CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — One month after SpaceX successfully landed its Falcon 9 rocket booster on an ocean platform, the aerospace company did it again after delivering a Japanese communications satellite into orbit early Friday morning.
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SpaceX launched the Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, around 1:20 a.m. A live web broadcast showed the first-stage booster touching down vertically on a barge in the Atlantic, off the Florida coast.
SpaceX expects to start reusing its unmanned Falcon rockets as early as this summer to save money and lower costs.
"Woohoo!!" SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter after the landing.
It is the second time the company has successfully landed a rocket at sea. Employees cheered and chanted "U.S.A." on April 8 after the Falcon 9 landed safely following a space station supply run for NASA.
SpaceX released a statement Monday speculating that a successful landing was "unlikely" because the Falcon 9 rocket would be "subject to extreme velocities and re-entry heating." SpaceX CEO Elon Musk upgraded the chances to "maybe even" shortly before the launch.