Watch SpaceX Successfully Launch and Land Used Falcon 9 Rocket

Practice makes perfect? Absolutely! For the second time around, SpaceX has successfully managed to land the Falcon9 rocket's first stage booster on to the "Of Course I Still Love You" drone ship platform for the SES-10 mission.

SES-10 Launch - world's first reflight of an orbital class rocket [Image Source: SpaceX via Flickr]

Rocket reusability

Elon Musk and his SpaceX team have already used the Falcon9 rocket's first booster from its maiden flight last year for the CRS-8 mission for NASA. But not even a full year has passed, the engineering team in SpaceX has already managed to re-calibrate and re-condition the mechanics of the rocket's first stage booster to conduct a second flight for a different mission. This is an unprecedented attempt by SpaceX to reuse a 'flight proven' rocket.

Falcon9 rocket's second landing [Image Source: SpaceX]

If you watched the live webcast of the re-flight, you would observe that the whole scheduling and timing of the launch was incredibly precise. The whole launch, MECO, SECO-1, SECO-2, satellite deploy and everything else in between, only lasted for 32 minutes! Not a second late or early, everything was in perfect order and the Falcon9 rocket's system functioned as if it was newly built. This is the goal of SpaceX's CEO, Elon Musk, to build a reusable rocket in order to reduce the cost of space travel.

SES-10 Launch - world's first reflight of an orbital class rocket [Image Source: SpaceX via Flickr]

"If one can figure out how to effectively reuse rockets just like airplanes, the cost of access to space will be reduced by as much as a factor of a hundred.  A fully reusable vehicle has never been done before. That really is the fundamental breakthrough needed to revolutionize access to space", said Musk.

"I think it's an amazing day for space, It means you can fly and re-fly an orbit class booster, which is the most expensive part of the rocket. This is going to be, hopefully, a huge revolution in spaceflight", stated Musk.

SES-10 Launch - world's first reflight of an orbital class rocket [Image Source: SpaceX via Flickr]

The SES-10 satellite, Falcon9's re-launch mission, is now located over the equator, 67 degrees to the west, and will be delivering telecommunication services to the Latin American countries.

SpaceX's visions

Although it took SpaceX 15 years to achieve this historic milestone, Elon Musk stated that his next goal is to turn the booster around for relaunch in 24 hours, a milestone that could be accomplished before the end of the year.

Perhaps one of SpaceX's most ambitious and ultimate mission is to establish a colony of humans on Mars. The company's many endeavors to revolutionize space technology are done in the hope that one day it will be possible for our civilization to propagate in another planet. It may take the hopeful space enthusiasts a long while before they can make this happen but with all the successful technological advancements they are making, the concept of possibility is not a question.

Dragon spacecraft in Mars [Image source: SpaceX via Flickr]

One of SpaceX's planned mission in late 2018 is to send two private, extremely eager, customers around the Moon. "This presents an opportunity for humans to return to deep space for the first time in 45 years and they will travel faster and further into the Solar System than any before them", said SpaceX in their announcement earlier this year.

If you missed the historic SES-10 mission, you can catch the whole replay here.

SEE ALSO: Man on Helicopter Spots Mysterious Equipment on SpaceX’s Drone Ship