Watch: SpaceX successfully lands all Falcon Heavy rockets back on earth
An epic video shows the successful landings from the rocket's first commercial flights.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Thursday successfully landed both booster rockets and the centre core from the Falcon Heavy’s first commercial launch back on earth following take-off.
The lift-off was delayed significantly from its originally planned time of last Sunday, but the wait was worth it, as fans watched the historic occasion in which first the two booster rockets returned to earth to touch down on their launch pads. This was followed by the centre core, which landed on a Drone ship 1000kms off the coast in the Atlantic just a few minutes later.
A journalist from Wired described the occasion as follows: “Less than eight minutes after launch, the rocket’s two side boosters appeared overhead, looking like two building-sized candlesticks in the twilight sky. As the rockets executed their final burn to perform a nearly simultaneous landing, two sonic booms ripped through the otherwise peaceful Florida night. Everyone on the causeway erupted in cheers after it was clear that both boosters had successfully landed, the tops of which could just be seen over the trees”.
Musk himself announced the successful landing with three emoji hearts and tweeted out the following video of the landing from tech website CNET.
Watch SpaceX's #FalconHeavy rocket lands its center core on a ship for the first time 🚀 pic.twitter.com/VltoKVaAox
— CNET (@CNET) April 12, 2019
Reusable hardware is part of Falcon Heavy’s mission goal, as the boosters being guided back to earth and then refurbished for use again can drastically reduce the cost of spaceflight.
This was the second successful launch of Falcon Heavy, and the first commercial one. Falcon Heavy’s debut flight last year attracted massive attention, in part because Musk decided to launch his own luxury Tesla Roadster as the test payload. The car, which was carrying a space-suited mannequin nicknamed Starman, was vaulted into outer space and is expected to orbit the sun for the foreseeable future.
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