USADaily - SpaceX landed a reusable rocket on a robotic drone on Friday, its fifth attempt and part of a budding space race between billionaires to revolutionize spaceflight.
Falcon looked 9 perched up on the drone minutes after its landing:
The Falcon 9 rocket took off with a Dragon cargo capsule at 4.43pm ET from Cape Canaveral, Florida, under clear conditions.SpaceX engineers also dropped a bit of a note of caution moments after the Falcon 9 touched down, noting that it still had to check and make sure the rocket was fully operational before it could declare complete success.
SpaceX has several more sea landings planned for the next few months. Ground, too (SpaceX’s first successful landing, in December 2015, was terrestrial), because those are much easier both to recover and land. Musk estimates that SpaceX’s future landings will be about 50/50 ground and sea.
