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

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on Monday with a payload of communications satellites before the reusable main-stage booster turned around, and landed safely near its Cape Canaveral launch pad in a dramatic spaceflight first.

The concept of landing a rocket on an ocean platform has been around for decades but SpaceX's earlier attempts failed repeatedly forcing the space agency to limit its expectation at 50% on December 21 when its Falcon 9 rocket successfully accomplished the target of re-entering the Earth's atmosphere and softlanding on a sea-pad with accuracy.

The SpaceX mission sent 11 small satellites to orbit Monday night - its first mission since a June accident that destroyed a supply ship headed for the International Space Station. The landing paves the way for potentially reusing rockets for space launches, which SpaceX and other companies hope will dramatically reduce the cost of gaining access to space.

After deploying the OG2 satellites in a low-Earth orbit, the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket landed back to the ground.

"Welcome back baby!" Musk when the rocket was known to have landed successfully. A snapped strut in the upper stage was to blame.

The landing was greeted by wild cheering by the mission crew and has been described as a crucial way of driving down costs of space travel by using reusable rockets. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is more complex than New Shepard: it's created to go higher in space, and much faster. A live webcast by SpaceX showed people watching the launch broke into laud cheers and applause as the white portion of the rocket touched down in the darkness 10 minutes after liftoff.

The ability to land the 23-storey-tall rocket back on Earth without damage, proves that Musk's plan to recycle rockets is feasible.

The launch had been delayed several times so SpaceX employees could fix glitches in the rocket's redesign, which was meant to give it more power.

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