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Ready for an even more daring landing attempt by SpaceX? This time, for the very first time, they'll be trying to set their Falcon 9 rocket down on dry land! Watch live tonight!
OUT OF THIS WORLD | Earth, Space And The Stuff In Between - a daily journey through weather, space and science with meteorologist/science writer Scott Sutherland

Amazing SpaceX rocket landing tops off busy day in space


Scott Sutherland
Meteorologist/Science Writer

Monday, December 21, 2015, 1:43 PM - Ready for some incredible space news? For the very first time, SpaceX has successfully landed the first stage of their Falcon 9 rocket on dry land!

Watch the landing, above

The launch took place at 8:29 p.m. EST, right on schedule, as a Falcon 9 rocket boosted 11 communications satellites into orbit. Roughly 10 minutes later, SpaceX made history by landing the first stage of that rocket back on dry land, at their Landing Zone 1, on the grounds of Cape Canaveral, Florida.

A short video replay of the landing is presented at the top of the page, along with SpaceX's Vine video below, from a helicopter flying nearby the landing zone.

A busy space day

It's been a busy day in space this Monday, the 21st of December, 2015.

At 3:44 a.m. EST, a robotic Progress cargo craft lifted off from the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, with a load of supplies and Christmas presents for the crew of the International Space Station. While the piloted launch on Tuesday, Dec 15 only took 8 hours to arrive at the station, this cargo craft will take roughly two days to circle the planet before catching up to be snagged by the Canadarm2 and berthed early on Wed, Dec 23.

Later this morning, starting at 7:45 a.m. EST and ending just after 11 a.m. EST, astronauts Scott Kelly and Timothy Kopra ventured out into space to repair the Mobile Transporter rail car. This station component became stuck on Wed, Dec 16, just 10 centimetres after moving towards where it would support operations being performed by Canadarm2 and Dextre.

According to the NASA Space Station blog:

After quickly completing their primary objective for the spacewalk, Kelly and Kopra tackled several get-ahead tasks. Kelly routed a second pair of cables in preparation for International Docking Adapter installment work to support U.S. commercial crew vehicles, continuing work he began during a November spacewalk. Kopra routed an Ethernet cable that ultimately will connect to a Russian laboratory module. They also retrieved tools that had been in a toolbox on the outside of the station, so they can be used for future work.
The three-hour and 16-minute spacewalk was the third for Kelly, who is nine months into a year long mission and the second for Kopra, who arrived to the station Dec. 15. It was the 191st in support of assembly and maintenance of the orbiting laboratory. Crew members have now spent a total of 1,195 hours and 20 minutes working outside the orbital laboratory.

The entire operation was livestreamed by NASA TV.

A daring new "land" landing for SpaceX

At 8:29 p.m. EST on Monday, a scheduled 5-minute launch window opened up for SpaceX's latest Falcon 9 launch, which carried a payload of 11 communication satellites into low-Earth orbit. While this was nothing particularly new for the commercial space company, this launch not only featured an upgraded Falcon 9 booster, and it also ratcheted-up SpaceX's efforts to produce a re-usable rocket.

"In addition to the primary mission of launching ORBCOMM’s fleet of commercial communications satellites, SpaceX is attempting a secondary test objective of landing the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket on land for the first time at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1," SpaceX said in a press release on Saturday. "Previous attempts to recover the first-stage of the Falcon 9 have been attempted out at sea using the company’s Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ships."

"If successful, this test would mark the first time in history an orbital rocket has successfully achieved a land landing," the press release added.

While a similar rocket booster landing was made by Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin company on November 23, 2015 this SpaceX landing is a very different situation. Although the landing by Blue Origin's New Shepard space vehicle was an exceptional accomplishment, the rocket simply flew straight up to an altitude of just over 90 kilometres above the ground, and then came straight back down. SpaceX's Falcon 9 reached an altitude of 186 kilometres, and was travelling at speeds necessary to boost the rocket's second stage into orbit. Thus, the Falcon 9 had a greater height to return from, and much more speed to shed before touching down.

One particularly noteworthy part of this attempt, at least for residents of communities near the launch facility, is that it likely attracted a bit of attention, even if it could not be seen.

According to the SpaceX press release:

Just as when the Space Shuttle returned from space, there is a possibility that residents of northern and central Brevard County, Fla. may hear a sonic boom during landing. A sonic boom is the thunder-like noise a person on the ground hears when an aircraft or other type of aerospace vehicle flies overhead faster than the speed of sound.
Residents of the communities of Cape Canaveral, Cocoa, Cocoa Beach, Courtenay, Merritt Island, Mims, Port Canaveral, Port St. John, Rockledge, Scottsmoor, Sharpes, and Titusville in Brevard County, Fla. are mostly likely to hear a sonic boom, although what residents experience will depend on weather conditions and other factors.

This Monday night launch was originally slated for Sunday, Dec 20, but was postponed to take advantage of a better weather forecast.

Watch both the launch and landing via the livestream replay embedded at the bottom of the page.

Sources: NASA Space Station blog | SpaceX/Business Wire | Universe Today

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