SpaceX has done it! On December 21, the company made history by soft landing the huge Falcon 9 first stage back on earth after launching 11 satellites into space. This astounding achievement comes just weeks after Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origins was able to successfully soft land a New Shepherd booster rocket that performed a sub-orbital flight. The Falcon 9 landing was the first time that a rocket capable of launching cargo into orbit been able to achieve this feat.
We’ll provide you with a few different options – first, for the serious space buff, you can watch the full ORBCOMM-2 mission here:
If you’d just like the major highlights, then courtesy of the SpaceVids.tv YouTube channel, here is an excellent highlight reel of the 45-minute mission. If you had any doubt what a significant achievement this is, the level of cheering in this video should help you understand!
And finally, if you only have time for a quickie, then here’s the historic moment, all by itself, filmed from a helicopter:
Congratulations SpaceX!