic Ocean showed the 14-story stage touch down in darkness on the "X" marking the center of the ship's deck.

The bright flash from several firing engines at first elicited a groan from employees gathered to watch the mission at SpaceX headquarters near Los Angeles, as it appeared the rocket might have crashed, as expected.

But moments later, when the engines cut off and the smoke cleared, the surprised crowd erupted in cheers and chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”

The landing is a big breakthrough in SpaceX’s efforts to recover and reuse rockets, something Msuk believes will dramatically lower launch costs and even help enable human missions to Mars.

SpaceX sets sights on Mars mission by 2018

About half the company’s missions can only attempt to land at sea, and of those, a significant number will be to very high orbits.

Friday morning's landing in darkness makes SpaceX’s ambitions to land most of its rockets look achievable.

Meanwhile, after the landing, the Falcon 9 rocket’s upper stage completed a successful launch by delivering the JCSAT-14 satellite to orbit 32 minutes after liftoff.

The satellite owned by Tokyo-based SKY Perfect JSAT will deliver high-definition TV and broadband Internet services to Asia, eastern Russia and Oceania from a position 22,300 miles over the equator.

The mission was SpaceX's fourth successful launch this year, and fifth since December, when it returned the Falcon 9 to flight after a failure last June.

The satellite was the first of two SpaceX plans to launch for SKY Perfect JSAT this year.

SpaceX could launch another commercial satellite from Cape Canaveral later this month, and is expected to launch another batch of International Space Station supplies next month.


Follow James Dean on Twitter: @flatoday_jdean

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