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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket recovered at sea from its maiden flight nearly a year ago has blasted off again from Florida in the first successful launch of a recycled orbital-class booster, which also then managed to return to land on a floating platform at sea.
- The Falcon 9 rocket last launched and then landed successfully in April last year
- "This is going to be ultimately a huge revolution in space flight," SpaceX head Elon Musk said
- By reusing rockets, SpaceX aims to cut its costs by about 30 per cent, the company said
The unprecedented twin achievements of launching a reusable rocket and recovering the vehicle for a possible third mission marked another milestone for billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and his privately owned Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) in the quest to slash launch costs.
The Falcon 9 booster, which previously flew in April 2016, lifted off from the Kennedy Space Centre at 6:27pm (local time) to put a communications satellite into orbit for Luxembourg-based SES SA.
The booster's main section then separated from the rest of the rocket and flew itself back to a landing pad in the Atlantic, where it successfully touched down for its second at-sea return.
"This is going to be ultimately a huge revolution in space flight," Mr Musk said during a webcast from the launch control centre at Cape Canaveral immediately after the Falcon 9's autonomous touchdown.
"It's been 15 years to get to this point."
Mr Musk said his California-based company's next goal in the burgeoning commercial space industry would be to turn around a salvaged rocket booster for re-launch within 24 hours.
SpaceX in December 2015 landed an orbital rocket after launch for the first time, a feat it has now repeated eight times.
By reusing rockets, SpaceX aims to cut its costs by about 30 per cent, the company has said. It lists the cost of a Falcon 9 ride at $US62 million but has not yet announced a price for flying on a recycled rocket.
Proving the concept works is crucial to SpaceX, which is moving on from an accident in September that damaged another Florida site.
SpaceX also is working on a passenger spaceship, with two unidentified tourists signed up for a future trip around the moon. The company's long-term goal under founder Mr Musk is to fly people to and from Mars.
For its 33rd mission, SpaceX is reusing a Falcon 9 booster that was the first to make a successful return landing in the ocean. Four previous SpaceX at-sea landing attempts failed. The first successful ground-based touchdown of an orbital-class rocket booster came the previous December.
On Thursday, the rocket's second-stage, which is not recovered, continued firing to carry SES-10 into an initial egg-shaped orbit high above Earth, which it will provide television and other communications services to Latin America.
Reuters
Topics: science-and-technology, astronomy-space, spacecraft, united-states