SpaceX landed its third rocket in a row on a wobbly ship at sea
From now on, we'll be surprised when SpaceX doesn't land one of its rockets.
The company just launched and safely touched down its third rocket on a droneship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Its 229-foot-tall Falcon 9 rocket launched at at 5:40 p.m ET on Friday, sending the THIACOM 8 satellite on its way to an orbit 22,000 miles above the Earth (where it will provide internet and TV services for Southeast Asia):
But arguably the most important part of the launch happened before that. Moments after the rocket separated into two stages, the first stage came careening back down to Earth. Then it fired it's thrusters to slow down:
A live feed of the webcast cut out for a moment, but when it kicked back in, viewers saw the hulking rocket stage safely landed on the "Of Course I Still Love You" droneship:
This landing was particularly tricky because the rocket went high into geostationary orbit, like the last one did on May 6, too.
The April 8 landing (the first successful one on the ship) was a bit easier because that rocket only went up to the International Space Station 240 miles above the Earth. The very first successful landing was on land in December 2015.
Sticking these landings is the most important part of making SpaceX's rockets reusable. The company can save millions of dollars if it doesn't have to start from scratch and build a whole new rocket every time.