Amazing stuff
The Monday night launch and rocket landing – December 21, 2015 – helps further the goal of bringing down the cost of space travel. It was the Falcon 9’s first launch in six months following a launch failure last June, and the first-ever upright landing of a rocket used to deploy satellites to space.
The upgraded 23-story-tall Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 8:29 p.m ET (0029 UTC on December 22). The Falcon 9’s second stage and payload separated from the first stage a little more than two minutes later, at an altitude of about 60 miles (100 km).
While the second stage fired its engine and headed to space, the first stage also relit its engines for the return to Earth.
The engine burn slowed the rocket’s descent from supersonic speed, as the main stage of the Falcon 9 returned to a landing site about six miles (10 km) from the launch pad.