Elon Musk over the moon as SpaceX makes history with rocket landing

On June 28, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft filled with cargo for the International Space Station exploded a few minutes after lift-off.

Enabling rockets to land, be refurbished and re-flown, would slash the cost of launches by a factor of a hundred, Musk predicts.

It was a completely upgraded version of the 23 storey tall Falcon 9 rocket that blasted off in a flawless launch from the Cape Canaveral Airforce Base in Florida.

The mission's primary objective was the delivery of 11 satellites into a low Earth orbit constellation for ORBCOMM, a machine-to-machine and Internet of Things solutions provider.

"Welcome back, baby", Mr Musk said in a celebratory .

The Verge website reported that this is not the first time a vertical take-off rocket has landed upright after launching into space. Then it landed the leftover 15-story booster back on Earth, safely.

"It really felt like it was right on top of us", Elon Musk, CEO of Space Exploration Technologies Corporation.

SpaceX even posted a video and photographs showing the Falcon's safe landing.

"This should, if all goes well, give us enough performance to deliver 11 satellites to orbit and bring the booster all the way back to Cape Canaveral to Landing Zone 1", added Musk. The staggering accomplishment came following a number of unsuccessful attempts, and it marks a big step forward in companies' efforts to reduce the cost of missions to space. A snapped strut in the upper stage was to blame.

SpaceX spent months correcting the problem and improving the unmanned rocket.

"It's a revolutionary moment", Musk later told reporters. In November, Jeff Bezos' private spaceflight company Blue Origin announced that it had landed its rocket New Shepard post-launch.