The SpaceX Zuma mission successfully launched today from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at its appointed hour of 8:00 p.m. EST, carrying a classified government payload built by Northrop Grumman on-board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. At T+00:07:53, the first stage rocket made a bulls-eye landing back at Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) as the payload continued traveling towards its final orbital location.
Here are some images and videos of the gorgeous launch and landing, the 17th consecutive successful landing since June 2016.
You can watch the 8-minute-long launch and landing video (and some pre-launch activities) in this beautiful video from SpaceX at YouTube and at www.spacex.com/….
The following photograph from SpaceX shows the landing pad from a video camera on the rocket seconds before touchdown.
In 2017, SpaceX launched 18 missions, a record. Out of a total of 47 launches of various versions in the Falcon 9 family, 45 missions have been successful, one mission failed to reach orbit, and one mission successfully launched the primary payload to the correct orbit but failed with the secondary payload. en.wikipedia.org/…
This is SpaceX’s 17th consecutive successful first stage rocket landing since June 2016. Before then, it appeared like a foolish endeavor to land a tall cylindrical hunk of metal on a floating barge or a pad on more solid ground, let alone re-use it in a future mission.
Recovered first stage boosters have been reused 5 times, the Dragon spacecraft has been reused twice.
Next up — the SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch in a few weeks, see diary www.dailykos.com/… for story and payload data.
Also, see diary “Space Exploration - The Year Ahead” at www.dailykos.com/… for other upcoming missions.